This is not the post I intended it to be. I planned on this being my inaugural interview post. You know, like I promised here all the way back in October. Man, I can’t believe it was that long ago. I had so much time, yet it seems like it was just yesterday.
The goal was to interview people then post it here. I had two types of interviews I was aiming to post this month: The first would have been a sit-down interview with someone, and the second, soundbite question and answer with several people. Neither happened. Here’s the story why.
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
The idea to do interviews and then post them here has been swirling in my head for over a year, but I was too afraid to really pursue it. Since the idea wouldn’t go away, I figured if I’d tell you guys, I’d hold myself accountable.
I set an undisclosed December debut date (look at that triple alliteration…if that’s even a thing) thinking that would give me enough time to get it together. And who knows, that might have been, if I started back on October 27th, but I didn’t. I started on…
Friday, December 10, 2021
Fridays are usually the days I do a full day (or like workday full day) of Bible study, but instead, I woke up that day feeling convicted. Though I left it open as to exactly when I wanted to start posting interviews in December, in my head, I was shooting for the beginning of the month, and here I was 10 days in and I hadn’t even contacted anybody.
All of a sudden, I felt a since of urgency. Instead of Bible study, I started to scramble. I reasoned if I was fulfilling my God-given purpose by writing and doing these interviews, lighting a fire under my ass, and pursuing this goal was another way to spend time with and glorify God. So I prayed, then I got to work.
First thing’s first. Well, kinda. Perhaps this wasn’t the first thing I should have done, but it was the first thing I thought to do. I contacted a photographer I saw on Pinterest. My photographer on this site has always been myself or my mother, but I wanted to step it up and go the professional route this time.
And the funny thing is, I thought the fact that I saw her on Pinterest was a sign. You see, I used to follow her on Instagram several years ago because I really liked her work. But I also do this thing where I sort of prune my account: Every now and then – more like once in a blue moon – I go through the list of the people that I’m following, and if I don’t remember who they are or if they haven’t posted in a while, I unfollow. Well, she’s one of the ones I unfollowed for lack of posting, and I did that at least a couple of years ago. So when I was looking around on Pinterest and saw a photo that I liked, then randomly clicked on it, and recognized it was hers, I thought wow, this must be a sign that we’re supposed to work together.
Though her website was active, it hadn’t been updated in a really long time. Her Instagram, as well, had years since seen a new post. I thought this is perfect: maybe she fell-off. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there, with loads of competition. Maybe she didn’t get enough clients to sustain herself, and I would come in and save the day, give her a gig to help her revive her career, and at the same time, it would be benefiting me, and you reader. Don’t you like good photography? Don’t you like the way I think?
Her phone number was listed on her website. I didn’t know if it was still operable, but at 9:41 am, I sent her a text asking if she still did photography and that I would be interested in working with her.
At 11:27am, she replied back. She said that she still does photography and asked me to send the details of my project to her email and we could go from there.
Yes! At 11:40 am, I sent the details to her email. I was practically waiting by the phone for a reply when a couple hours go by and crickets. And I don’t know, maybe a couple of hours is not giving someone enough time to respond, but that was about the span of time she responded to the text I initially sent, so I was looking for the same thing this time around. And I know, people have lives, they’re busy, but some people also don’t like to tell people, no. Maybe they think it’s not even worth their time to tell some people no. Whatever the case may have been, it was already December 10th. There were only 21 days left in this month and I’d promised in interview post this month. I didn’t have time to wait, so I chalked it up as a loss and was on to the next one.
I went straight to Instagram and did a hashtag search for local photographers. I came across several whose aesthetic I liked. I made note of five, contacted three, thinking one of these had to work.
Now that I reached out to photographers, I proceeded with the task of trying to secure an interview subject. While there are many people I’d love to interview, I had one person in particular in mind as my first interviewee.
She, too, is a writer. She has some local notoriety, maybe beyond that as well, I’m guessing. But I follow her on Instagram, and she’s always been really nice to me…you know, on Instagram. I’ve never met her in person or even spoken to her over the phone. But I occasionally make comments on her post, and she usually responds back. She has a good number of followers and often times people with a certain number of followers don’t reply back – some do, some don’t, you just never know – so the fact that she does, gave her cool points. To top it all off, she even followed me back. So I thought bet (okay I interrupt this regularly scheduled sentence to bring you this important announcement: when I talk in real life, I don’t even say bet, but my writing voice is different from my real voice, and I watch this YouTube channel featuring twenty-somethings and one of them always says, bet, so I guess it’s creeped into my writing voice. I now return you to your regularly scheduled sentence already in progress) I’ll just send her a DM telling her about what I’m doing and ask if I can interview her.
So that’s what I did. And then, what’s that sound? Oh yes, it was becoming familiar now – crickets.
At this point I’m feeling discouraged. I reached out to photographers and heard nothing, now I reached out to an interview subject and got the same.
Maybe this just wasn’t meant to be. And ain’t it funny how my initial thought was maybe this wasn’t meant to be, rather than maybe I’m trying to throw something together, last minute, without proper planning. But no, I put in a little effort, that yielded results not to my liking and boom, that’s it. I reason it just wasn’t meant to be.
Saturday, December 11, 2021
The sun will come out tomorrow (You’ve gotta sing that part).
I checked my email just for kicks, and what do you know, I got a response from a photographer. Not the initial photographer that I really wanted, but I was impressed with some aspect of the work of everyone I reached out to, so one response was better than no response. She seemed excited about my project and wanted to meet with me over Zoom. I replied to set up a meeting for the next day.
In the meantime, that gave me just the spark I needed to get back into the swing of things. I went back on Instagram to look for more photographers: I wanted options.
And what do you know, I heard back from another. This is great! I really liked her work, she didn’t have much of it, but the photos she did have on display were pretty much exactly what I was looking for. It was the photos capturing people in candid moments for me.
Now it looks like I’m going to have a choice, which on one hand can be good, but on the other can increase uncertainty.
So I’m chatting via DMs with this new photographer that I just found on Instagram. She seems excited about my project as well. I ask her about her prices and availability and she’s quick to respond with everything, including how many pictures she’ll provide, both raw and edited. This was perfect. I wanted to say yes immediately, but I now had options.
What if the other photographer was cheaper? Plus, I really liked that the other photographer had a website and email and wanted to talk to me over Zoom. I admired the professionalism of her approach, and thought as scatterbrained as I can be, I need to work with someone who’s regimented like that.
I wrote back to the new Instagram photographer thanking her for the information and told her I would get back with her soon.
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting on my interview subject to respond to my DM. Like has she not seen it or is she ignoring me? Let me see something… Okay, she has some new stories, oh and a new post too, so she is on the app. I’ll just make a comment on the post, see if she responds.
Can you hear that, or is it just me?…crickets.
Sunday, December 12, 2021
I have my Zoom meeting with the regimented photographer. I like her, she seems really nice, like someone I could and would want to work with, which can be just as important as the photos themselves. She even offered an idea during the meeting – perfect. However, she didn’t provide info on one of the main things: the price. She said she would create a brochure with her rates and things, just for me, and send it to me the next day. All though I liked her photos, she didn’t have many, so I requested more from her portfolio, and she said she would include them in the brochure as well. I would have rather gotten that information up front, just because if her prices were too high, all this was just a waste of both of our time. But hey, I don’t know how all this works, and she was so very structured in her business approach, that I just went with it.
In the meantime, I contacted the other photographer that I only corresponded with through DM, via DM and requested a phone call. During the call she expressed how much she’d really love to work on the project, that she had 10 years experience (she was from Russia, I believe, and is now working in the States), she worked with a Canon camera, and so on. She seemed really enthusiastic.
Even though her work was more suited to what I needed, if the photographer I met over Zoom was cheaper, I would go with her because my budget is low and her work was still good. So I waited. And the next day…
Monday, December 13, 2021
The photographer I met over Zoom sends me her package options, with prices twice as much as the other, and only five photos in her portfolio, some of which I’d already seen on her website and Instagram. I’m sorry, but no Ma’am. At least not for me right now.
I specifically reached out to people who seemed like they were beginners, not because their work wasn’t good, but because they didn’t have much of it. Her prices were the same as photographers with deep portfolios. Not saying she shouldn’t charge that, you have to charge what you think you’re work can command, should command, and well, she is in business, so. I’m just not willing to pay that amount at this stage in my career. And so, I had to pass.
I let the photographer that I’d been mostly DMing know that she’d gotten the job.
Later, while checking my mail, I’d gotten a response from the initial photographer I’d reached out to. The one that I texted, then emailed and never heard back from. She rejected my project saying that it sounded more like photojournalism and she was more editorial. It always sucks to get a rejection, but I was happy she finally replied.
In the meantime, I started doing some research about bloggers hiring photographers, and apparently I needed to have a contract. There are lawyers that have premade ones that they sell on their website, but it costs just as much as the photographer to get. I came across another website of a blogger who laid out step by step the contracts she gives to people who take pictures for her, even if they’re friends and family.
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
I send a DM to the photographer I chose, letting her know that I was drawing up a contract. I asked for her full name and address to put on the document, and provided my email in case she would prefer to send it that way.
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
She replies with her name, slightly different than the one I’d been using, and an address without the city.
Thursday, December 16, 2021
I reply back asking for the city or the zip code.
Crickets, crickets, crickets. I never heard from her again. And, that was my last correspondence.
In the meantime, I check on the DM I sent the writer I wanted to use as my interview subject. She hasn’t responded either. Nor has she replied or so much as liked my comment. However, I see that she’s commented on other people’s comments. Now, I’m not really into Instagram, and I don’t know the etiquette, but one thing I do know is I felt slighted. So, I unsent my DM and unfollowed her. Judge me as you wish.
Tuesday, December 21, 2020
This was the day my shoot was scheduled to take place with the photographer I was DMing. Obviously this wasn’t happening, but the show must go on and I still had one more weapon in my arsenal – my mother.
Now I didn’t want to go with my mom for several reasons. One, even though she can have a great eye sometimes, she’s not a professional photographer and she doesn’t have a passion for it. I guess that’s one through Omega right there. I’d prefer to work with someone who is as passionate about photography as I am about writing. But, she’ll do it as a favor, so rather than completely abandon the project, reluctantly, I elicited her help.
Monday, December 27, 2021
The day my mother and I were scheduled to do the photo shoot. I stayed up late the night before, wasn’t in the mood, and put it off for the next day.
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
My mother and I are on our way to the shoot, when we get rear-ended, putting a dent in my plans…literally.
Friday, December 31, 2021
As I write this last-minute, you know, so that I can post this sometime before midnight almost as if I’ve learned nothing from this experience, perhaps you think I am discouraged.
Well you would be wrong. Now, more than ever, I am encouraged to keep going. I am encouraged because this failure of a project has helped me to realize that there is also a logistical side to my art. That writing – especially when you want to get it out to other people, and involve other people – cannot just be done last-minute. There are things you have to iron out, like budgets, and reaching out to people, having them not respond, and finding other people, and contracts, and all sorts of stuff you don’t want to think about when you just want to create, when you just want to write.
And so, even though this time I failed. I was reminded that Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance, the 5P’s. That everything in life is working for me.
And that the sun will come out tomorrow.
Happy New Year!
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