Life is full of ups and downs

Yesterday was good at first. Had tons of picture sorting to do for this other photographer in town that I've been working with a little bit when either of us has overflow. Also, our strobes arrived. Hurray!

After getting all the work that I HAD to do that day, Sarah and I went to Yoga and then immediately to the studio to play with the strobes. That was fun. Just before leaving, though, I got an email with bad news (possibly losing a job) and it started bothering me. I was thinking about what I could do to recover the sale and whatnot, but was also just generally frustrated.

I finally shook it, and today was out the first-half of the day shooting real estate. Getting back I found all sorts of good news. Another photographer friend up here who does lots of race (as in foot-race) shoots needed help for one tomorrow. Awesome! I always like getting called up for a shoot, and it'll be a good opportunity to use the new 70-200mm lens. After that I was feeling pretty good.

Then I got a call from a magazine I've shot for once before. I thought they were just gonna bug me about picking up my check (it's in eugene), but they in fact had another assignment! I hadn't heard any feedback from them after the first shoot, so I didn't know if they were happy or not. Well, I guess they were, as I have another gig. This one is even very exciting as it's an 'environmental portrait', which is a portrait of someone 'in their environment'. All those portraits of athletes holding their basketballs and posing on the court, or executives looking decisive while sitting behind their desks are this sort of thing. I dislike regular portraiture, with its formulaic lighting and posing, combined with boring backgrounds. Environmental portraits requiring finding a pose and framing that captures an aspect of a person, a role, or maybe several. You get 1 shot to show as much as you can about the person, as per the topic at hand.

So, it's a day of reminding myself not to let the minor ups-and-downs get to me. It was fine to brainstorm ways of recovering the sale, sure. However, it need not give me stress. In fact, I'd be able to handle it better without that. Overall I tend to do OK with this, but on the photography business front I think I'm new enough to it that I lack some confidence that I possess in other areas, and things get to me.

Also, I've noticed that so far, every time I have a bad news day, the next day has good news, and lots of it. I'm sure this trend won't continue forever, but it helps me realize that getting bothered just wastes energy.

Anyway, that's the lesson for the day. I hope everyone out there is doing great and staying stress-free.