Work

Life has been busy for a few weeks now as, semi-accidentally, work outside work has taken off.

Besides the prospective wedding photography, the old stand-by of product photography has revived – mainly due to my most regular brethren visitors. One of them has used my services for a long time now, off and on, but the other has persuaded the company he works for to switch to me too. At least for now, I should say.

At some point I shall begin to ask if there’s anything else to the story. I am never surprised by brethren work because of the “known quantity” mindset that seems to be so prevalent among them: brethren generally will go to considerable lengths not to need the services of anyone unknown. If somebody within the community can do a job, they will probably be first on the list. If not, then someone that somebody within the community knows will be preferred, even if they don’t come particularly highly recommended. There seems to be a strong aversion that I don’t quite understand to finding new solutions. However, to return to my own situation, something may have changed which makes me an option to call on, and that something could either be changing attitudes or a perceived need to keep me on-side in some way.

I have noticed that since technology has become less alien and forbidden territory to brethren, it has opened up doors. My suspicion is that now brethren are able (and encouraged!) to use computers and digital equipment for work, my long-standing attachment to those things is no longer a reason to shy away from the subject but more a reason to take advantage of somebody familiar who has experience. That would be quite enough reason for them to send work my way.

What would be more worrying, and could well be part of the reason even if not the whole story, is if somebody somewhere sees this as a route to entice me back into the fold – or at least a way of keeping the tentacles entangled. A cynical view would be that they see a danger that I might become totally independent and leave my brethren-provided job, and so try to become essential to me in the new area of work as well. Still, I have to say that even if that was the case, it marks a big improvement over the old “cast the heretics out forever” attitude. They may be beginning to learn that being nice brings greater benefits than being nasty. Although in my case I think most of what happens is simply the result of brethren trying to do what they think is best for everybody concerned, rather than a massive plot.

Besides that, I have been dabbling in location and house photography, and it is possible that it may become regular through an agency who provide better pictures of houses than estate agents for people whose houses are worth the extra trouble. And I am waiting to hear if Saturday may be a baptism of fire on the wedding front, as a professional friend is double-booked and offering to hand over one shoot to me.

So what with all that development, I have decided that the time is right to scrap my current photo website and revamp it to serve professional needs instead. Originally I was going to start another site for that, but I am in the process of moving my personal work to Flickr, which is cheaper and more flexible, and that leaves my short and simple website address free!

As I said, it’s a busy time.