April 7, 2009

Life As An Intern - Episode Four

My last few weeks can pretty much be summed up by the pie chart in the post by Alexis. (Loved that, by the way!!).

While I always enjoy my time with Anne, the last few weeks have been very simple and well usually involved time waiting for technology to work. I finished designing the guestbook from my last post. I made Anne promise I could see it before she gave it to the couple. It looked awesome!!

Last week I also spent a majority of my time doing the first edit through on a wedding. It was very interesting to see someone else’s images from an entire wedding. It made me realize I’m not the only one who misses focus here and there. Anne taught me that it’s all in the way you present your very best images from the day that can really make an impact.

Anne had me edit in the good photos versus editing out the bad ones. I’m still deciding which way I like better, as I normally edit out. Please leave a comment on which way you prefer to edit and why. Thanks!

I discovered it was also much easier to edit through someone else’s photos then my own. I often get too over attached to images that really aren’t good simply because I remember the day and I have an emotional connection to the images. Now this isn’t in itself a bad thing but when I’m giving too many images that are sub par because I’m attached, I can detract from the overall quality of my work.

When I edit through my next wedding I’m going to try to focus the way I did when editing Anne’s images. She told me the first thing to look for is high emotion and then having the most faces visible in a shot. I'll let you know how it goes :-)

I'm actually at home today instead of with Anne because one of our cars broke down. While I'm bummed I had to miss a day with Anne, it's so nice outside that I'm glad I was able to spend some of the day outside. Our landlord just got three new piggies. There has been so much bad press about pigs and the swine flu recently, that I thought I would share a few pictures of the piglets to remind everyone how cute they are. Plus every post needs a picture!! 

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9 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:53 PM

    I am a newbie so don't look for my way to necessarily be the right way. ;) When I'm going through my shots I like to edit for the ones I want to keep (is that what edit in means)? ;) I find it's easier to pick the good ones then to keep trying to weed out bad ones.

    And... I love all your Piglet shots. Pigs with Wide Aperture. Awesome!

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  2. poor piggies... being butchered all over the world! =(
    as for the processing...im an avid photog, but not a pro (yet!), i usually go for the best ones first, delete the bad ones, and try to work with the in-between for last. =)

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  3. I'm SO thinking Charlotte's Web right now. . .

    When editing my wedding photos, I usually take out the blurry ones, then go for the good ones-somewhat of a hybrid I guess. . .

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  4. Anonymous3:29 AM

    Serious question.

    Are clients really comfortable with what amounts to an amateur photographer / intern making an edit of their wedding photographs? Deciding which photos are good and bad? Isn't that the work of the photographer who the clients hire?

    I don't mean to sound critical, just curious. It just seems odd that someone who is very new to photography, and who is in the beginning stages of learning about photography and artistic value would be put in charge of making the first large selection through some ones wedding photos.

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  5. Why post anonymously, and at 3:30am?

    While Katie did make her own selections on a wedding, it was not delivered to the client until I looked over the edit and made my own value judgements and changes. There were many things we agreed on (a lot of it can be obvious), but I also made many subtle changes as well, which reflected what I felt was important. Katie will see the changes I made the next time she's here and we'll be able to talk about why I made those changes.

    Anonymous - are there any parts of this job that you think ARE appropriate for interns to handle? Ones that are both valuable and meaningful?

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  6. I have to respond. The measure of a great mentor to an intern is trust. Anne is doing exactly what she needs to do to allow Katie to grow as a photographer! I do not believe that Anne would have chosen Katie (or Katie have chosen Anne) for this apprenticeship if they did not share a similar photographic style. Katie needs to have this opportunity to make decisions about edits, and Anne, I'm sure, is close by but not hovering. :) She is preserving the integrity of her clients' day, as well as her business, while allowing growth and opportunity to occur for her intern.
    Good work! :)

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  7. This post was really interesting to me - I agree that an intern needs to be trusted and respected and given freedom to learn. Interesting thoughts....these pictures made me smile - I'm a huge pig fan :)

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  8. Anonymous8:40 PM

    I just had to add my 2 cents in this convo...

    Anne, I really like how you handled the situation, and specially like the way you're teaching your intern :)

    Katie, I bet you did a great job! Keep learning & don't let an "anonymous" put a frown on your face honey.

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