Passion and Fatigue… How do You Work that Out!

 The first baptism

 The second baptism

A great Romanian sculptor, Constantin Brancusi, said “Things are not hard to be made. The hard thing is to get yourself in the mood of making them” (The original quote is: “Lucrurile nu sunt greu de facut. Greu este sa te pui in starea de a le face”). And he couldn’t be more right… I said this in my previous posts and I’ll say it again: it’s amazingly easy to do whatever you want to do, once you made up your mind. The only thing that’s stopping you is the anxiety that you might be rejected or that you might fail.

Nevertheless! Don’t you think for a second that my last two assignments were a walk in a park! I intended to write this post yesterday (on Monday). I had it all in my had. But when I opened a new Word doc I got a phone call from M that said:

“Hey, how are ya? Listen, I just received a call from our first customer and he told me he wants the pictures by Wednesday morning!”

It was the first time in my life when I really panicked. I felt the need to breath in a paper bag just like in the movies! Let me tell you why. Saturday we had the first baptism, we left Limassol at 10AM and I came home around 6PM. The next day happened the same thing: we left home at 10AM and I got home at 6PM. The only thing I could do between 6PM and 10PM (when I hit the bed falling asleep before I actually touched the pillow) was to eat, have a shower and copy the photos in the computer. So let me tell you all about this weekend and how do I feel after this experience.

So: I left home at 10Am (note that I was up at 5:30AM – I usually wake up at that hour) and we arrived around 11AM on the location, near Paphos. The first thing I did was to get inside the chapel to see how it looks like, the light and how much space I had. The chapel was around 5-7m wide and 10-15m long. Not that much space in there, huh? So I started to make all sorts of tests for the light. The ceiling was wood and not that high and I knew that meant a lot of colour on my subjects faces. The good thing was that the baptism started very fast , and so, I didn’t have enough time to panic… I had to get started and that was that! Sometimes, when you don’t have that much experience, it’s better to have less time on your hands for tests and other such things, because you'll lose it. It’s better to just get started, and the pressure of that moment will give you enough ideas to make everything work. It’s more or less like the adrenaline rush (but  not that strong).

Of course I had my flash on a tripod, off camera! I mean, common! Everybody knows that flash on camera equals no photo. That is absolutely true if you have an assistant that can run after you the hole time with the flash and the soft box. Guess what! I didn’t have an assistant. Soooo half of the photos were made with natural light (when the flash couldn’t reach the subject), with the camera handhold, at absolutely impossible shutter speeds (like 1/10s or lower with a 70mm lens), and the other half with the flash. Of course I had hand shake in 80% of the pictures made handhold. And of course I cursed my stupid head for being so judgemental. Don’t ever laugh at anyone for doing something that to you seems strange or even wrong, if you never tried that before! Imagine the fact that I was sweating like I was running on a marathon, not taking pictures, the lens was incredibly heavy and the guests were pushing from all directions. When I look back now, I realise that at the moment I didn’t even noticed any of that (except the lens weight). I was so concentrate on the moment, that I never noticed the sweat, the people around me, the heat. The only concern I had was not getting too close to the priest or to the child. (You want to take a picture, but you have to respect the moment! It was a baptism after all).

The next day (at the second baptism), in the church (this time it was a church, thank God!), I said to myself “ha! I’m not going to repeat my yesterday’s mistake! I’ll put the flash on camera! I’ll just leave it at 45 degrees and I’ll bounce the light from the flash bouncer card”. Good plan! But one single, tintzy-wintzy little detail please remember: …don’t get too excited about correcting one mistake, ‘cause you’ll make a new and bigger one! Because the flash was on camera, I didn’t have that sound that announced the recycling time. So, like a very professional and well-knowing-her-craft-and-gear photographer, I started shooting like crazy without waiting for the flash to recycle!... I guess somebody in haven really loves me, because I had the inspiration to have a look on the display! When I saw that 2 out of 3 pictures were underexposed (and one of them almost black), I felt how my knees are failing me… Don’t laugh! It’s a really ugly scene!

The ceremony, in both cases, lasted one hour and let me tell you a few tips and tricks about a baptism in a (Greek) Orthodox Church:

 

 

• The ceremony starts with the priest and the godmother holding the baby (in Romania you have godparents; so you have a godfather too. Here it seems you need only a godmother) at the entrance of the church/ chapel. Make sure you don’t overexpose what is outside (unless you’re doing it on purpose to obtain a special effect on the composition).
• Make sure you photograph both the priest and the godmother reading from the baptism book.
• Pay attention to what white balance you’re using, especially if you want to catch the nice yellow colour of the chrism (holy oil). The baby will be anointed before he gets baptised.
• Don’t make a race out of catching every single sequence of the baby in and out the font. The priest will do the same thing three times. Try to catch different moments each time (***I’ll advice you to go to a baptism (before you go and shoot one), and see this exact part very carefully and even take notes! It is THE most important part! If you miss this moment, you miss the baptism itself!  In Romania the priest will “sink” in the font the child very fast three times. In Cyprus the child is sited in the font and splashed with holy water all over the body and especially on the head! So this kind of differences can change the situation dramatically. If you don’t have time/ the opportunity to see one before you photograph such an event, it’s recommendable to talk to somebody that knows the ritual really good).
• Before the baby is dressed up the priest will cut a few hairs from the baby’s head. I don’t know why and what that means but it’s also important.
• Very important! The sequence is: the baby is undressed by the godmother and it’s anointed with chrism – this happens on a small table. Then the child is taken to the font. Then it returns to the table. All this happens very fast and you have to try to get a good spot every time because the child’s face is always covered by the priest’s/ godmother’s hands in the above-described process. So find a good spot near the table and try to return there.
• Another very important moment is the one when the godmother gives the baby to the priest and the priest gives the baby to the mother. It’s a very short moment but if you’re ready you can catch a very nice and sweet moment. Usually the children are pretty tired at this point and all the excitement around them makes them want to return in their mother’s arms… sooo be ready!

If you manage to catch these moments right, all the rest is a piece of cake. After the baptism is over in the church you might want to take a few frames outside the church with the family. Also, at the restaurant, make sure you ask if anything special will happen. But in general for me it was pretty easy: some portraits and some group pictures with the parents, grandparents and the godmother.

I must tell you that the perfect solution is to keep very calm, no matter what don’t panic and just do what you have to do: take nice pictures.

After I got home (both on Saturday and Sunday), I managed to copy the pictures in the computer and then select those that I liked. But that was it! Sunday evening I managed to edit about 10 photos from my first assignment thinking that on Monday I could do around 50 or more, and by the end of the week I could finish both series of photos. So when M told me that I have actually only one day to edit the first baptism I really panicked. Another reason why I was really scared was because I don’t really like post processing and this meant that I need to stay nailed to the chair till I would finish (which was a torture for me). So, yesterday I came home from work, and five hours I didn’t move from the computer (except when I had to eat) and I did those photos. I didn’t finished all last night. I stopped around 11:30PM because my eyes were playing tricks on me and I didn’t want to mess around with the photos. So this morning I was up at 5AM and I worked on the photos till I finished (that is I managed to be ready till 8AM when I had to go to the office).

I must tell you that after the first day I couldn’t feel my arms and legs muscles; after the second day the felling in my muscles returned with an added bonus: an indescribable pain. Yesterday I added to the original pain another one in my back for staying in front of the computer from 8:15AM till 11:30PM… Over all it was the best experience I had in a very long time, and I can hardly wait for the next customer!

The lesson I have learned is that in a controlled (by me of course) environment I can shoot very good portraits, but I tend to forget to control the camera when I’m contretemps, which is a very big mistake. I need to make more “wax-on-wax-off-this-is-stupid-Mr-Miagy” kind of exercises and to get in my system certain camera settings… just like driving the car (you don’t actually think of gear shifting, you just do it). I also need to build a small soft box (‘cause I’m not gonna spend money on something like this) for my flash when I’m using it on camera, and I have some other innovative ideas for the off camera flash (but I’ll tell you about those in another post).

I apologize if this post was a little chaotic but the words came into my mind faster than I can type, and they were in a hurry, ‘cause they’re waiting for two day (haha). I hope you’ll find this post useful so please let me know what you think.

Thank you for reading this

PS: The post was actually  written on Tuesday after noon, but because of some technical issues, I couldn't managed to post it until today.