happy

Sometimes I've got it pretty easy.

I've been off-and-on planning a Bay Area trip, with the initial impetus being work related. It's a pretty simple site visit, some travel time, maybe a couple of hours in the field, and half a day to write it up.

But the client kept pushing the day back. Initially, that meant I'd be able to delegate it, because I had someone in the general area on another project part of last week. Then the day slipped again, so that didn't work. Now it's maybe Monday, more likely Tuesday. So I'm headed down that way tomorrow afternoon, and I'll basically work out of our Santa Rosa or San Francisco offices til the word comes from the client to "go." I have a stack of paper and project file folders and my laptop, enough to keep busy for a couple days easily.

I have about half a dozen models wait-listed in the Bay Area, some I'm more interested in than others. But the constant schedule changes have made it impossible to really set anything up. I kept a dialogue going with one of them, the one of the bunch I'd really like to shoot with, and that may still happen this time. She's checking her work schedule and hopefully I'll know in the morning. But no guarantees on such short notice.

I hate to waste a trip to a major market when I'm still feeling a need to play with the new digital gear. So tonight I posted a casting call, clearly identified as short-notice, clearly identified as a dusk/night shoot... because that's all I can be sure of at this stage.

Within 30 minutes I had a response. She's attractive, she's alternative, she already has some good photos, and after reading part of her blog just now... she's very, very smart. She's also efficient. Two sets of messages back and forth, and we had a time and place set near the Berkeley campus. Less than half an hour to set things up.

So while other photographers whine about drama and no-shows, I routinely get to pick from really interesting people. They're not only fun to shoot, they're fascinating to talk to during the shoot.