Day Four - Photo shoot

As friday came around I was filled with excitement and sadness. I knew that today was my last day with Gail and the end of a really fun week. The first thing I did for Gail today was organize her usernames and passwords into one document and make sure they were all still valid. All though this wasn't very tedious work it did take awhile, but in the end I know I helped Gail stay organized and not digging through piles of paper. After that Gail had me start to go through an old email address and delete unneeded emails, and send the knew email address to those of her friends and clients that were still using the wrong one. To our surprise it was already 12:00 and Gail took me out to have a nice delicious lunch at Pi Five ( which I do recommend) to celebrate our hard work and the end of a good week. When we got back we had to set up for the sitting we had at 1:00. As we were testing lights Gail told me that now that she uses digital cameras instead of film there is a lot more work that goes in to getting a good picture. I got to play her mock subject during the light testing and we had a blast messing around with hats and other props. When the client arrived it was a senior from Saint Marks and his dog. Before the shoot took places we all socialized and finished getting ready. By the time we were done it was 3:45 and time had flown by. I had excepted my hours but didn't care because I was having such a good time. I have truly enjoyed me experiences with Gail and have learned a lot about obtaining and maintaing a good business and clientele.

Day Three - Repetition happens

As I came in to Gail's studio for the third day, after a nice day off, I was curious of what I could possibly be doing today. After again fallowing the daily schedule of unloading the car from the photo shoot the day before, and checking emails and messages, Gail had me call make the clients that had left those messages back. After that was finished we went back to the all to plentiful amount of pictures we had been sorting for three days now. Today though was about finding the mail addresses that were written down on business cards, scraps of paper, or not at all. I then proceeded to email or call the gentleman who participated in the Hog Hunt for disabled vets, try to get as many mailing addresses as I could and match them up with the photos Gail wanted to send them.  Later that day Mr. Jennings (my project advisor) stopped by to check up on me and my progress. I took him around the studio and explained my last few days and the work I had been doing. After he left, Gail and I started sorting through another set of photos from another outing she was apart of. These luckily were less in number and easier to sort. So although my day was very similar to the last, it felt nice to continue to fallow through on the work I had been doing and get at least some of the envelopes stamped, licked and sealed. I look forward to the photo shoot we have tomorrow and enjoying my last day with Gail.

Day Two - getting reorganized

As I arrived at the studio today I was eager to get started and embark on a new set of lessons. To my surprise that involved cleaning, a lot of cleaning. Again I was introduced to a friend of Gails, Kaida. Kaida's job was to reorganize the whole entire back storage room that was prettily much filled to the brim with pictures, frame, packing supplies, props and a whole lot more. I quickly learned that Kaida was more then overjoyed that she had another person to do all the heavy lifting. As I took out all the big pictures, moved the frames and props; I learned lesson number four. Sometimes you have to do the dirty work to get the beautiful result of a clean work space. It took us four people including Gail's assistant Beth to practically move everything possible out of the room, organize the big boxes that had to stay in the room because of pure weight, label everything to Kaida's liking, and move everything back in in an organized fashion. This all probably took six hours of work to accomplish. However the feeling of getting it all done was remarkable. Gail was now more organized, efficient and less cluttered. To finish up our day Gail and I organized photos she had taken at a disabled army vet retreat she was invited to. There must have been thousands of pictures, and what did Gail so generously want to do? Send them all to the about 50 people throughout these pictures. So we sat and made one nice card for every person with 5-20 other pictures inside the envelope. This tedious task of sorting pictures felt like it was taking forever, but not as long as it took Gail to hand sign ever card she was sending. From this experience I learned that when you make a commitment you should uphold to it, Gail promised these men and women to send them pictures and thats what she did. No matter the amount of pictures or if they were just of someones dog she gave it to them anyways. Gail is truly committed to her work, her clients and her staff, as she rewarded us with a nice bowl of ice cream. Today was a lot of manual labor, and mental work figuring out which picture goes where, but it showed me that sometimes you have to clear out and clean out and sometimes is time for some fun.  

Day One - the normal day of a photographer

As I entered the all too familiar studio of Gail Nogle I was overwhelmed with the fact that this was not going to be a walk on the beach. Right away Gail informed me that we had a daily schedule, something to keep this very busy artistic mind in order. From the very beginning Gail had me working, to much surprise I was not going to just watch her start her day but be apart of it. I checked emails and got the address to the studio we would be visiting later that day. After calming down from the rush of fast passed movement in the studio, I was introduced to Kelly, someone Gail brought in to help her sell some very old prints that were cluttering up her work area. These prints went all the back to the 1900's. This is when I learned my first lesson of business. Not only is it very import to find and use a great system to categorizing anything of value, but often it is important to go through everything and purge of what is no longer needed. After helping out coming up with ideas and methods of selling these prints to clients Kelly was gone and we were on the road. As we hoped in to Gail's car, and went down town to another studio, Gail taught me my second lesson. As she was telling me how she got started in making her own business and renowned career, I realized that everyone has to start out small and work their way to the top. It took Gail many years working under someone else to finally decided she needed to be her own boss and fork up the money to make a studio. With out time and hard work Gail would not have been able to make her dream of being her own boss possible. As we arrived at the studio of Dan Sellers, another noted photographer, I was overwhelmed by the 14,000 dollar camera that was being presented. Although Gail never wanted to buy the camera it showed me that I'm going to have to decided if I always want to stay old school in my business and equipment or if I will want to buy every new advanced product out there. To finish out our day Gail took me to the editing lab even though she didn't need to pick up anything. As she was introducing me and showing me around, point thing out her friends photography on the wall, I learned my third lesson for the day. Connections matter, not only is it important for social events but its import to market yourself to others so if you need there expertise in a style of work they will be more willing to help. Great things happen when people collaborate and all of that is built off of connections. With my day concluding I realized that although I don't wish to go into the field of photography I am going to learn a lot about how to run a business this week with the one and only Gail Nogle.