Just Jennifer

So it’s been nearly a year since my car broke down and I had to start riding my bike to work.

I road for a full month before other life issues forced me to get back into a combustible engine. I did like riding, I hope to be able to start it up again. We had a few windy days that nearly blew me off my bike, but for the most part, I enjoyed the ride.

Today is a great day to ride, but yesterday it was pouring incredibly, and last night we had walnut-size hail hitting around town. Such is life in March in the Northern portion of the State of California.

I had to ride clear across town to the DMV  in a MAJOR windstorm, to get proper registration for my other car, which was registered as a non-op for 3 years. The “other” car is a 22-year old Alfa Romeo Graduate-Spider with only 72-thousand miles on it, I-kid-you-not! It’s a 2-seater convertible, so I can’t exactly cart my video gear around in it.

I finally dumped the German car that broke down, causing all my earlier drama. It’s a 1997 Audi A4 Quattro, an all-wheel-drive that really likes speed, and corners better than a Roller Derby Queen, but it also liked to spend more time in the shop than on the street. Between the two European cars, I had a whole one, but I didn’t want to put too much wear-n-tear on the Italian job, and I was afraid of the German vehicle’s expenses so I bought a new-to-me Honda Accord (2005). I like this one; it packs my video gear well and is kind on repair and gas.

I’ve been commissioned to shoot another wedding next week. Still camera, which is different for me. Video I know like a pro baseball player knows the feel of a bat in his hands, but still shooting has always been just a hobby for me.

Shooting video, I’ve run second cam for Brent or Ryan once in a while, which I like doing, but shooting a wedding solo can be a pain sometimes. Wedding videography can be a pretty lucrative business, but I tell you, some brides act as if they are the spawn of a demon on the days before the wedding. A good wedding planner can ease a bride’s drama, but sometimes brides and grooms just shoot themselves in the foot all on their own.

Trying to “bargain basement” the videographer or still photographer is not a good idea. I mean, after it’s over, for instance, who’s going to remember (or care) if the table cloths didn’t match the balloons, (I had a friend go ballistic on the caterer over this one time…) but if you have a poorly shot poorly produced video, you can’t redo the wedding to fix that. My hat is off to all of you wedding shooters out there, you do a great job, at great risk to your reputation if a bride goes over the deep end.

Well those are my musings for the week, it’s been awhile.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Videomaker, shooting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.