Before I really start into photography, I am just taking pictures for my family while traveling, dinning, or celebrating; sometimes take for the strangers if they asked. What really gets me into photo shooting is that I remember four years ago, I was shopping with my family at Taipei, and see bunch of guys holding super fancy heavy camera, and there was a model (not a pro) for them to shoot with. It seems interesting to me, so I walked into a guy and ask him, where did you guys find out this info? and where could I find it? He told me it was hold by some group leader from Facebook, and you have to be in the group to able to see it.
I started search for it with some key words like, shooting, photography, model, out-door shooting…etc. You know what, it wasn’t as easy as I thought, I spent one to two hours for it, can not find anything relate to it on Facebook. Then I came out just search it from google, damn… I should have done this earlier to save the time, I found many forum actually open many events or activities about out-door shooting, studio shooting, and hotel shooting. I pick the out-door shooting first because it is much cheaper because you don’t need to pay extra money for the studio or the hotel.
It’s around 8-10 people sharing the fee that model charged and what the leader think he should earn, so if the model asking for 150 bucks and the leader thinks he should earn 50 bucks, then the total is 200 bucks, so each person would pay about 20 bucks for three hours out-door shooting with two or three different dressing.
When the shooting day comes closer, I just realized that I only have a small tiny digital camera with basic function, I strongly believe at that time I should have a pro camera like those people I met on the street in order to get good picture; at least, the quality of the picture. Of course I am not going to get one, I just ask friends who will like to lend me for one afternoon. And a good friend of mine Double, a skillful graphic designer, lend me a CANON 5D II that his dad gave to him. I was really exciting but also scary at that time because I have no idea how to use it, and I am really afraid that I might break it during the shooting…
On the shooting day, I was super excited and went there 30 mins earlier to see what was going on before the shooting started. I guessed I went there too early, no one was there yet, not even the leader( I had no idea who the leader was at that time). 15 mins later, I saw some people with different sizes of black cases, I guessed they were other members of the event. I thought they all know each other or at least would talk to each other, but I was wrong! Everyone just stood at their spot, and kept working on set-up their own camera. I tried to ask one of them how to set-up the camera, but he told me he was also beginner and had no idea how to set-up the camera. 5 mins before the shooting started, leader showed up, and I believe he should know more about how to set-up the camera. I went to him and asked for help, however, he also had no enough idea about how to set-up the 5D II.
At that moment, I started feel depressed cause I do not want to waste the money and time for getting nothing. I had no idea what P mode, M mode, A mode was doing, so I just shoot one or two pictures with each mode and see which one came out fine to me. Honestly, I can’t remember which mode I finally used, I just keep shooting and make sure every shot is on-focus. It was really fun to see a beauty in front of you, but I did not have any idea what to shoot and shoot from what angle; I just clicked clicked clicked.
Three hours ran out really fast, and each people would have the opportunity to take some shots with model at the end, I had no idea what was going on? I just followed what others did; they all seemed really happy with that moment. I felt they were just paying their money for this, not the shooting, ha ha.
I got lucky because the model was taking the same route with Metro(underground transportation in Taipei, Taiwan) as me, so I had a short conversation with her and got to know better about what out-door shooting is going on. And I will explain more later on.
LOVE YOURSELF
– CHARLIE C YANG