Another work week wraps up. Spending a lot of time making portraits. And then compositing them into backgrounds. Changing reality one frame at a time. Perfection? Not a goal.

Background. Camera: G9 Lens: 12-100mm

Dashing model shot. Camera: Leica SL Lens: 24-90mm

 I got my hair cut this week. I bought a fleece pullover that was on sale. I used my phone as a remote for an ancient Leica SL camera so I could make a selfie. I swam hard all four days that the pool was open this week. Well, five days if you count last Sunday. Two more workouts to go this week. I lifted some weights. I went for a bunch of walks in the hills around our house. I had dinner at a friend's house and he made pasta with a clam sauce, and garnished the  edges of each plate with fresh mussels steamed in broth. I brought the wines. I took my resting pulse rate. It's 54. I walked through downtown looking for fresh new projects. And I finished up two of the jobs I've been shooting. A busy week. A fun week.

Last Fall I was toying with the idea of abandoning work altogether and declaring myself retired. I'm sure you've been there. You feel like you've been over the same ground too many times before and you're tired of it. Bored with work. You find yourself doing dumb stuff while trying to challenge yourself. Things like trying to do a CEO portrait with a cardboard, disposable camera. Or trying to light an ad shoot with an emergency flare you had in the car. Or bungee jumping with a video camera to make some interesting b-roll. Or you retire. I guess. 

At some point I realized that watching the S&P 500 bounce up and down, putting my nap schedule on a spreadsheet, and watching re-runs of "The Price is Right" was not the healthiest plan for aging well. Or happily. Or productively, or whatever other poetic mantra people blather on about when trying to convince people to abandon work for .... retirement fun? 

I changed my mind about the whole thing somewhere between Christmas and New Years. I missed hanging out with creative people. I missed joining in the complaining about bad office coffee. I missed the motivation of living off cash flow; the joy of using other people's money. Instead of my own...

And just about the time I decided I'd work for a while longer the proverbial phone (really email and texts) started ringing and here we are nearing the end of the first month of the year having completed three multi-day jobs and having the delicious pleasures of both billing, and also figuring out  how to use the new work to justify buying another camera or lens. Just for fun. Again.

Sometimes I feel like I have too much energy. I don't like to sit still. I don't like "down time" and I don't like wasting time. But I really do love meeting new people and then taking portraits of them. 

Several of the jobs I've worked on recently involved making portraits in a studio setting. Against white or green backgrounds and then compositing the images together with urban/industrial landscapes. The image above is a shot I did as a fun sample. No, it's not perfect. I think we're beyond the need for images to be perfect --- as long as the images are fun and do their jobs. 

It's fun and quick to make portraits against neutral backgrounds. Clients like it because doing things this way saves time for them and, with a big catalog of urbanscapes, they have lots of choices at their fingertips. Regardless of the actual weather. It's just a lot more convenient.

We did a variation of this method last year on an extended shoot for a medical technology company. I worked with an art director who is about as old as my son. 28. The art director was incredibly smart and a good collaborator. She sent me a text this week. The work we did on the previous big shoot is testing very well internationally. Sounds like we'll reprise all that again this year. 

I'm having fun again. Working for the fun of it this time. Just because I want to. It's different. But no less fun. And while the work might be fun...yes...I continue to bill for it.