Travelling to SF… by bus

I don’t know what it is about these last few months, but Lady Luck has ducked out quite a few times. It all began at the end of March when my rental car was broken into and my backpack, with my laptop and just recently purchased Canon T3i inside, was taken. I had the camera a month and had been taking a lot of portrait and landscape shots which were all on my laptop of course. From then on, it was a downward spiral. I’m pretty sure it had to do with the evil side of Lady Karma stepping in to relieve the more lucky version. Can’t say that I’ve been the best person over the last year so I guess I had everything comin. None-the-less, the aftershocks are still being felt no matter how hard the pretty lady hangs in there.

Fast forwarding to today (June 26th). I’m heading up to San Francisco to shoot a fashion show tomorrow for a designer I’ve had the pleasure of shooting for about a month ago. But not without Mr. Murphy stepping to lay down some laws. Everything was set. I was going to leave early in the morning and get there in time to take care of things before heading to the event. However, the time I was planning on getting there turned out to be a couple hours later than prep time for the models. Wanting to get as much of the day on file as I could, I started preparing to get on the 1015pm bus in order to be in Oakland in the morning. I have a place in the East Bay which is why Oakland, but that’s beside the point.

It was no big deal at first. I went online, a seat was available and I filled out all the necessary boxes then… my payment wasn’t processing online. I tried three times so I chose the option to pay cash. Here I am thinking that payment was being made at the bus terminal. Eh eh. Try again. I had to go to 7-eleven to make my cash payment. Mind you, payment needed to be processed in a certain amount of time or the reservation was no longer valid. I got off work at 720, made the reservation at 735ish, packed then we were supposed to head out to my cousins house to pick up my laptop with a fresh install of Lightroom and CS4 on it. Yah yah, they’re on CS20 but hey, it’s better than Darktable on Linux.

Anyway, I read the email with payment instructions and good thing I did. So off to 7/11 we went, arriving there around 8. We get to 7/11, open up the confirmation email and the guy looks at me like I’m crazy. Never having done this before, I figured they just put in the reservation number and all is done. Nope. Wrong again. So he’s asking me what he’s supposed to do and of course I don’t know. Eventually he says that there should be a barcode. Mind you, we’ve been going back and forth for almost 10 minutes now. Finally I scroll through the email and towards the bottom is a link. Of course… the barcode.

Now, my phone has a cute little design on the screen. Something of a spiderweb from dropping it on the ground. So naturally, when he goes to scan the barcode, it doesn’t read. He’s trying and trying a few times when I decide to ask my brother for his phone so I can pull up the email on his smooth, unscathed screen. By this time, almost 20 minutes has gone by. Finally they were able to scan the barcode and I swipe my card… declined. Swipe again… declined again. Third time’s a charm right?… no, no it’s not. I go out to the car, defeated and thinking I have to pay even more by purchasing my ticket at the gate.

Knowing that I need to get up to SF, my brother offers to use his card. So we try again. Barcode scanned, card swiped…. decline. Try two more times of course and nope. Not a chance. Now he knows he has money in his account so he goes to the ATM and gets cash. I would have done the same but figured my card was declined due to a pending deposit so I didn’t try. Turns out that wasn’t the case. Anyway, he pulls out cash, barcode scanned, hand over cash… denied! What?!?! How is cash denied? Try again… I’m sure you can guess the result of that attempt. Time had expired and reservation lost. Feeling even more defeated than before, we set out to my cousins house.

On the car ride over I decide to call the bus stations 800# to see if I can just book over the phone. Damn my luck, the call center was closed. At this point, I don’t even want to think about it anymore. Deciding to check the website for the next departing bus when we got to our cousins house, I sat back and enjoyed the music.

My cousin doesn’t live that far away so we got there in about 15 minutes. Maybe a little longer because my brother forgot he had to take a certain freeway so we went in a circle. Either way, we arrived, I got on the computer and booked a seat for the 130am bus that would get me there an hour earlier had I just stuck with leaving in the morning. Nothing I could really do so I stopped worrying and chatted with the fam for a sec. After about 15 minutes, decided I’d like to go home and chill for a little bit and play with my new toys before heading out.  However, on the car ride to the house, my brain wouldn’t sit still.

It was 9:15 and I really wanted to get on that 10:15 bus. With that, if I wasn’t able to get on, i’d be stuck at the station until my 1:30 bus departed as my brother told me he wasn’t going to make two trips. Screw it… balls to the wall. Let’s try for the 10:15. It is a Wednesday after all. Who’s travelling by bus at this hour mid week? Luckily for me, I decided to pack my things as soon as I got off work, before we set out on the little journey to my cousins. We pull up to the house, I grab my things and we’re off… getting to the station just before 9:45. Perfect. A little time to spare. Or was it??

As I turn the corner to the ticket counter, there was a mother and son that seemed to have some complications. Great. How long is this gonna take? Oohhh about 10 minutes, til someone just came up to me and asked if they could help as the other two were being dealt with. 10 minutes is really not a lot of time when you think about it, but when you’re on a time crunch, it can be stressful. Not to mention, there was a bus loading so I was definitely panicking. Come to find out… all buses are delayed an hour. Without a working computer in front of him, he couldn’t really check to see if there were any seats available on the 10:15 either. Even better.

So finally, after a longer line was forming, the person helping the mother son duo took them to the side so the other guy could help everyone else. After all that was said and done… the 10:15 was full and the next bus out was at noon. Apparently a lot of people travel mid week during that hour. Luckily for me, I booked the 1:30am. Of course, I asked if there was a possibility to get on should anyone not show up or cancel at the very last minute. He said I’d have to ask the driver. Fair enough.

After I talked to the ticket counter guy and the security guy had searched my bags as I passed through the waiting section gates, I went to the driver of the bus that was loading and asked if that was the 1015. Nope, no it wasn’t. Why would it be? Buses are delayed. About 5 minutes later another bus pulled up loading all LA travelers. So I got up to ask again. I explained to the guy at the gate that i was transferring to an Oakland bound bus in LA and asked if this went to Oakland. He said no, but everyone transfers in LA. He looked at me for a sec and said, “I’ll do this for you” and opens the gate. Woohooo!!

So here I am, on the bus to LA, hoping I can get on an earlier bus to Oakland and not have to wait until 6am to board that one. Come oooon Lady Luck. Don’t disappear on me now. (11:29pm)

(2:09am)
And Lady Luck stood by =) Was able to get on the bus that gets me into Oakland at 10am complete with WiFi, outlets and comfortable seats. I won’t even complain about sitting all the way in the back in these non reclining seats next to the restroom. I’ll take it as the more evil karma letting me know that she has an eye on me and to continue on the path that I was intended for.

So, here’s to the journey of conquering my goals without worrying about what others are doing and just concentrating on myself. Oh, and to the event in SF! =) Not to mention, it’s pride weekend, DOMA was defeated and prop 8 was over-turned!! Which also means, more wedding/party photo opportunities =)

Family Portraits

So one day, I decided to put an ad out on Craigslist offering my photography services unsure of what results it would render. Even though I only got one hit, it turned out to be a good idea.

Although lacking in equipment I felt I should have had going into this shoot, the experience left me satisfied. There were definitely notes to improve upon, which I listed in my phone, and am excited to see how things evolve.

Since this was my first time shooting a family that I didn’t know during the sunset hour, being nervous was an understatement; doubting my abilities to deliver photographs they would be satisfied with. The shoot began with the sun really bright, leaving heavy shadows in the angles we started at. Without a reflector, it created a bit of a problem. And I only have the built-in flash, which I forgot to use. But anyway, the sun softened up a bit which helped defuse the dark shadows.

Took a few shots with the sun behind them to create silhouettes, which I like, but I also would have liked their faces to be seen a little more. Perhaps if I used the flash, that would’ve helped out a little bit. My main issue and biggest note to self was definitely the lack of flash usage. As it was getting darker, the sky was great, but the flash would’ve brought them out as well.

Overall, it was a great shoot and definitely know what I need to do for the next one. Certain things are about repetition. The more I do these shoots, the more embedded these actions become.
Looking forward to the next one!

OB Street Fair

Although I would’ve loved to have been at EDC this past weekend, I did get a chance to hang out with my brother and nephew at the OB Street Fair. Drawn to the event for the Chilli Cook-Off and stayed the whole day to enjoy the skateboarding competition, live bands, wall climbing and the search for Wonderland… which we never found. What was only supposed to be a couple of hours, turned into a days worth of shenanigans. Here are a select few pictures from the day. Feel free to critique. Shot with a Canon T1i and 28-300mm lens

Living List

We all have those things we wish we could do, places we want to go, people we want to meet, etc… Some call it a bucket list, to-do list, or whatever else they name this list of things to accomplish. One day I was chatting with a friend and we were talking about this particular subject, but instead of Bucket List she called it Living List. Since then, it has been called just that. So here is my Living List for photography in no particular order!

-Shoot at least two weddings a month
-Travel through photography
-Have my photographs published in top magazines; particularly sports, fashion and National Geographic
-Own a specific building in SF which will include a photography studio
-Publish a book

This is just a start and will be updated regularly along with dates of completion next to each one that has been done. Let’s see how long it takes to accomplish these goals!

I understand that I’ll need to be diligent in pursuing my dreams and am no stranger to putting in work. There’s a saying out there that goes “Always a student” and that is what I believe. Always keep pushing to be better than the day before. Learn all I can. Never take for granted anything that comes my way. And keep doing.

Here’s to Living!

Let’s Get Started!

So here we go. Starting a blog to share this photographer life of mine. A little about me:

It’s always been a dream to shoot for National Geographic, but had yet to make it a career move until just recently when a friend asked if I wanted to do some behind-the-scene shots for a photoshoot he was doing with his youth dance team. After that moment, I immediately bought a camera to pursue a second passion of mine, photography. The first one being dance, but really, they are both first passions. Dance just became something in the forefront when I no longer had a camera.

The last time I owned a camera was in 2004 and had a Canon Rebel 35mm SLR which was acquired in 2000. Between those years, I was also on a dance team and taking amateur photos. Capturing performances and candids. It proved to be a really expensive hobby since I’d easily shoot about 10 rolls of film in a couple of days. And with shows, forget it, that would be 10 rolls in one day. Being a broke artist and student at the time, I just couldn’t afford it. I did however take a black & white photography class in 2000 at San Francisco State University where I was able to learn the process of developing film. Unfortunate for me, I don’t know how to process color film so had to pay to have my film developed since I wanted color prints.

After awhile, I put the camera down and continued on with dance. Although I never became a professional dancer, I managed to help produce a dance show along with producing my own show and also putting together a few dance workshops which eventually lead to opening a dance studio with a few friends. I learned a lot in that time and have once again picked up the camera to pursue photography full-time.

It’s been 3 months since reintroducing myself to the extension of the eye and cannot complain about the progress that I’ve been making in this pursuit. I’ve set my sights on making it a full-time career within the next year.

This blog will be a little insight to the journey of an amateur pursuing the professional photographer life. I welcome all constructive criticism, advice, tips and challenges.

You can visit my website at: http://www.jmulson.com