The Nothing

I up and fell off the frame of the photograph back in May.

I got frustrated, and, well, scared.

I was almost fired because of my photography.

The rundown of what happened:
As you may know, I like photography - I’m particularly fond of reptiles. I’m not going to call myself a good photographer, but I’m learning and am rather proud of some of the images I’ve produced. To help myself learn and grow I created this photo-blog. Its a place for me to talk about the pictures I’ve taken that I’m most proud of. Talk about the equipment I used. That type of thing. On there I also have some photos that I had made available as prints.

Sounds fine right?

Well, a good majority of those pictures where taken at the store with store animals. I had permission to take these pictures. They were used by the store, and I also used them to create a new T-Shirt design for the store.

My boss felt that this was exploitive and took it very seriously and personally. I’m not going to say whether this is right or wrong. This was how he felt and there is nothing that I can say or do to change that. He says he spoke with a few “professional photographers” and an attorney to see if what I had done was legal. Personally I felt that was a bit of a blow as well, but in the end they all claimed that it was a “grey area.”

Instead of being fired, I was give a week of leave with the caveat that if I thought I could go back with better values for the store I could keep my job. If I couldn’t ‘t then I shouldn’t go back.

Needless to say I went home that day and removed all the images.

I pretty much hung up my camera after that. I might have snapped 20 shots in the last few months.

Thanks to Daron for stopping by to check in on me. It meant a lot and sorry I wasn’t able to really talk. I’m sure you could understand why I was kinda secretive that day.

Now I’m hoping to get the camera rolling again. Actually, I HAVE to. I have friends getting married in a couple weeks and they’ve asked me to be their photographer.

They know I’m pretty green, I was upfront with that. I also made sure they knew I’ve never done a wedding before. They’re cool with all of it. They don’t want all the crazy albums and thing like that. Just a few pics that they could pull some prints from for family.

I’m looking forward to renting a 5D and a couple lenses for that day.

Now I’ve gotta get the camera back out, batteries charged, and get some practice in.

And I have to find a new car - totaled mine on friday