Hotlanta

My name is Rob, and I enjoy business trips. I spent most of the previous week in Atlanta training for my new adventure as a photographer. It started out as most business trips generally do - right at the brink of catastrophe. I knew I was to be in Atlanta Tuesday morning.  I wasn't sure where, exactly, nor what time I should leave my hotel. That was ok, though. I knew I could wake up early and figure it all out.

How did I prepare for this? By arriving at my hotel at 2:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, of course!

Miraculously, I woke up on time, ate breakfast, showered, and figured out where I needed to be before the time I thought I needed to leave the hotel.

The thing I didn't account for was that Atlanta's traffic is roughly 256,000 times worse than my home town. I showed up 40 minutes late to my very first photo-shoot.

Remember me and my no-parallax-point? Yeah, it's still there. Try as I might to screw things up, I just can't do it.

I didn't know if the guy training me is just as laid-back as I am, or he could tell that I was ready to pull all my hair out about my miscalculation, but my apology was met with:

"Dude, don't worry about it. Atlanta traffic is disgusting. It's gonna happen."

The rest of the day went off without a hitch. I watched him work and filed every word he said away in my brain.

That evening I had a mission. A good friend had recommended that I find The Vortex while I was there in Atlanta. Fortunately, my hotel was no more than 20 minutes away from the

place. I didn't really have any idea what I was in store for, other than, supposedly, the food was good. When I arrived, the front door was a giant skull with swirly eyes.

I knew I was in for an experience, without regard to whatever food I consumed there.

On the inside, the place is your standard watering hole and burger joint.

Now, when I'm dining by myself, I'm generally not the most approachable person in the world. You can usually find me with my face buried in my phone texting, or surfing facebook, or what-have-you.

This place was different. I was seated at the bar perusing the menu with what appeared to be a bunch of regulars.

When the bartender asked if I had any questions about the menu, the only one I had was "What would you recommend?"

To my complete surprise, the entire bar burst into chatter about what I should try.

Being the adventurous type, I listened to one guy in particular, who was not particularly sober.

The two words that caught my attention out of his mostly incoherent recommendation were "Hell's Fury".

The two guys immediately surrounding me very nearly spewed beer out of their noses, as they couldn't try and steer me away from the suggestion quickly enough.

What better time to test my intestinal fortitude than right now?

Challenge accepted.

There were a couple of 'good luck's bandied about when I placed my order. As I waited for my burger there was some idle chit-chat about what the "new guy" was in for, what I was doing in town, where I was from, etc.

Then Hell's Fury arrived.

OH MY GOD THIS WAS THE BEST BURGER I'VE EVER SHOVELED DOWN MY GULLET

It was hot. Damn hot. And damn good. I didn't care if my taste buds were burned into a perpetual state of malfunction, I was gonna finish it.

3 gigantic glasses of water later, the challenge had been defeated.

I hung around for a little while after dinner trying to stop sweating, and gathering information about where else I should visit while I'm in town.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to visit any of the places that I'd been told about. I still had family to visit, and playing with my camera to do.

The following night, trying to get lost in Atlanta I found this apartment building. The red hue of the apartment building really caught my eye. Plus, I'd never really tried to capture a long exposure with traffic entering the frame.

An hour or so later, being sufficiently lost and having a sufficient lack of inspiration, I turned my GPS back on and made my way back to the hotel knowing that tomorrow I'd get to navigate a photo-shoot all by myself, see some folks I consider family, and wander around Piedmont Park trying to capture the Atlanta skyline.

I'd heard about a lake where you can get an amazing view of the skyline from a photographer buddy in town. Much to my chagrin, I found it all but impossible to park within about a mile of the place I needed to be.

Determined not to be set back I found a parking garage on the other side of the park, and proceeded to see what I could discover. What I found was almost as impressive - another smaller pond behind a restaurant with the skyline in the background.

It was a hazy night, producing an almost aurora-like affect from the all the lights downtown.

Satisfied with what I found, I turned in for what was left of the night.

I feel I progressed a lot as a photographer this past week. The on-the-job training was a hoot for nerds like me. I learned a lot. I worked hard. I played even harder. I'm pretty sure this is how life is supposed to be.

Unexpected Happenings

My name is Rob, and my clients are cooler than yours. In my line of work I meet a lot of people. Most of the time those people close the door on me as soon as they realize I'm trying to sell them something. But every once in a while I meet some truly amazing folks. This is the story of such an occasion.

A little while ago I was solicited by a company out of Chicago to create virtual tours for 5 retirement homes across north Alabama. They took all the selling out of the equation. All I had to do was show up and shoot the place.

Sounds simple, but there's a certain sense of uneasiness involved. All I was given was a name and an address. I'd never seen the place, and never met my contact there. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. What happened when I arrived at the location was even more unexpected that I thought.

The first person to greet me happened to be my point of contact there, the executive director, Amy. She had a beaming smile, and seemed really excited about the work we had to do that day.

Seeing as I had never seen the facility before, we started off with a tour. Amy told me all about the place, with brief interruptions to say hi to the staff and ask residents how they were doing. You could tell immediately that everybody was friends here. I was taken to all the standard areas you'd see on a tour - the dining room, activities area, the model room. She was particularly proud of the court yard in the center of the building.

After the tour I wasn't asked if I'd like something to drink, but what I wanted to drink.  It seemed as though I wasn't playing contractor that day. I was already, somehow, part of a family.

It was then I started off to work. I began with still photos of the building - Amy with me the whole time offering to help in any way she could and providing feedback for exactly what they were looking for. She seemed to have a very clear picture in her head of what she wanted. This is a tremendous help to photographers who aren't doing strictly creative work.

The last still shot I took was of a plated meal. Amy asked me directly afterward if I had plans for lunch. Taken aback, I stammered for a second, only to have her all but force a menu upon me. Moments later I was seated in the private dining room, presented with lunch. It was easily an order of magnitude more delicious than anything I would have picked up for myself that day. During the course of my meal no less than three different people came by to greet me, ask how things were going, and if I needed anything.

I didn't. Hell, I would have been happy if someone had offered me a glass of water, much less a 5 star meal.

After stuffing my face, it was time get all the panoramas done. It went off without a hitch. Everything was perfectly placed. I managed to avoid photographing nearly every single soul in the place as well. This is usually a big problem when dealing with a populated area.

As I'm finishing up, I take another walk around the outside of the facility to see if there's anything interesting I may have missed. Just as I'm walking off, Amy calls my name and asks me back to the front entrance.

"This is Jean." She says. "She's a movie-star, and we're gonna need a picture."

I smile and oblige.

Jean, who had just returned from an outing with her sister, was grinning from ear to ear at the opportunity to have her picture taken by a "professional".

Jean has lived at the facility longer than any other resident, and is absolutely adored by the staff and everyone else there. I didn't have much of a chance to speak with her as I had a long drive back Huntsville, but you could tell right off the bat that she had an infectious personality and a wicked sense of humor.

Snapping that picture, with the promise that I'd email it to them was icing on the cake at the end of my work day there.

The following week, I received an a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. It was Amy, just calling to tell me that the shoot had posted already and that they were absolutely tickled with how it turned out. Once again, they had managed to make my day with a simple gesture.

It was a real pleasure having the opportunity to meet and work with all the staff at this particular establishment. It's experiences like these that make me love what I do even more.

The Continuous Life

My name is Rob, and I'm impressed. It's Friday afternoon, and I'm sitting in the park under a tree dumping the contents of my head into my laptop. It's a beautiful day. People are out and about walking dogs and feeding the ducks. It's nice in the shade, with an ever so slight breeze.

It's got me thinking. Everything is fucking amazing. I'm sitting here in a park with a portable computer in my lap. I'm connected to the internet wirelessly through my telephone! The seamless transition from just sitting here enjoying the outdoors to being able to communicate with the whole world through the medium of the internet is astounding.

Now, I won't pretend like I'm one of these people who doesn't have their smartphones on them at all times, because I do. But nearly every time I need to communicate with someone hundreds of miles away, or think of a question I need answered I think to myself  "Oh wait, I've got the entire internet in my pocket!"

I'm still kinda young. I don't really remember what it was like to not have a computer in the house, or being able to connect to other computers to gather information, but that doesn't make it any less impressive.

Life is a whirlwind of new technology and discoveries making everything better, faster, more understandable, more accessible and in more remote locations. From cell phones, to the internet, to planes, trains, and automobiles. What the human race is accomplishing in this world is amazing, and I'm glad to be living in it.