Wow, today was a hoppin’ day at f/32! You never know how Saturdays are going to play out around here. It’s funny because I had the privilege of taking my nephew’s Senior pictures this year and have been working with my Sister to get everything printed in time for her to mail out graduation invitations this weekend. This must have been the goal of a lot of other parents in Knoxville as well, because I got to see a LOT of fantastic Senior portraits today as I was printing wallets for several people to go into invitations. I saw lots of great work from Ancelet Photography today! I kept thinking, “Wow, Senior portraits have come a long way in the last 20 years!”. I remember having about 5 proofs to choose from and it was pretty much unheard of to have anyone other than the school photographers take your picture. That is definitely not the case today! And there are many talented photographers in the Knoxville area who can amaze you with their creativity and vision. Need help picking one? Ask someone at f/32 and we’ll be happy to make some recommendations for you based on what you need.
One of the best things about working in this particular avenue of the photography industry is that you get to work with people on so many different levels and with a variety of projects. At one point today, I had someone in the studio for an impromptu “cap and gown” portrait, I was helping someone else finish the design on a graduation invitation, and then we added a third person into the mix who found 70 year old medium format negatives of pictures of him as a baby that he had never seen! He told me that until he happened upon us, he could not find anywhere that could print them. So, myself and the customers who were in working on their graduation announcements, got to see the negatives of his family and a piece of his childhood that he just discovered after his mother passed away. I’m excited to see him see the prints when they are ready. Oh, and did I mention that all of the above happened at the same time? Thankfully everyone was patient since we are minimally staffed on Saturdays:)
As many of you know, we also have a rental program for camera and studio equipment. I got a call this morning from one of our customers who was out of town shooting a sporting event with a rental lens and was having a problem that she needed help working out. After talking through it, we were able to narrow it down to a couple of things (and she learned something new about her camera in the process!). I’m pretty sure we fixed the problem, which most likely turned out to be a camera setting not a lens problem, but we definitely came up with an alternate solution to get her through the event if neither of our scenarios were correct.
But the best part of the day was just getting to interact with and provide a service to some genuinely nice and thoughtful folks. That really is one of my favorite parts of working in this industry. The products that we produce and services that we provide serve to not only preserve precious moments in time and history, but to celebrate them and pass them on to future generations. It is fantastic to be able to show your pictures off on your smartphone (which I also do), but that will never be able to replace the feeling and reality of a print in your hand or a portrait on your wall. No batteries necessary:)
Thankful for everyone whose path I got to cross today!