PHOTOBOOTH



Friday I photographed ann+travis.  I love ann+travis.  We spent some great, great time together before their wedding just getting to know each other and planning out their day {ann is a planner like me, love it!} and I hope the feelings of 'i've got new awesome-sauce friends' is mutual... !  And if it's not, um, ann+travis can I be your friend??? :)

However, friday single handedly had the roughest start to any of my wedding days thus far.  That's right, it was my time to take a turn in the you're-going-to-have-a-major-equipment-malfunction department. You see, I offer a photo booth to my clients, it's a laptop+webcam+miniprinter setup that is self running, prints out photo strips and is overall just pretty stink'n fun!  Typically I don't turn on the laptop, 'run' the photo booth if you will, prior to my weddings {like, i.e. whilst doing a gear check at my office before leaving} but the last few weddings that I ran the whole kit-in-kaboodle I did notice some possible fishy business going on with my laptop... 

Long, longgggggggg synopsis of what then proceeded to happen on friday morning coming in 3, 2, 1...
- get up and answer emails, gear check
- can not locate the laptop charger that is required for the photo booth laptop
- 30 minutes of still no locating required charger
- tear the entire house apart searching for required charger
- 1 hour later, find the required charger, happy dance
- decide to test-run the photo booth
- hp laptop I use tells me my password is incorrect although it is not {no really, I'm 100% sure I had it right, no the caps lock wasn't on}
- 20 minutes of attempted login
- panic sets in
- google the laptop issue only to discover this it is somewhat common with hp laptops, that is, the   password denial error
- easy! I'll login under the guest and just re-download the photo booth program I use and re-set-it-up
- fail. this does not work because under the guest account you have to still sign in under the admin to make the download
- more panic sets in
- oh! let's now throw in some personal drama, like a heaping spoonful of it
- it's okay! I'll transfer the whole set up to my macbook and use that!
- just kidding! webcam+miniprinter is not supported by mac
- next best logical option is to just buy a new laptop
- find two stores with a sale on laptops, woohoo!
- call both stores to see if they have the laptops in stock, they do! double woohoo!
- hmmm, new laptops have new windows 8 on them... "hmmm I wonder if my program+webcam+miniprinter is compatible with windows 8"...
- guy at radio shack and staples says, "oh yes, they'll work fine"
- further investigating proves 100% otherwise, and here 'further investigating' means live-chatting the photo booth program/calling logitech/calling cannon and it took a truckload of time
- queue official panic attack of me sitting in a ball on the floor in the middle of my office hyperventilating and bawling
- take a breather and call mom. yes, I said, "call mom".  hey, it helped loads!
- call my assistant miranda voicing my utter disgust that I'm going to have to do a camera-on-the-tripod 'photo booth' {hey, that setup just isn't for me; seems to work great for many others!}
- mir suggests using the mini fuji instax polaroid I've got
- LIGHTBULB
- I call glazers to see if they've got a standard size fuji polaroid+film in stock; they do! I climb through the phone and give the sales guy one of those oh-man-you-just-saved-my-life hugs
- 5 hours of panic later and I've pulled myself together; did my hair and makeup, threw on an all black comfortable outfit, grabbed a banana and headed out the door
- pickup miranda, go to glazers and get cam+film
- arrive at hotel to start shooting...
- hey! realize I am now the proud owner of a standard size fuji polaroid film cam! exciting!
- hey! also realize that for the first time that whole day I am noticing that the weather is AMAZING! clear and sunny!


so there. there you have it. 

... and, that afternoon, after a few hours of shooting with things going off without a hitch, and for that matter after finishing some AMAZINGLY lovely bride/groom photos in volunteer park, I mustered up the boldness to, in a very eloquent way, spill the beans about the change in the photo booth plans for ann+travis.  Thankfully, they graciously accepted the backup plan AND it all went off with a bang!  The photo booth was even MORE of a hit then usual!

So there is that.  I am not denying that my turn on the you're-going-to-have-a-major-equipment-malfunction ride could have been much, much worse... I didn't 'loose' any photos/photodata, didn't have a camera quit 3 seconds before the first kiss, no, nothing like that, but terrible all the same.  To boot, I've been in the maddest of mad dashes prepping for our departure to europe on tuesday.  Yes, this tuesday!  I'm nearly complete in finishing the re-worked schedule of fitting 6 weeks of work into the past 3.  Even though I decided to take on fewer weddings this summer, I found myself deeper then deep in other biz ventures, like the really rad, cool opportunities that you sometimes come across, or rather, get offered, being a wedding photographer... they're so amazing but can be SO time consuming!  Also, I have some other personal dedications including volunteer work that I do each month and let's just say the past few weeks {and I really despise, well, I really hate using this term anymore...} have been quite very, very busy! Wonderful in many ways, but busy nonetheless!  Mix in some very heart wrenching and saddening circumstances and a tablespoon of extra added drama and voila, I'm pretty much feeling like a messy wreck.

The amount of panic and tears that have been had the past couple of weeks has been, wow it's just 'been' let's leave it at that!  Nope, I'm not going to hide any of this and for that matter I'm writing this all now at 12:15am sunday night/monday morning because I can not sleep.  And yes, this came on the night where I'm extra exhausted and was going to go to bed early so I can wake refreshed for the jam packed monday ahead but of course couldn't sleep... ugh.  So there you go!  Here is me sharing my little bit of crazy.  Will anyone read this?  Who knows.  Did writing it all out help?  Sure did!  Do bad things... poopy circumstances if you will, happen to all of us?  Yes!  Does calling your mom always help?  Yes!   Am I so, so thankful that the rest of my friday wedding day turned out splendidly?  YES!  Are the photos phenomenal?  YES!  Did we have some really nice family time celebrating our anniversary at the dinner they had for us this evening?  Yes!  Am I overwhelmed but going to survive?  YES!  For that matter, am I hormonal and is that making everything way worse?  Yes!  Am I already a sensitive person and reacting especially sensitive to things because I'm stressed?  Yes {and so sorry if you're on the receiving end of that; please, please be patient with me}.

Goodness I really do feel so much better writing that all out!  Sorry that it's so verbose.  Ha, surprise!  :)  Thank you to ann+travis again for such an amazing wedding day!  Your celebration and family and friends were just a pleasure to be in company with!  Thank you to miranda for your tidbits of lifesaving on friday!  Thank you to my friends and family for your hugs and kind, kind words the past couple of weeks.  It's truly so meaningful to me that you know me well enough to see I need a little assistance and am too prideful and stubborn or simply overwhelmed to say anything.  Running your own business by yourself can be a real hard challenge at times, and of course, those times always come when you're least expecting it!  OF COURSE!


*snap shot up top of travis with all his guys {+suspenders} as miranda was taking a polaroid of them! grabbed it on my iphone! sidenote: all travis' groomsmen are professional figure skaters. yes, you read that correctly.  best dancing I've ever seen was at this wedding which included a choreographed number to wham!...

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