Final chapter

friday: 2009-12-18

In Marsch 2010 it would have been exactly three years since my party photography career began. During these years I have documented almost 100 evenings, seen personell come and leave, experienced a couple of premises restorations as well as numerous awkward nip slips. My facebook account has been flooded with lots of new friends.
The night club work is probably the most instructively work I have gotten so far. I have learned a lot about people and their behaviors in different situations. I have gotten a deep insight in how people differently practice "The Game" and what techniques they utilize to retrieve a temporary fuck buddy or in some cases a serious long-term relationship.

Now, I have decided to quit this job due to various reasons. I feel that I know this shit now. The same things happens every weekend, and I don't look forward to these saturday nights anymore like I did in the beginning. It has gone from beeing an awesome weekend activity to yet another job. A job forcing me to say no to other events with my friends. It has been an amazingly fun experience and I havn't ever regret taking this job that has affected my life in so many ways - both good and bad, but mostly good.
Well, now it is over and the opportunities will be dedicated to a new talent. Some who sees the parties from another point of view, some who can portrait the night-life with new fresh eyes. Whoever you will be - good luck and make sure to have as much fun as I have had as a professional party photographer. Take care.

"Over and out!" - Klarre

Epic wiedersehen

saturday: 2009-08-29

Two months of waiting, two months of expectations and speculations and two months out of nightclub work.
The door was unlocked, as always, and I put my foot on the doorstep down to the basement where the party use to be. I curiously peeked inside the big hall where the bartenders made their final preparations and the DJ adjusted some settings on his mixer board. The walls were painted in the color of newly fallen arctic snow while the sofas got a tone of mellowed orange peel. I closed the door behind my back and walked down the stairs leading to one of the many sofas. I made myself comfortable in a big one while studying the personnel finishing their work. The guard in charge came in and asked for a status report from the bar keepers. Everyone was done with their respective work whereupon the security guard said something about all being set, in his radio. Seconds later someone answered on the dedicated radio channel with something that must have been some kind of confirmation since hi put down his radio, looked around while he tighten his pants and yelled "People, listen up! You are the ones making this place to the place it is. You are the best! The best there are! So let's keep it this way!". The doors opened up and the big dance floor that seconds ago was totally empty got filled with young people eager to move their hips in time to the music sipping on their drinks. I adjusted my camera to the environment and left my spot in the new sofa. Once again it was Saturday, once again people used me to expose their bodies and happiness and once again I got the feeling of being king - a king ruling the night with passion and happiness with the most important call known to humankind.

Night of cash flashing

saturday: 2009-07-18

I didn't expected any visitors this night by several reasons. First it's summer - all students have left the town, second it's a week before pay period. What I didn't took in account was the very big trot event near the city this weekend. Lot's of winners wanted to spend their won money on beer, wine and Whisky. The luckiest guy I spoke to had won $10.000 - lucky dude.
Due to the type of visitors I didn't captured more than twenty usable pictures, so I didn't uploaded a single one for the first time ever. Some nights are boring - this one sucked, big time...

A new experience

saturday: 2009-06-06

I arrived at work a little bit earlier than usual, cause I had to eat something and bought two cheeseburgers with a medium Fanta at McDonald's on the way. It was some kind of soccer event so there was lots of people at the workplace when I showed up. I went down to the basement to get rid of my outerwear before I joined one of my friends who worked in the wardrobe tonight, to eat my burgers. I finished the last bite a couple of minutes before work began and spent the last minutes with random chatting.

The bar was full with frustrated soccer fans. Our country lost the match, obviously. I walked around the bar when someone suddenly yelled my name. I lost focus on my camera and the images I was browsing through and saw two girls who I've got to know via the job. I spent at least half an hour chatting with them, and I could, cause all the people who were there watching the match had left, so there were no photo targets available for exposure. They also caught the state of the visitor count and decided to move on to another place with hopes of more people. They left the place and I felt that my throat didn't felt that good caused by all loud speaking. Almost immideatly a new familiar face showed up in front of me, and again I spent half an hour chatting, while my throat got more and more ill. We'll see if I can speak at all tomorrow...

Within a specified time period the doors to the disco opens. But not tonight. Too less visitors to motivate such decision, made me walking round and round the bar tenths of times during the night. As far as I can remember this situation haven't ever arised during my carrear. The bad thing with this is lesser space to move around in. The good thing on the other hand is the more personal connection with the guests that emerge.

When my shift finished, and I left the place I could anticipate a sunrise while unlocking my bike from the stand, which is in a pretty bad shape right now. A screw fell off a couple of days ago making the shield on the rear wheel touch the tyre generating a vibrating metal-against-rubber sound. Almost as annoying as the incident with the bus driver who overslept yesterday when I would get back home from a city 30 km away. But that's another story. A story where unrelated people suddenly begins to cooperate, help and support each other. Basic needs bring people together.

Corny and horny

friday: 2009-05-29

Friday nights. The nights when the mature people hits the dance floor dressed in sexy skirts and pumps with a goal of finding a new life partner or just some company during the night. There is obviously a generation clash between the music and the people when you see people jive to Poker Face by Lady Gaga.

The atmosphere these nights are generally very nice and calm. But you have to stay sharp since anything can happen. As I mentioned in earlier posts I am popular by the mature women and this night was not an exception. A lady in her fourties together with her equally aged cousin initiated a conversion with me when I was taking some overview shots. One of the two ladies began to give me some compliments by telling me how I was cute as suger and stuff like that. She caressed me and gave me some kisses on my cheek while she huged me. I'm used to this behavior and there is no problem people gives me hugs and kisses. But this lady took it a step longer and gave me a kiss on my mouth. Well, I wasn't that sure if I wanted to cook breakfast to a lady who could have been my mother, so I left them alone to let them pick up some men in their own age.

The night began very boring and I felt like I wasn't a part of the party. Then, a friend of mine unexpectedly appeared, and everything just turned around. I got a real boost and the night passed by seamlessly.

No flamers

saturday: 2009-05-09

During a dejected day, caused by various unrelated reasons, I was pretty nervous if I was going to deliver any images at all tonight. I was in a bad mood when I entered the party place, and the last thing I wanted was socializing with drunk people. The barkeeper gave me a Red Bull which helped against the hangover I deserved, and sharpened my mind a little bit making me feeling more close to the visitors than alone inside my private sphere which only wanted to reject people. Chatting with new people takes a lot of patience which I felt I didn't had at the moment, so to get myself back on track I went to the wardrobe where I hoped to be cheered up by my working friends. We played a word game I came up with and spend some time just joking around. After a significant part of an hour I entered the dance floor in a good mood, ready to fire my weapon, ready to expose some beauty and fulfill my duty.

Back on track

saturday: 2009-05-02

After a boring day trying to fit my apartment inside thirteen moving boxes I entered the party place in a pretty dispirited mood. Lucky me there are a few workers who knows how to cheer you up. Thank you nice friends of mine.

After a Red Bull and a big glass of ice water I was ready for the hunt of the night. I had a new pick-up method I wanted to pratice this night, and found a target some time before 11 PM. She stood in the bar and had just ordered a cider with a taste of mandarin. I caught her eyes and would initialize my artistery when I suddenly noticed what a nice hairstyle she got. I aborted my plan and instead told her what I thought about her hair. "Pretty hairstyle you got." I told her with a big smile. I didn't thought she would make such a big thing of it. But she got really happy, and surprised, which also made me happy since she knew how to take the compliment. We chatted for a while until I had to continue my job. Still wanted to try that pick-up method though, so I kept looking for other targets. Took me an hour until she stood there in front of me. She was tall with long brown beautiful gleamy hair and a cute smile. I don't remember the first thing we said but at least it was a good introduction to the method I wanted to try. I asked her if she had ever been to the moon. She followed my game immideatly and said that she hadn't and wondered if we would take a trip there together. That was what I was supposed to ask though. The roles changed and she got the one who practiced the art of pick-ups on me instead - that is not a bad thing though, rather the reverse. We kept chatting about pointless stuff for what felt like two minutes, but was rather fifteen. I had to leave her since I do have a job to do, but decided in my mind to ask for her number later on the night.
I walked a non-counted number of laps around the place before I saw her again and sat down next to her at a table in the restaurant section. We kept chatting about more pointless stuff for a while before I had to finalize my shift. I asked her if she dared to change numbers before I left my chair, which was constructed in some kind of red wooden blocks. She said no, since she didn't though that her boyfriend would like that. "Boyfriend?", I thought. I wasn't really prepared for an answer like that but managed to hide my disappointment pretty well, I guess, and made some appreciated jokes instead.
I spoked with a friend of mine about the incident. She thought that only singles should be allowed to enter the place. I agreed to her suggestion and went home with a number count lesser than the distance between two atoms in a diamond molecular structure.

Too big effort

saturday: 2009-04-18

I got a little confused tonight when I arrived to work since the whole place should be open. Not only the big dance floor but the whole place. Usually this only happens the same week as people got their salaries. The boss of the night told be there was some kind of special Facebook event where all Facebook users being members of a special group dedicated to this tavern got free entrance. Too bad this event didn't made it and we had to close the other opened section in the big premises due to too few arrived members. The personell in this closed area went home and the party continued just like a usual Saturday.

It's very individual how easy it is to satisfy a person with a photography of themselves. Some people thinks everything looks great while some others find almost all photos bad. If I split these people into general groups there is one group that is very very hard to shoot. They got demands on how to be shot, what angles and what parts of their bodies that must be hidden and stuff like that. I'm talking about the fat ones. Or actually the fat chicks. Fat boys seems to be more comfortable with their bodies cause they are almost no problem to shoot. The girls on the other hand is tricker. To shoot a fat chick there are some rules I have developed during the past years. There are three major things that is important to take in count during the shot. First you can not include any body parts below the breasts since they won't show their stomach. Next thing is the chin. A photo where the girl has a double-chin will be denied immediately. This is avoided by shooting from a higher location down on the subject. The third thing is the arm. If the arm looks too big the picture will not be confirmed either.
Tonight I got challenge by four fat chicks who wanted to be exposed within the same frame. After thirteen exposures I had finally managed to deliver two pictures they were all happy with. But none of the pictures included all four of them but only two.
And people wonder why there is only beautiful young skinny ladies photographed. Hm, strange...

Third lap around the sun

saturday: 2009-04-11

Tonight was the first photo night on my third year as a professional party photographer, and it went out pretty well. Not that many uploaded pictures, but the quality was high and the objectives beautiful. Well, I guess I should add "at least in most cases", to that last statement.

I would estimate the average age to be twenty-five on a regular Saturday. But there is very often some elderly people there being in their fifties. They are usually pretty eager to change some words with me. Tonight it was a man I've never seen before who spoke to me about his photography experiences from his youth. Well, he said he had a camera when he was younger, but now that hobby has been put aside. To cite the man he said "Well, I photographed a lot when I was younger. Nowadays I only capture the motives from beneath though.". I immediately thought about the scandal from last year, when a man took pictures under the skirts of dancing girls. "No, It wasn't me.", he told me. I felt relieved but got a little bit nonplussed when he added "But I guess I wasn't that much better when I was in this age.". Didn't know what to say, so I left the guy and moved on.
Since it was Easter night the place was opened an hour longer than usual. My spell of work ended the regular time though so I could put on a sweater to cover my work t-shirt and grab a beer before closure. All my buddies who was there partying had already left so I just mingled with the crowd and ran into a couple of girls I use to speak with. The first girl was pretty worried since she had lost her cell phone. She told me to keep en extra eye open for it. I agreed and she continued her search while her friend who was some meters behind showed up in front of me. She wanted to show some kind of appreciation of seeing me by stretching her arms up and make some kind of small jump, or something. But the upper part of her dress fell down which wasn't really her intentions. She laughed and told me that she was lucky that I didn't had my camera with me at the moment.
Two years of party shooting, and only 50 images left until I break the 20 000 images barrier. Big moment, celebrated with cake, coming up.

0.7 workdays a week

saturday: 2009-03-28

For the first time of the 38th time since Mars 28th last year I got no special feelings before this photo night - no special expectations at all. Usually I feel that "this night will be fun" or "this night will suck cause I'm too tired or just not in the right mood". Tonight was different. I just went there, did my work, and went home with no prepartive thoughts whatsoever. Seems like this work has turned to be another routine in my life. Am I finished with this now? Have I mastered another area in my career of life? I guess it's time for me to move on - put the camera on the shelf and stop being jaunty on the dance floor. Stop spending every Saturday nights shooting hot babes and flirt with the cute ones. Stop experimenting with different camera settings. Stop buying lenes for hundreds of bucks and stop testing funny pick-ups on innocent girls. Hey, wait a second! What the hell am I talking about? I can't quit taking photos of people on the disco floor. What was I thinking? It's my duty - my call. People, you, expects to see the jocular camera man - you need me, and I need you. And together, as a team are we making sure we wake up on the day after with expectations of funny exposures making us raise a laughter or simply help us remember what a good time we had. I bet Joseph Nicéphore Niépce would have been proud.

Less girls less everything

saturday: 2009-02-07

In contrast to the last three weeks there was a major part of guys out, which affected my work in a bad way. Girls are the motifs, the ones who like to show off themselves and not the guys. Less motifs less pictures.

There was lots of old people when I arrived tonight - people who aren't that eager to be exposed. So I spent the first hour, more or less, by chatting with one of the croupiers who were sitting by a Black Jack table on the dance floor which hadn't yet opened. I've been talking to her before some times, but haven't got the chance to start a more serious conversation. This time we did and discovered that we had some interests in common - we are both talented musicians, with the piano as main instrument. Always fun to meet musical people.
For some reason I'm very popular among women being in their fifties, and this night wasn't an exception. I got chased by a lady. She wanted to talk to me and hug me all the time making me avoid her, since she wasn't even nice but drunk. I tried to be observant but nevertheless she found me and gave me a hug. She went home pretty early though so I got rid of her and could focus on doing a good job the rest of the night.
There is one thing you shouldn't say if someone asks you if the picture you just took became good. When a person who got photographed askes if the picture became good he or she actually mean "Did I look good?". You, as a photographer, on the other hand sees the picture as a whole though. So if the person on the photo looks very good but the light and surroundings looks crap and you say that the image was bad, the person in the photo will think that you're just a haughty guy and wont come back to you anymore. So never say no - let the model judge.
I clocked off and went to the wardrobe where my clothes was and could hear "The time of your life" from the classical "Dirty Dancing" movie from the late eighties, playing on the dance floor. People sang and screamed in the refrain and seemed to enjoy the last song for the evening. Last song for this night, for this weekend, and the last song before it was time to line up for their outerwear waiting in the wardrobe.

Thank you energy drinks

saturday: 2009-01-24

My fearsome enemy joined me on work this night. The one who can spoil the whole night if you can't get rid of it. I'm talking about mental tiredness. In a work where socialization is a condition for success this is the last thing you want to struggle with. I walked around the place for half an hour and focused on pulling myself together. I chatted with some guests and changed a couple of words with the wardrobe girls. Still tired... I left the pub area and went to one of the not yet opened bars and asked for a Red Bull. The barkeeper gave me one and I poured it in a clean glass and sunk it. It sharpened my mind and some minutes later I was back in business.

It's not that uncommon that in a group of partying friends there is one who don't drink since he or she has to drive. I always assume that everyone is drunk. That makes me feel like I am inside my own sphere where self control and awareness rules - a way for me to build up a self-confidence. When I chat with people and find out that they are as sober as I am it is like they step inside my sphere, building up a special atmosphere where it's about us and they, the drunks. Anyway, I chatted with a driving girl about favorite colors at some point during the work pass. I asked her about her favorite. Before she got the chance to answear I asked her if I may guess. I guessed on black, since she got black clothing - a good guess I thought. I din't got the answear I expected though. Instead of telling me yes or no or the correct answear she explained to me in a physical way that black isn't a color at all and that black cloth absorbe all lights, all colors. I enjoyed being teached about physics by this clever girl - she made me impressed. So teach me more - show your intelligent sides people.

Germ sowing

saturday: 2008-11-22

It's getting pretty tedious writing that "this was the best night ever", so I will skip that this time. But I'll tell you it was awesome :P. People were very nice and friendly. The security guards described the guests as plain stupid though. But thats from their point of view, and they only have to get in touch with the most stupid ones.

I came up with a new approach tonight. I will name it the "Surprise and get caught" approach. The usual way of getting a picture of a person or a group of people is to simply step up to them and say "Hi! May I take a picture?". Most of the times I got a "Sure!" as an answear and sometimes "No thanks, but thanks.". Pretty nice and safe approach, right? Is it funny? No, not at all. The goal with this new approach, the SAGC approach, is to get the guests ask you, if you may take a picture of them - the opposite way. So how to practice this SAGC approach then? It's simple! But first I may say that it only works on the opposite sex since it is some sort of flirting involved. I begin with chosing a target, as usual, and preferably a girl that looks like she got a sense of humor. Not needed though. I catch her eyes and step up to her. Before I say anything at all I say something similar to "Two meters long legs or two meters long arms?". The girl will be nonplussed cause she expected me to ask if I may take a picture of her and her cute friend. She will, in almost all cases, raise a laughter since she got surprised and lost control of the situation and do her best of giving me an answear. When I have been chatting with the girl for a while and tells her that I have to continue my work she will ask me ta take a picture of her and her company. If she doesn't, she will grab my arm minutes later and ask me then. Very effective and funny.

Last Saturday I was there partying together with a friend of mine. I spoke a little with a girl at that time who he also introduced me for. For what I remember we had a pretty nice conversation. But tonight, when I was on the dance floor, leaning against a pillar, and was looking for targets she appeared in front of me. I immediatly reconginzed her so I said hi to her with her name which I remembered from that last evening. But before she replied on that one, she began appologizing for being so not nice last weekend. I told her that I didn't know what she was talking about, cause I couldn't recall that. But she insisted and continued with her appologies. Even though I didn't knew what she apologized for I told her that it was OK by me. She felt relieved and continued to the middle of the dance floor where she began dancing to a remix of Robert Miles' Gold and Platinum certified hit "Children" from 1995.

Haunted by an evil enemy

saturday: 2008-11-08

It's odd, but every time I walk to work I'm getting seized with dread about the forthcoming evening. I almost always feel that I don't want to work and that I should just turn around, get back home to do something else. But I've learned that this feeling just lasts the time it takes to walk to the place, so now I'm just ignoring it.
Saying hi to the entrance guards, walks though the door and makes some jokes with the wardrobe girls - anxiety gone and the night can begin.

The most important thing when constantly socializing with new people, is to keep up the courage. The courage works like a camp fire - you have to constantly feed it with fuel. Otherwise it will die and becoming difficult to light up again. The courage needs to be fed with chats and flirts before it goes away. The longer time it takes between fueling the harder it gets to keep it up. This night I never reached a sufficient level of fuel and got a hard time completing my task. And the reason? The biggest enemy of them all - the lack of sleep. I was dog-tired and abused the power of dextrosol which didn't seem to work at all. Anyway - I got my pictures in time, left the place, went by the local Baguette baker to get some food and went home. I ate the baguette while listening to my newly discovered talent Johanna Kurkela - good stuff.

Thai boobs and Rock'n'roll

friday: 2008-10-31

Friday nights are almost never really fun at work. And this one was not an exception. A bonus with Fridays though are the events. Usually there is a troubadour or a smaller band there, using playback music to fulfill their loss of musicians, to entertain the guests. This night there were a more famous and known rock band there playing on the big temporarily constructed scene. They played their own rock songs from their last album mixed with Judas Priest, Guns'n'Roses, AC/DC and Iron Maiden covers. They performed pretty well I must say, and the guests seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.

Almost every Friday night there is a gang of Asian chicks visiting the place. They are always eager to be photographed and everytime they sees me they want me to take some pictures of them when they do some sexy poses - at least they thinks they are sexy. ;) Anyway, sometime after midnight when I was on my way from the basement dance floor to the upper bar via the stairs I saw something suspicious in the corner of my eye and looked over my right shoulder where I saw one of those Asian chicks leaning over a rail a couple of meters away. The straps on her top had slide down to her elbows and it seemed like she could have drop it any second. I continued to the top of the stairs and again turned to the right to see if she had noticed her falling dress yet. But to my surprise she had took it off. She stood there smiling at someone below the rail, on which she was leaning against, who I couldn't see and stroke and squeezed her boobs in a teasing way. At first I got stunned. But with my camera hanging in my right hand pointing in her direction my first thoughts were if I should take a picture of her or not. My mind told me not to, while my trigger finger wanted the opposite. And within just a fraction of a second my index finger decided to make its own decision without my opinion about if it was sensible or not and pressed the shutter button. "Oh shit, what am I doing" I thought while I felt a small vibration in the camera from the auto-focus engine which worked hard to prepare the camera for the shot. And before the camera got the girl in focus my mind had catch up on my muscles and told my finger to release the button whereupon no picture were taken. I'm happy for that. Could have been a pretty awkward situation if I had got caught on that one, hehe! :P

The ultimate weapon of bitch shield elimination

saturday: 2008-10-25

It's been over a month since I worked on a saturday. I was really exited the whole week and looked forward to yet another party night to meet friends and new people to share experiences and jokes with. Even though I took almost twice as many pictures as I usually do, this night went in the sign of flirting and reunions. A regular night I chat, more or less, with at least hundred girls. Even though ninety per cent of these chats are just short sentences and comments on the photos, I got lot of opportunities to try out different kinds of pick up methods. Tonight I met a very beautiful and nice girl. At first I didn't spoke that much to her but more with her friend, while we only kept eye contact with each other. After some chatting with both of them they decided to hit the dance floor, so I left them alone while they shaked to some kind of less good R'n'B song I hadn't heard before. I walked around the place for some minutes, shooting some random guests, while thinking about how to get her number. For the purpose of fun I came up with an idea that I decided to practise on her. I head back to the place on the dance floor where I last saw them. They were still there so I called for her attention. "Hello again! Wanna see something beautiful?", I asked the girl who responded with a combination of an oral "Sure!" and a smile. I grabbed her right hand and told her to come with me. I took her to a place a stair up where you can see the whole dance floor - the same spot as I in an earlier post related to as "a real vista" :P. We stood next to each other leaning against the rail and looked out over the active dance floor. I asked her if she was imaginative. She told me she was, and I continued to tell her, with a twinkle in my eye, that I used to come back to this spot and imagine that I was standing on the stem of a boat. I put my arm around her neck, and with great empathy I told her to imagine the dancing people as big ocean waves and the disco ball as the sun on its way to set behind the far horizon. I asked her if she could see it, and she played along with me and seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. She told me she was an artist, which made her even more interesting in my eyes. Creative people are intelligent and talented ones who makes deep impressions on me. And me, like almost everyone else, likes being impressed on. We kept chatting about a lot of art stuff when it came to my mind that I got a job to do, so I told her that I had to continue and asked for her number. Then my luck suddenly turned around. She wouldn't give me her number because she already had a date. Oh crap, I though for myself, while I responded understanding and moved on.

It happened a lot of things this night I won't write about. But I can tell you that this night was one of the funniest ones ever. And to summarize it, I havn't ever made that many exposures, havn't made that many closes and havn't been reject that many times before. A night stuffed with events. A night full of wisdom and yet another night full of rich experiences together with my bitch shield eliminator - my powerful sword, a.k.a my camera.

May I date your grandma?

friday: 2008-10-03

More drunk, more disagreeable and more haughty. That describes the guests who I photographed this night. The difference compared to other nights? They were older.

It was a long night. It was some kind of special event since it has been ten years since the place began with something that I'm not sure of, so my shift started two hours earlier than usual. The night began with a stand-up comedian who I got the time and opportunity to listen to. Hilarious guy I must say, and to all appearances the audience wouldn't disagree. He talked about his party memories from when he was in his twenties and how the way of meeting new people have changed with the origin of the Internet. Great show! When he was done with his act the personnel prepared the dance floor by removing all seats and then opened up for a regular disco.
The people were pretty boring and just acted drunk and stupid, so I don't got anything special to write about more than I got hit on by a lady who could have been your grandma - very uncomfortable. A new experience though! :P

Party for the win

saturday: 2008-09-20

Awesome night I must say! Lots of happy people have finally realized where and how to best spend their saturday nights. My new camera lens did a good work, again, and I'm very pleased with it - good colors and crisp quality!
It's fun to see how peoples attiude of cameras differ. Some people are eager to always be infront of the lens while some comes up with different kinds of threats. Tonight I took a picture of a father and his son who were out grabbing a beer and catching up. The father thought it was a great idea with party photographers and wanted to give me a bank-note, which I denied. He was a nice guy and I spend some minutes to chat about muscle cars, which I by the way don't know anything about. But that doesn't matter when you're talking with a knowledgeable person who is eager to tell you about the stuff.
When I arrived at the place this evening there was a group of girls sitting by a table drinking wine while scanning the bar for potential partners. I stood near a column some meters away from their place and enjoyed the troubadour who played known songs from all times which people seemed to like. Suddenly I felt an odd smell. I looked around to see if someone has lighted up a joint or something similar. Couldn't see anything and I also couldn't stand the smell, so I left my position and walked around the place for a while. Talked with some random people, said hi to the wardrobe staff and flirted with some pretty ladies who enjoyed the band. I saw how the other girls were still sitting there in their couches with their wine glasses filled with some sort of rosé wine. I walked up to them and found out pretty soon that these girls were all boring and probably just wanted me to be gone. Even though I understood that they will never be exposed I asked the girl next to me if she wanted to be photographed together with her friends. She said no with a strong voice and told me that she would sue the place since her hair took fire in one of the many candles scattered around the place. Ah, thats where the smell came from, I thought and couldn't resist to playfully tease her for her inattentiveness. Couldn't see if she enjoyed it or if she just got annoyed, so I left them alone in their circle of boringness and head towards the dance floor which were now open and available.
The dance floor were populated with people, the music were loud and I felt how a smile arose on my face and my dance muscles simply couldn't relax, when I slowly walked across the hot floor with my camera - Saturday nights for the win, let the party begin.

New favorite

friday: 2008-09-19

I bought myself a new lens this week which I tried out tonight. Since the spring I have been using a wide angle lens at 10-22 mm which have been pretty good. But there has also been a lot of photos where people on the sides of the photos looks stretched due to the wide field of view. I spend this months salary on a 17-55 mm, f2.8 lens from Canon to be able to enhance my photographies and take better pictures. And I must say that the photos are now looking pretty good. I used f3.2 and 1/4 s at ISO-400 with the white balance set to shade. I also set the flash to +2/3 in the camera to make it a little bit brighter. These settings worked great for this environment.

This party was not a regular one - it was a teen party with guests somewhere between 16 and 19 years old. It's a whole different experience to work with these youngsters compared to the ones around 25 that I usually shoot. The "old" ones are just stupied - but the youngsters are in sane. It happened one thing that could have ended really bad if Mr. Murphy hadn't accept any exceptions. The DJ began to play one of those popular R'n'B hits girls like to shake their asses to. Two girls though it would be fun to get some attention when they danced and jumped up on a one and a half meter high round table located on the dance floor. The tables are just like forty centimeters wide and too small for two persons to dance on. When they both where up on this tiny table they gave each other a big hug whereupon they lost their balance and fell towards the ground. I saw it all happened and one of the girls landed on her back with the other girl upon her. Luckily they both raised and looked pretty surprised while making sure they didn't broke anything. They spoke to each other and it seemed like they complained over some minor pains on their bodies. But since they seemed to be all right I didn't mind to care.
Even though it's fun to photograph these young people I'm more looking forward to expose the older ones tomorrow night - they are generally not that haughty which young people oftens tends to be. ;P

Fall is coming

friday: 2008-09-12

I grabbed a Whisky glass from the cupboard and placed it to the left near my keyboard. Opened up a 15 years old Dahlwhinnie, which I got as a birthday gift from some good friends last year, and poured it in the glass. I reattached the cork on the Whisky bottle and put it back on its storage location on top of a bookcase filled with a mixed kind of books. Went back to the computer and reached for the glass when I heard the "New SMS" tone from my phone. I picked it up and read the SMS. It said: "I'm felling pretty tired tonight. Wanna work? :)". I put my Whisky glass aside and answeared the SMS with a "Sure, I'll do it!".

I had no expectations for this night, which once again beat the record in low visitor count. This was the first night ever I've went home earlier than the regular time because of too few guests. I uploaded a total of twenty photos and spend the most of the time chatting with the wardrobe personnel and the Black Jack croupiers. Even though that was entertaining the evening was pretty boring. I hope this loss of visitors will end soon and turn the place into the place its meant to be - a place filled with lots of people with enjoyment on their mind, ready to contribute to an enjoyable fall filled with happiness and laughter! :)

Slippery...

saturday: 2008-09-06

The lure of the party place wasn't that big tonight. There has been very few visitors the last times so I wasn't expecting that many this night either. It did came more people than I thought, but still don't as many as there should have been. But I guess the count will increase in the near future when the new-coming students have find the place. Anyway, it was a pretty boring night, even though it did happened some funny things worth mention.

The city where I work, and live, is a small one with fifty thousands inhabitants. It's not unusual you meet people on the dance floor you have seen many times before - the girl from the grocery store the chick from the nearby gas station or someone else from another arbitrary workplace. Tonight I saw a girl who's face was very familiar to me, but I couldn't find out where I have seen her before. I couldn't stop thinking about where I've seen her, and couldn't connect her to anything. It's like when you're thinking about a name of something you so well know but can't recall - very frustrating. I couldn't get her face disappear from my brain and I was trying really hard to figure out who she was. After an hour or so I remembered where I've seen that face before - I hadn't, but she was just much alike an actress from a movie I've seen. An X-classified one. :P
Another thing that happened is one of the most special occasions I've experienced during my career as a party photographer. On one side of the premises there is a door leading to an outside area with some tables and chairs where people can smoke, drink and chat with each other. Since it's getting pretty hot on the dance floor I usually visits this area to cool myself down a little bit. And so I did tonight. Had no clue that I was going to experience a nipslip though. An attractive woman was sitting there by a table with her dress a little bit too off. The half areola was publicly exposed without her awareness, I think. I'm not sure since she was chatting with her friend (?) who was sitting next to her who couldn't have missed it. I almost suspects she slipped on purpose to get some attention, or something. How should I know?

The way it is

saturday: 2008-08-09

I love my job. But who wouldn't love a work where you implicitly get paid for flirting? And who wouldn't love a job where beautiful women poses in front of you eager to share their phone numbers without you even asking? Party photography is great. Except for these new ear plugs I have to wear - fucking killing my ears...

The photo capturing frequency is pretty low in the beginning of the evening and increases exponentially to some time around 12 o'clock. Usually this means that I can take some time sitting down making conversation with the guests for a while. Most of the times it's fun and rewarding. Unfortunately it wasn't this time. I spend time listening to a woman in her thirties about her life and experiences, which sadly was pretty uninteresting. She told me everything; what she did after high school, how she met her husband, what she and her friends talked about at the tavern last week, about her firstborn child, her house, her garden, her favorite actor, the color of her shoelaces, and you get the point. She could have go on forever. I'm a pretty nice guy and got patience with people. That is a basic condition for any job where you interact with other people. I realized that this lady would never stop so I had to interrupted her and told her that I had to get back to work and therefor couldn't chat with her anymore. She understood and left me alone. Some laps, around the centered bar located on the top floor, later I saw a girl standing there all by herself near the tiny dance floor. She looked pretty pissed and probably didn't wanted to be spoken with. I don't like seeing party poopers on the dance floor, so I made up a quest, which was to just cheer her up a little bit, and transformed myself into prince charming while walking towards her. Stopped next to her and got her attention. I asked her if she wanted to play a game. She smiled at me and accepted my invitation. She wasn't pissed. She just had that kind of drab face making you look sad when you are relaxed. Well, my mission was over sooner than I thought. Prepared for a tough task but ended up with a simple one. Anyway, I played the game with her, which I lost, took a picture of her and her boyfriend who showed up after a while, and continued to find more victims. On my way down to the big dance floor I got eye contact with the threatening bitch who told me she would crush me (wrote about her in an earlier post this year). She really must hate me cause she gave me one of those cold looks making you shiver with discomfort. Funny fellow creature. When I entered the big dance floor I walked passed the whole dancing area and up one stair to a bar from where you can see the whole dance floor. The place where people comes for scouting. Exaggerated a real vista. I saw a guy sitting on a rail with his feet dangling above the dance floor. To all appearances he was pretty drunk, and would probably not have chosen this temporary seat if he wasn't. Just when I was on my way to continue my walk I saw how he lost his balance sitting there on the rail and fell backwards. Both his legs swung upwards in a big elliptical course while his back was going for the floor beneath him. He struggled for balance recovery but failed and landed with a bam, and looked pretty surprised laying there with nearby dancers looking at the jerk he must have been. He didn't hurt himself but was lying there for a couple of seconds before he got up and brushed the dirt from his back. He joined his friends on the safe dance floor and left the evil rail behind. The walk home was like it always is; cops trying to calm down the streets by collecting hooligans, people queuing for expensive pizza slices, guys bragging about their achievements, girls crying for being dumped or cheated on, people throwing up while waiting for the bus home. Just the way it always is. Just the way it has always been and just the way it will always be.

Sad or what...

saturday: 2008-07-26

I was really looking forward to this night. It felt like I hadn't been working for a long time, so I really wanted to make some good exposures. Too bad this night ended up being the less visited evening of all time. Or at least the less visited evening during the past seven years. All my expectations died early and I became really pissed. Lucky me a special guest showed up and cheered me up so I could complete my work with a good result.

Some nights, now and then, there is a fashion company who comes to the party place to show their latest underwear to the audience, consisting of exclusively party visitors and staff. Two girls and two boys are walking on an improvised catwalk back and forth to show their underwear. The reason why people are watching the show is not to see some cute bikinis and fancy shorts though. It's of course to get a look of the models' six-packs and chubby boobs. A guy who wasn't that much shy stood as close as possible to the catwalkers throwing money at the girls. To his disappointment they ignored him and step on his not-so-well-spent notes. Either this guy was a rich bastard who doesn't have to care about money at all or he just felt that it was a good idea to throw cash on the floor in front of attractive women with the hope of getting some attention. He wasted like hundred bucks on the show. And later I saw him a couple of times waving with a bill, worth $150 corresponding to the local currency, in front of some arbitrary girls. I heard from a chick that he was offering this amount of cash to get a look of their boobs. Poor guy...
By the way - is it okay to make out at work? I'm indecisive.

Determination

saturday: 2008-07-05

This night started out pretty tranquil with few visitors who hadn't yet come in the right mood to feel comfortable being photographed. I walked around the bar, located in the middle of the premises, a couple of times with the camera in my right hand and a glass of lukewarm fresh water in the left one, and became pretty bored due to the calm atmosphere surrounding the place. I decided to cheer the place up a little, and sat down by a table with three girls in the ages somewhere between twenty one and twenty six. They were all pretty nice and we kept telling jokes and chatted about unimportant stuff for almost half an hour, while more people entered the place, and while more people were finishing their second or third beers to finally achieve enough courage to enter the dance floor with high hopes about finding an attractive dance partner.

The night ended up to be one of those funny nights where all people are happy and nice! I can't remember that I got even a single "No thanks!" when asking for a photo this night. Well, there was one girl there, who usually is there now and then, who always runs away when she sees me raising my camera to prepare for a shot in her direction. This kind of people, like her, are pretty entertaining though. They become a challenge for me - a challenge of discreet persuasion. The rules, or rule since there is only one, is to get the victim to request a picture on their own. Sounds like it's just to nag them long enough to finally get them to give up, right? That might work, but is no fun and you will probably fall out with sby and cause a dismal atmosphere which isn't that much proper on a party. It is better to do it the more clean way by chatting with them about anything that haven't with any photo related stuff to do. After a couple of minutes they almost always changes their minds and asks when you're going to take that shot you were recently requesting. That is pretty funny! :)
That running girl though - she is a hopeless case. She have made up her mind and stays with it. But one day... One day she will also be exposed as everyone else being in my vicinity. I promise.

Picture of disclosure

saturday: 2008-06-07

It almost happened again - a girl showing off boobs. Not her own but her friends. There must be something with that spot since it was on the same location as the last time a similar action took place. This time it was a group of three girls and a boy who wanted me to photograph them. When people are going to pose in front of a camera they will, of course, fix themselves up a little bit to look good - to make sure the hair is laying perfect and the dress is not being creased. The right-most girl in the group had some trouble with her dress which made it take a little longer for her to finish her preparations for the shot. One of the two female friends of her saw her picking at her dress and got the idea to pull it down to expose her breasts, as a prank. They were both pretty drunk so with a less convenient method of the "Expose-my-best-friends-boobs-for-the-photographer" action she failed due to fumbling and being generally clumsy. They laughed for a while, made some sexy poses, and finally got their picture. They thanked me and let me continue my work.

Sometimes it happens that people that shouldn't (from one point-of-view) be photographed got photographed. This night I shot a guy who were together with the "wrong" girl. The "right" girl was at home, I got explained for me later by a friend of the photographed guy. A couple of minutes after I had taken the picture this friend came to me and asked for a favor. He wanted me to e-mail the picture I recently took of the couple. He wanted to use it for blackmailing, he told me. I told him that I usually don't do this kind of favors whereupon he offered my 15 dollars (corresponding to the local currency). The exposed guy had already given me the permission to publish the picture, so what the hell I thought and made a deal with him. I got the money and his e-mail address hand-written on a receipt from the bar on which I also made a note about what picture I should send to him.
It was a great night and I left the place two minutes past two o'clock to meet up with some friends at a nearby McDonald's. I wasn't hungry at that time so I chatted with them while they finished their food they had already gotten when I arrived. We sat down for like twenty minutes and made some jokes and discussed the night. Before we went home we decided to meet up the next day for some bathing and relaxing by a lake a couple of miles outside the city.
When I came home I was pretty tired, but decided to send that picture I sold to the guy I met. I booted up the computer and copied the high resolution version of the image to my party images folder on my hard-drive which I have specifically created for party images. I wrote the e-mail, attached the image and was about to enter his address when I realized I couldn't find the piece of paper he wrote it on. I was sure I had emptied all my pockets just some minutes ago, but went through them once again to see if I had left the paper piece in anyone of them. It wasn't there. I went through my bag but with no result. I checked my pants a second time as I also did with my bag, but couldn't find it anywhere. I must say I felt pretty bad sitting there with the money and the picture but no address to send this e-mail I had written to. Working with drunks is pretty psychologically tough and you have to stay nice and happy all the time whatever happens and be able to take everything with a pinch of salt. To stay focused the whole night I sometimes eats some Dextrosol. It keeps the sugar level high and keeps you concentrated on the work. So when I was sitting there by my computer without the e-mail address I remembered that I had thrown away the paper waste from the Dextrosol package when I came home. I went through the garbage bin and found the piece of paper with the address on. My guilty conscience fled away when I sent the e-mail whereupon I crashed in my bed, satisfied with the day, looking forward to the events of tomorrow.

Struggle for perfection

saturday: 2008-05-24

This post will be pretty techy and filled with photo technology related terms. But I felt it was necessary to cover this area since it's a photographers blog that covers the experiences of a party photographer, which is not only about mingle and shoot people but also shooting good-looking and interesting pictures. In fact party photography is one of the most discussed "art"-forms on various photo forums since you shoot under very different circumstances making it tricky to find the perfect camera settings for each environment. But first I will do a short follow-up on the "Will flirt for food" post I added a couple of weeks ago. Well, the answer is no - I didn't got any free burgers. The problem was that I didn't recognized anyone at the restaurant, and they didn't seem to recognize me either, as I expected. ;) Girls and their make-up...

This evening was pretty boring. People were home watching the Eurovision song contest making it pretty calm for me. Since nothing special happened, I will take the opportunity to write about the photo technique I'm using. The last months I have been shooting using small aperture values (f3.5), short shutter speed (1/13), ISO 800 and with the flash set to use TTL. With these settings the images are getting sharp and you can see the pores in the face of the exposed people. A result worth striving for, right? The problem using this short shutter speed and sensitive sensor makes the contrast between the foreground and background objectives big. The people in the foreground are lit up while the background with the dance floor and dancing guests is almost totally black or very dark. In a certain sense this might be OK since it's the people in the foreground that is the main part of the image and should gain the inspectors focus. It's not that good-looking though and the party atmosphere got lost when the dance floor in the background is missing. So, how do I solve this issue? To light up the background there are two ways. The first one is to raise the ISO setting to a higher value. But 800 is already pretty high, and changing from 800 to 1600 will make the images grained even in low resolution and is therefor not a good option in this case. The other way is to simply make the shutter speed longer to make the background appear lighter. But another problem arises when changing the shutter speed this way. Not only the background will be exposed longer but also the foreground, making the people blurred. We must make the image sensor less sensitive to light to avoid the foreground being affected by light more than before by changing the ISO value from 800 to 400 or 200. To make it even less sensitive we can use a bigger aperture value like f8.0, which also is the most optimal aperture value on most lenses. By setting the shutter speed somewhere between half a second (0"5) and a second (1"0) the result will be sharp people in the foreground and a clearly visible background making the party atmosphere being a part of the image and not lost in the void. Using that long shutter speeds will make you hate those fucking strobes though. But that's another story I might cover in a future post.

Will flirt for food

saturday: 2008-05-10

Today was the hottest day of the year, so far. This resulted in lots of parties, lots of barbecues and lots of beer which ended up with lots of people who wanted to express their summer feelings on the dance floor. I estimated the dance floor temperature to at least 35 degree Celsius, and I felt how the sweat from my forehead poured down my cheeks while walking around the place filled with girls wearing miniskirts and tiny tops drinking Margaritas varying with water every second order to cool themselves down.

For a couple of weeks ago there were a group of people visiting that I hadn't seen before. Or probably I just didn't remember their appearance. They told me they were out partying together since they have all been employed to run a new hamburger restaurant here in the town. They wanted to get to know each other and create a good working team. Therefor they decided to go out for dinner, drinking some beers and just having a good time together. Tonight they showed up once again to do the same thing; drinking some beers, shake their asses and socialize with each other and other guests. And of course being exposed on the Internet in the photo medium form. We happened to meet each other on the dance floor and greeted each other with friendly hugs since we made acquaintance last time we met. It was pretty late on the night and I was actually on my way to leave the floor to finalize my work by uploading the new photos to the website. But with nice people I'm always willing to spend some extra time, and after some playful chatting with the two female bosses I was offered to always get free burgers whenever I came by to visit them in their new restaurant. I told them I liked the idea and they began to tell me about their next week schedule so I could show up when they were on duty.
So, the forthcoming week there will be hamburger for dinner. I'm looking forward to see how well they keep their promises. But with their happiness and beer consumption in mind I'm feeling slightly uncertain they even remember our conversation. ;)

Unsure of oneself?

sunday: 2008-04-27

It's fascinating how ethanol mixed with some fancy flavored water (also known as liquor) can totally flip a humans personality.
I worked Friday night this weekend and got the Saturday off duty. So I took the opportunity to enjoy the dance floor as a guest this Saturday. The Friday was totally event less with no extra ordinary happenings. People went home early and left me out of work the last hour. So with lack of funny stuff to write about I am going tell you about how people react when I meet them outside the party place instead. Actually I almost never meet people I photographed anywhere else than on the dance floor. Or maybe I simply don't recognize them not being dressed-up with fixed hair and makeup. This day though, when I and a friend of mine was on our way to another friend of ours we met two people, on different occasions, who I have photographed many times. That kind of girls who you never have to ask. They ask you to photograph them before you got the chance to say anything. The first girl we met was in the elevator in the same house as I live in. After standing by the elevator doors waiting for half a minute the doors opened in front of us, and we were supposed to enter. When there are folks in an elevator you are going to use, the first thing you do is to get some eye contact with them to see if you know them or just to simply say hi. The same thing applies to the ones already being in the elevator. There were two people in this one - one boy and his girlfriend, I guess. First I got eye contact with the girl and we immediately recognized each other since I have photographed and chatted with her many times. But instead of giving me a friendly hello she quickly turned around and began starring on the boy's jacket. Have I really been that unpleasant to deserve that? Weird situation and even more weird behavior... The second meeting took place on the pavement on the way to the friend we were heading. After we had passed the last of the many restaurants located on the street we were walking on we saw a bunch of dressed-up girls with liquor bags walking in the opposite direction on the same pavement as we were on. When they were a couple of meters in front of us, before we passed each other, one of the girls recognized me and quickly looked away in another direction where there must have been something very interesting, since she were really focused on looking in that direction. Too bad I couldn't see it though.
Well, I am happy that most people aren't acting like this but are nice and socially skilled.

Boob squad invation

saturday: 2008-04-19

Are you a girl? Are you blond? Have you gotten a boob job to gain at least a D cup? If you answered yes on all these questions, well congratulations - you're qualified to join the Boob squad! Tonight they infiltrated the dance floor once again to hypnotize that kind of men who finds these lumps of silicon attractive.

It is funny to see how some people are terrified of photographers. In the same moment as they see your camera they run away and hide as if it was some kind of lethal injection you were going to expose them with. This night began by me, being threaten by a bitch who said she would harm me if she found herself being exposed this night. The whole thing began by a girl, sitting together with her friends drinking some cider, who drew my attention to their table. I walked towards her and her friends and said hello in a friendly manner, as I always do. The girl (or relative to the other guests this night, an old lady) pointed at one of her three friends and told me to specifically photograph her. I turned to the girl she pointed at while this triggered some kind of phobia reaction on the identified friend who quickly raised from her chair and starred at me with eyes angrier than anything else I have ever seen. With a loud voice she told me that if I took a picture of her this night she would begin by crushing my camera, then continue by crushing me, whereupon she made a weird grimace and squeezed her chin between her right hand fingers which turned white. When she finished I gave her some seconds to show me a smile to prove that her statement was simply a funny joke and that she now was going to make a nice pose for me instead. The smile didn't came and I was pretty surprised that she really meant what she just said. If I photographed her she would crush me. Luckily I am not that kind of person who cares about these kinds of stupid statements and just lost my respect for her. Rowdy as I can be when I got tantalizing opportunities I smiled at the girl who called for me in the beginning and jestfully told her, so the mad girl could here me, that mistakes can happen and that I couldn't help if her friend would show up on some of all pictures. We laughed at my statement whereupon the mad girl got even more angrier and told me that she had warned me. I said "See you" to the girls and left them alone. In the buzzy premises I could hear from behind how the angry girl told her friends that she had warned me whereupon I smiled for myself and walked towards the dance floor to shoot some beautiful chicks instead of care about a bitchy forty plus hag who I wouldn't ever even have noticed in the first place if it hasn't been for her friend.
When I entered the dance floor I met a line of some guys drooling on their shirts while looking at the Boob squad members rubbing their packages against each other. I sighed, adjusted the camera settings for this dance floor environment, and took some nice pictures of the grocery girl I weekly buy fruits from who was dancing next to me.

Pouring beer

saturday: 2008-04-12

Running security guards and ambulance personnel carrying a stretcher. This sight met me some time around one o'clock this night when I was walking from the basement dance floor up to the bar on the second floor. The party atmosphere was gone and the guests mood had turned into a more serious state where room for laughs and happiness weren't available anymore. I realized Murphy must have joined the party once again but wished I was wrong. A girl saw one of her male friends standing on the first upper step in one of the many stairs available in the big place where I shoot. Her intention was to show him how happy she was to see him by giving him a huge friendly hug by jumping up in his arms, whereupon the male friend lost his balance and couldn't recover it on the tiny step he was standing on. Both friends fell down the stairs where the girl who landed first got her male friend right upon her. According to the ambulance personnel she suffered with pain in the whole spine and was carried out wearing a headrest.

I have got to learn that there is more than one way to use a beer. The most common way after you have been waiting in the bar for fifteen minutes struggling with getting some attention from the bar guy is to keep it in your hand until you have drunk it up. Another popular area of use is to intentionally pour it over someone. Several times I have seen bitches sacrifice variable big parts of their beers by "accidentally" spill it out over another person they for some reason don't like and end it with an "Oops!" and a big smile, and walking away with a nasty satisfied face. A variation of this event happened tonight. For the first time in my party photography career I met a girl who were more interested in the lens attached to my camera than being portraited. So while I was trying to shoot her two friends she kept babbling about all cameras and lenses she has owned during the past years, and how much she preferred one camera model in front of another and so on. I can't tell that I was paying that much attention too her since I was busy taking pictures of her two posing friends. But when they were satisfied with the small photo session I gave them they left us alone and I began argue with the camera girl about different camera models and why having one in front of another and stuff like that. In the middle of our, for me less profitable discussion, regarding which model that fits best into your handbag we were interrupted by a so called friend of her who for some reason bumped on her back causing the content of her newly opened beer bottle falling like a cascade over her. That was not his intention though, but her top got totally drowned in beer which couldn't be that nice. She waited a couple of seconds until she turned around and furiously shook and poured the rest of the beer over him. With all the airborne beer liquid and my photo equipment in mind I left the chaotic bar and walked down to the dance floor where I ended the night by dancing to Sandstorm by Darude together with a girl who could have been the sister of Scarlett Johansson.

Sulky expressions

saturday: 2008-04-05

A couple of years ago there was a new law introduced in this country making it illegal to smoke in public indoor areas. This led to discussions regarding all smells that wouldn't be vanished by the cigarette smoke anymore. Before I went to work this night I saw a part of a program where they spoke about some kind of anti-smell machines they developed back then. They never got that much attention though.

This night was nothing special. Some people were happy and kept dancing until their legs protested while some were tired and sat bored in a sofa some place starring on a half-empty Staropramen with wry faces. By walking around the dance floor you can most of the times pretty easily tell if the persons you see wishes to be photographed by just getting some eye contact. Often this is enough and they will immediately grasp what you want and begin posing. This kind of people are they who always are out dancing and flirting and knows how things work. With those who rarely are out partying you should ask for permission and tell them who you are and why you are running around with a camera. If it's a girl, you will almost always get a yes. And if you don't they usually changes their minds after some minutes of chatting. If you ask a boy he will pretty often tell you to rather shoot some pictures on the cute girl two tables away instead, or tell me to come back when he is the one sitting next to her. This time I made a mistake asking a sulky girl on the dance floor if she wanted to be photographed. I didn't realised how mad she was until I've asked her, and saw how strenuous she thought it was. But at least she decided to take part and help me doing my job. So with her angry voice she turned to her two dancing friends and grabbed their arms and told them to join her on the picture. It seemed to me they got no choices, cause she yelled at them like a newly promoted sergeant, telling them how to stand and look. I gave them a couple of seconds, while adjusting the camera settings, to fix themselves up and then exposed two pictures. All three of them was eager to see the result, where one of them wasn't satisfied with her look on the photos and kindly asked me to erase them and take a new one. No problem, I told her while her sulky friend began bashing on them one more time. They did some odd poses and I got three more fake smiles. The three friends looked at the picture, and with a strict voice the mad girl asked her friends one at a time if they were happy with the result this time. She got two doubtful yeses and turned to me telling me to feel free uploading it on the website. I thanked her and wished her a good night. Got no thanks nor a smile back. But at least she gave me the picture despite her sulkiness, which I will cred her for. Most people in her mood would have told me to piss off. Anyway. I wonder what the party visitors got for dinner this night, cause on several occasions I really missed one of those anti-smell-machines.

Pranky girls

saturday: 2008-03-22

Being the only sober one on a place filled with 900 drunks is a special experience. You will see a lot of different things you usually miss when being one of them. Some funny things, some less funny things. Stuff like drunk guys throwing up in the stairs and seconds after slip on his last meal happens all the time. One time a girl fell on a wine glass that cut up her face so bad that her night ended by a trip to the hospital leaving a blood-stained dance floor.

This night, on the other hand, was pretty full of entertainment. The funniest thing happended on the upper floor near the bar where I was chatting with a girl and her friend. Or actually only the girl. The friend was standing by the side listening on our playful conversation waiting for her friend to end her flirting. When I was speaking with this cute girl I noticed she got a loose thread on her strapless black dress. So I jestfully told her to look out before her boobs accidentally pops out, which could be pretty awkward. In the same second I told her about it, I saw in the corner of my eye how her friend finds an opportunity to gain some attention too. The girl was totally dedicated to fix her dress up and didn't noticed her friends hand coming towards her, grabbing between her breasts and pulled down the dress whereupon she unintentionally flashed her boobs right in my face! In the same time as my eyes had instinctly locked its view frustum on the pair, I have never experienced this level of speed she used to cover herself up, before. Within a hundred of a second her dress was covering her upper body again and all three of us was just looking on each other letting our consciousness catch up on what did just happened. We raised a laughter that kept going on for some minutes before the exposed girl told me she wanted to be alone with her friend for a while. I told her not to kill her friend whereupon she smiled at me and turned to her friend. Ten minutes later I ran into her on the bottom floor without her friend. I asked what she had did to her, but got no answear. Instead she asked if she could join me. So I let her team up with me and we walked around the place shooting together the rest of my shift.