Jonathan Gayman | Photography

The last couple of days I have been working my hands to the bone building out the office in my studio. After much consultation with my father, I designed and built two large worktables/desks in my office. One for me, and one for Xina when she chooses to work at home. Let me just say that I enjoyed the planning stages and the phone calls with my dad much more than the actual construction. Since I wasn’t able to build the tables with my dad in his well outfitted woodshop, I had to build them in my studio. Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly grateful that I have enough space to build an 8 foot table in my studio, but lacking power tools, it was a challenge.

I purchased the wood for the project at a local lumberyard rather than going to a big box store as I’d originally planned. The wood itself was slightly more expensive, but they didn’t charge me to make all of the numerous cuts that I was unable to do at home. The other advantage was that the location was much closer to my apartment than any of the big box stores. My little Subaru isn’t quite large enough to hold an 8 foot piece of plywood tabletop, so I had to stick it out from the back and drive veeeery slowly and carefully back home.

I’d figured out all the dimensions and the pieces needed with the much needed help from my dad. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this on my own – my own plans were really terrible and dad was able to help me design something that actually worked. He even took the time to send me some notes. If you need DIY table plans, this set of instructions should be all you need (along with some math skills).

Once I had all of the individual pieces back home, I set up a camera, planning to do a time lapse movie of the project. After the first 20 minutes of frustration and anger I realized that the pressure of the camera watching me screw up was adding to the stress of the project so I turned it off. So sorry, no film. Construction essentially consisted of taking the pre-cut lumber, making some cross-cuts by hand and assembling all of the pieces. Here’s what I learned about myself during this process: no amount of careful measurement, combination squares and fancy Japanese pull saws are enough for me to make a straight cut. Seriously, as anal retentive I am, I was completely and utterly unable to make straight cuts with a saw. Each cut was consistently at a 2-3 degree angle from plum. Which made everything very difficult. One day I’ll buy a circular saw and be done with it.

Day one was the larger of the two tables, and day two was the smaller one. By day two I thought I’d figured out some of what I did wrong on day one, so set about the second table much more deliberately. While I was able to correct the mistakes from the first table, I realized that everything else that worked for the first table was apparently luck, and luck was not with me on the second table. Despite the 4×4s fighting me (one in particular had a grudge against me apparently because it was a complete pain in the ass) I was able to get the tables built – they are stable and feel very solid. Both tables are done and functional, and don’t look that bad mainly due to the nice birch plywood tabletops which cover up most of the mistakes. And let me tell you, going for and 8 foot table versus a four foot table is very liberating. Eight feet of lovely workspace!

I am exhausted, my entire body is sore and my hands are covered with blisters. But on the upside, I now have a usable desk/worktable in my office. I think I’ll wait on building a cyc wall until I can afford to hire a carpenter or maybe convince my dad to come visit. Here is what the larger of the two tables looks like all set up like a big boy office:

The office is starting to feel official finally. We even have a conference table! Which is our old dinner table, re-purposed as a work table. But I can, you know, have conferences! Have I mentioned lately how much better this it to my former cubicle existence?

Today is the start of my second full week in Saint Louis. I had this little app on my iPhone that I was using to countdown the days until the move when I was still in New York and I realized that after it hit zero, it changed over from “days until” to “days since”. I was going to trash it, but then I decided to just let it keep clocking away. In any case, it is Day 13 today, and I felt it was high time to make sure that all of my equipment is functional. I also wanted to make sure that everything was in the correct place, nothing was missing, and that I would be able to do what I need to do on a shoot. There is nothing worse than getting to a shoot and realizing that a piece of equipment is either broken or missing.

In my experience, the only way to truly make sure that you have everything in your bag and that everything is working is to stage an actual photo shoot, from start to finish. It is one thing to look at your bag and go through the inventory, and another to take everything out, build a set and make some pictures. This is especially the case when working with kits you haven’t used as much as others, or maybe kits you thought you knew but haven’t used in a while.

Last week I needed to make a quick head shot of Xina for her lab website, and when I pulled out my speedlight kit and built the set, I realized I was missing a few crucial items. I went online and ordered what I needed, and when everything gets here I’ll run through another test shoot, just to be sure. Today I unpacked and tested my big light kit, which includes a couple of Alienbees. In the past I’ve always used the Alienbee radio system, but my transmitter battery died, and I’m using PocketWizards these days anyway. After I’d set up the AB800 with a softbox and had it in place, I realized that the Alienbees take the small PC cords, while my other monolights take the large connector. Turns out I don’t have the correct cord to use with my PWs. Not a big deal, I have a standard sync cord and made it work, but if I’d been on a shoot I’d have been in trouble since that particular sync cord isn’t always in my lighting kit. It illustrates the importance of real world testing versus just checking things off an equipment list (which is important too). As a side note: you should always have a couple of sync cords handy when you go on location. You never know when you’re going to get interference from some outside source messin’ with your pocket wizards. Nothing beats a direct cable in a pinch.

So I hauled everything out into my fantastic new space and got to work. If you’ve never worked in your own studio space, there is nothing better than having space to move around when building a set, and the fact that it’s my apartment makes it even better. I turned on some tunes, and spent the morning and afternoon testing equipment and playing with various lighting setups. Unfortunately I only had one really funny lookin’ model to work with today, so your mileage may vary. You know what I love about photography? You can even make a big tub of goo like me look like he’s got muscles just by using light (and conveniently hide his belly in shadow while you’re doing it). Lemme tell you something, photos can, and do, lie.

Nothing like spending the day taking pictures of yourself to make you feel like a narcissist.

Parking garage, downtown Saint Louis

It has been a busy week here in St. Louis, and it’s only Wednesday. I had to actually pull up my calendar to check that, since to be honest I wasn’t exactly sure what day of the week it is. We have been busy unpacking and car buying, and while we are getting to the end of the unpacking process, we still have a lot to do. Not surprisingly I’m settling into the new loft very well. I have a kitchen I can use, you know, ordinary sized stove not a little toy stove, counter space … all in all it’s amazing.

It’s so amazing in fact, that I have to make sure to remember that my job is not to hang out in my office apartment every day. I am a photographer, and a photographer that spends his days organizing hanging files in his filing cabinet and other household items is not going to improve as a photographer no matter how diligently he stacks and straightens his Post-Its, pens and copy paper. Having a neat and organized office and having all of your equipment in order is important, no doubt. But it all means nothing if you’re not shooting. Hence the acronym that most photographers who blog have mentioned: ABS, or Always Be Shooting. It’s sometimes difficult to find the time when you have the other important things in your life happening, but if you’re a professional photographer, this is something you need to be doing. Not only so that you can have work to throw up on your blog, but so that you keep your creativity primed, your skills sharp. And lets be honest here, if you love it, you’ll find the time.

Citygarden, Saint Louis

Given that I’ve been in Saint Louis for exactly one week as of today, I have a ton of stuff to do. But today I took some time for myself and went out with my camera to explore a bit. I didn’t make a massive trip of it, and I stayed in the neighborhood where I live. However, my little photo walk this afternoon got the juices flowing, and as a side benefit, opened my eyes to a bit more of the city then I’d seen before. I can’t wait to go further afield (although when I go I’ll be armed with water, a hat, and sunblock – the St. Louis humidity is a force to be reckoned with. It was kind of overcast in patches today when I was out, and I felt that black and white conveyed the mood. Here is some work from today.

City Center, Saint Louis

Detail, Orpheum Theater, Saint Louis

Alley, Downtown Saint Louis

As a side note, Saint Louis has alleys. There is nothing more interesting to me than these little half streets behind buildings, in the middle of blocks. They aren’t on every block, but for some reason they always make me smile when I stumble across them. I had alleys growing up in PA, but New York doesn’t really do alleys – too much wasted real estate I guess. Perhaps I should do a project of just alleys. I’m also thinking of doing a project about parking garages … lots of those in Saint Louis too!