I am sitting in a rather stinky hotel room directly across from the office building where my shoot tomorrow will take place – they were all out of non-smoking rooms, and even though they assured me that they “air all their smoking rooms out” it seems like they may have missed this one. It is also fairly cold – in the low fifties or even lower. Considering the temperature in New York when I left, I was thinking that it would be warm here, but apparently San Jose is experiencing record lows at the moment. I had the foresight to bring my portable iPod speaker dock along with me this time, so I have some nice music in the background, and I’m getting ready to call it a night.
On the plane, a small child screamed for about the last two hours of the flight. The child was old enough to speak – between sobs you could hear her whining to her mom about being tired, hungry, etc. In my book, if you’re old enough to communicate in words, your parents should not put up with tantrums like this child was throwing. But then again, these parents sat silently next to their devil child with Bose sound-blocking headphones on. The flight was good overall though – I got an exit row seat with plenty of legroom and no one next to me, and there was a TV which worked most of the time. One odd thing was that at one point, the flight attendant asked me if I wanted the chicken, beef, or lobster for my meal, and then nothing was served. It only just now occurs to me that she may have been joking, considering she did hand me a bag of crackers and cheese…
This is the second travel shoot that I have done, and given my relative inexperience, I’m a little apprehensive about tomorrow. After mixed results shipping equipment on the last shoot, my company invested in an expensive equipment bag which I checked on the airplane. It looks like it has weathered the storm, but I don’t have the energy to open it and see if anything is damaged. It felt pretty solid when I picked it up, no tinkle of broken glass or strange rattles, so I think I’m in good shape.
Despite this being a photography assignment, don’t expect to see many photo posts for this trip. My subject matter tomorrow is some simple portraits in front of a seamless, and I doubt I’ll have much chance to get out and shoot the city. Besides, the strip I’m on looks like any number of sprawling cities – lots of two lane roads, palm trees in the dividers. I was going to venture out for a walk, but decided to grab a quick dinner in the hotel bar. I sat and ate a mediocre steak while watching coverage of an iron man race in Austria. After staying at the Phonetician in Phoenix on the last trip this hotel is definitely a couple stars below what I was expecting. You know you’ve got issues when they not only mention their “error free alarm clock” on the website as a room attribute, but also offer to sell it to you when you leave.
Don’t mistake the somewhat dismal tone of this post – chock that up to exhaustion. I’m very excited about the trip and what it could mean for my career. If this works out well, it will probably mean much more work in the future, and with more work comes more experience. And as I’ve mentioned, the best part about all of this is that I’m learning a new skill. I’ve been pretty well obsessed with learning photography since I started to dabble, and I’m very excited about the opportunities.
Thats all for now, wish me luck tomorrow.
Yeah, lobster on a plane. If they serve that to you, the flight attendant has to do you, so she was probably joking.