Back to Reality... Kinda!

Back to Reality... Kinda!

15^th April 2011

Today we are docked in the Greek island, Crete. I was lucky enough to have the morning off. I say “lucky” because I put my alarm on for 8am this morning and my phone ran out of battery. If I was due to be working I would have been screwed! 

At 09.00 there was a training drill which scared the life out of me. “Alpha Alpha Alhpa”. I jumped out of bed and got dressed. While heading up to where I’m supposed to go (although I’m still not 100% sure where that is) I bumped into Lucy. She told me that the training was nothing to do with me! Phew!!

Anyway, I really wanted to talk to a few people and get back in touch with reality, basically, I needed to get online. Lucy and I jumped on the bus and headed into the town centre. There’s a really nice coffee shop called Clock where they have a fast internet connection. We had a drink and a bite to eat while surfing the net. I honestly could have stayed online all day, unfortunately my laptop battery died. Everything has been dying on me today. Not a good sign.

Crete itself is a really lovely country, many parts remind me of Southern Spain. Not so much the coastal areas of Spain but inland where I used to sell property; places like Loja (Granada), Cuevas de San Marcos etc. The small, quaint towns. Another thing that reminds me of Spain are the huge amount of mopeds zipping in and out of the traffic. I love it! Reminds me of home.

At 14.00h I was due on the gangway again to photograph people getting off the buses from the town. As I’m still learning/training Stuart was working with me. You can learn a hell of a lot from Stuart and Lee, especially when it comes down to smudging. Lee has a typical English sense of sarcastic humour which the guests love, while Stuart is the crazy one who bounces around, normally in costumes. We had a target of 200 images but it was completely unrealistic. As we are so close to the end of the cruise the guests are sick of us. So we only got about 60 odd photographs.

I’ve got a small window in my timetable before I go back to work at 19.30. I’m shooting LSP (Lifestyle Portraits). Hopefully by the time the next cruise starts I’ll be in the gallery more. Shooting is great fun but as I’m only a Photog 1 I don’t earn any commission on the images sold. For the time being I’d like to get into the gallery and try to sell some cameras, folios and so on to earn a little bit of commission. I really want to start selling. Let’s see if my real estate “training” with Patricia paid off.

I’m still waiting for my login and password to be sent to me so I can get into the “Image University” website. In short, you have to do online courses to progress up the ladder. As soon as I get the details I’m giving myself 3 weeks to become a Photog 2. Once I’m a photog 2 I’ll give myself some time to learn and practise a bit more interacting with the customers before going for Photog 3.

Hernan got to dress up as a Dolphin for gangway this morning. Lucky sod! I can’t wait to dress up, especially if it’s a fur costume. Cold weather would be a bonus too! It seems a lot of fun to be able to dress up, act the fool and get away with i, without the "men in the white coats are coming for you" look.

Tomorrow we are at sea for the entire day so hopefully I’ll be working for most of it. Even though there are loads of features on the ship, as we are crew, we can’t always do them. Something that wasn't mentioned in training but why am I so surprised? For example, we can’t go in the swimming pool as it’s for guests only. In actual fact, we can go swimming but only during port days and if there are less than 5 guests in the pool - which is never. The ice staking rink is a Royal No-No in case we hurt ourselves and are unable to work. So there’s really not much to do during your free time at sea. I’m so glad I bought some books and started a blog or else I’d be sitting in my bunk bed rocking to and fro!

Before I forget to mention, I have a couple of post cards for people but haven’t found a post office yet. I’ll pop them in my bag and as soon as I find a post office, they’ll be on their way to you.

I’d better get some munch before I start work. I’ll update later. Not only that but I’d better start thinking up some poses for the studio. Posing couples is okay, we were taught some easy techniques and poses during training but singles is another thing altogether. My individual portraits always seem so lacking which winds me up so much and my mind tends to go blank - a real pain in the arse!

**UPDATE**

Tonight didn’t go too badly. First of all I was shooting LSP (Lifestyle Portraits) where I managed to shoot about 60 images. There is a group of Chinese people, made up of three couples who absolutely love having their photograph taken. They’ve purchased to Get The Picture package (all images go onto a CD) and by the looks of things they are getting their money’s worth. It doesn’t bother me one bit: more practise.

During LSP I photographed a little girl with Down syndrome which was a bit of a challenge but not necessarily in a bad sense. Rather than complicating things I tried to keep things are simple as possible for her. Most of the time I’d work around her. She’d sit on the floor and say “like this” so all I’d have to do is ask her to position her hands a certain way and tilt her head a little. Done. She became a little angry when her parents wanted a photograph with her but in the end she loved it. She didn’t want her mini photo shoot to end! When I told the family they could see their prints in the gallery tomorrow at 6pm she left with a big smile.

For the next hour and a half I was in the gallery which, for me, was pretty manic. The other photographers said it wasn’t that busy – just wait until the last day of the cruise. Anyway, I was serving guests left, right and centre and having to run down the photo lab for prints etc. Even though it was hectic and I was running around I loved it. When it’s quiet it’s not so much fun. Being constantly on the go was brilliant.

An American couple came over to me with a print which was taken during one of the tours. In between the couples heads was an arm. The lady asked if we could photoshop the arm out. I ran upstairs to speak to Lee to double check whether we could or couldn’t. We could, but for a $10 flat fee which seemed a bit extreme considering it wasn’t for “cosmetic” reasons like air brushing. When I relayed the message they were understandably a little miffed to say the least. I was given a lecture about them spending serious amounts of money on the cruise ships and that they are Diamond members (I’d been told about Diamond and Gold members the night before. Beware!) and their expectations were high and we weren’t meeting them. I took their details and said I’d speak to the manager when he was about, see what he can do.

Not long afterwards Paco made an appearance. I asked him about photoshopping the arm. He told me that as it was the photographer’s fault they’d remove the arm for free. Whoops! Not only did I piss a couple off but I also tried charging them for something they didn’t have to pay for. Oh well, as the guys as Miami training used to say:  ship happens!

Later during the evening I worked on Spanish Light and no, it has nothing to do with Spain and the light is exactly the same set up we always have. No idea where that name came from. Anyway, I was there for the last 1.5hours of my shift. My feet were killing me and things were slow. A Brazilian girl came over a couple of times during the night to take her photo taken. Mind you, she  was extremely photogenic so I was getting some great photos of her. We have a rough maximum of 5 images per person. If she asks for a couple more photos and there is no one else around or if she comes back after an hour to have her photo taken again, I can’t say "no", can I?

Come midnight we were all finished for the night. Our watches were set back an hour as we are currently sailing to Italy in a different time zone.

Luci and I headed up to the crew cheese and wine event but by the time we got there the bottles were empty and cheese gone. We headed up stairs to the crew bar. Lee, Stuart, Richard, Richard’s girlfriend Lulu, Hernan and Federico came up later. Me and Lee stayed in the bar long after everyone had gone, having a few drinks and talking about photography. He’s given me some useful tips especially as it’s Ressi (last formal night of the cruise) tomorrow night. Lee reckons as I have a technical background in photography I shouldn’t have too much of a problem. He also gave me some extra shooting tips, mainly about shooting angles. Fingers crossed formal night goes well tomorrow!