The Documentary Photographer

Right now, I should be in London shooting an annual report assignment. It’s a regular gig. But for the second year running, I missed my flight.

Last year, I missed the flight because I confused the arrival time with the departure time. I rolled into Cork airport just in time to see the plane lift off with roughly the same speed as my heart sank into my shoes. That’s quite some feeling, I can tell you. It cost me €100 or so to buy a last-minute ticket on the next flight that evening, but I did make the shoot the next morning and there was a happy ending for all involved. Me especially.

This year, I wasn’t on the flight out of choice. A choice that wasn’t entirely mine, but a choice nevertheless.

The shoot was canceled last Friday at 5.55 PM by a very apologetic client.

For me, that was bad news. Four days later, it still is. January and February are quiet months at the best of times, and a corporate shoot scheduled for next month had already been postponed indefinitely. Losing a second assignment is going to upset the cash flow projections a smidge.

In hindsight, I’m glad the call came on Friday evening. It gave me two days to get my head straight. I sawed a lot of wood and pondered things. (By the way, the wood didn’t last nearly half as long on the fire as I thought it would). I also walked the dog quite a bit. She was thrilled.

Therapy in times of extreme stress. The sawing of wood, not the drinking of beer. (c) Roger Overall

The way I saw it, I had three options:

1. Go to London, visit friends, take in an exhibition or two, drink a pint of bitter. I’d already paid for the ticket, so why not go?
2. Stay at home and use the two days gifted to me by the cancellation to research new clients, finally finish my print portfolio, and make a bunch of appointments for next week.
3. Give up. It’s all far too hard and quite frankly I can’t be bothered anymore. Perhaps insurance brokering is more my thing?

While 1 was appealing, it wouldn’t have got me very far. By this Thursday I’d be back to square one, most likely having bought some outrageously expensive photography book at a shop on Charing Cross Road.

Option 3 would be the hardest of all. My wife has invested far too much of her own spirit in my career to let me walk away from it every time the frikkin’ gods go out of their frikkin’ way to frikkin’ plot against me personally in every frikkin’ way conceivable (they shot JFK you know) there’s a challenge to face. Besides, isn’t insurance just a respectable form of gambling?

So, that leaves option 2.

Yesterday, I took some additional photographs to put into my commercial portfolio.

Today, I worked on those and other image files, compiled a 20-page portfolio and got prints made. Along the way, my printer told me that he thought my work was art. He may have been being kind because I was giving him a cheque at that very moment, but I’ll take the compliment. Anything to lift the spirits.

Tomorrow, instead of shooting annual report photographs in London, I will spend the day on the telephone making appointments for next week.

My biggest regret in all of this is that tonight I missed out on a wonderful meal with friends in Twickenham. We always have haggis and whisky round about now, and a lot of fun. Sigh.