A new lens.
Altering my view on an opportunity.
Last winter, or January for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, I sat on a freezing bench adjacent to a local soccer field for hours every week. As I shivered in the dark, I considered how strange my job was. I was paid to collect a child from school, pack a snack and some water into his sport bag, and bring him to soccer practise. On many occasions I needed to convince him that he had to go to soccer practise. I almost always pulled on his tight, knee-high soccer socks for him. He counted on me to tie his shoes. I earned money by tying shoelaces and making sandwiches. I stayed in that little boy’s home, the one he shares with his younger brother and sister. It was my job to set the table and drag the kids to the bus stop on time and to play ninja in the afternoons and pick up Lego. I didn’t hate my work, but I longed for something else.
When I was in high school, my career aspirations were inconsistent and sporadic. Aerospace engineer, 3D animator, software developer. The only common thread was the bigness of each goal. I planned, for a time, to study aeronautical engineering in Austin, Texas. Upon the completion of my studies, I would walk directly through the doors of the SpaceX factory. I was going to be apart of putting people on Mars. Later, when I ditched engineering for the arts, I had my eyes set on screenwriting. My goal, before I had ever written a script, was to win an Oscar. I even designed and branded my production company.
This week I went for a job interview. Sort of. Three weeks ago I received a call from a company with a job opening I had applied to. The woman on the other end of the line asked lots of questions that I stuttered through. The following week I received a follow-up call to book a try-out day. Instead of coming in and chatting to the boss for fifteen minutes, I’d work a half-day to get a sense for the place, the work, the staff, and at the end of it all we’d have a short interview. I was delighted.
I knew that the company that called me, the only positive response from the seventy-something applications I sent, wasn’t offering a dream job. The position is as a photographer in a studio that focusses on portraits. I can work with that, I thought. After being a professional dishwasher-packer and nose-blower, any nine to five was a dream. My previous professional photography experiences had been engaging and enjoyable. Even if I was trained in fine-art and advertising photography, I began seeing a future for myself unfolding in the commercial sector.
Half of the company’s work seems to be walk-in customers looking for passport photos. The other half are studio photoshoots with couples, families, newborns. They don’t take their time. The day I was there, a couple was whisked from studio to studio where they were told to sit or stand or look into each other’s eyes. The photographer changed the paper backdrop a few times. Once she had enough photos, the clients sat on a sofa while she slapped a few filters on the portraits she had just taken. This, I realised as the blood drained from my face and fingertips, wasn’t the opportunity I was expecting. The work this studio does, their style and deadlines, are a far cry from the world I know.
There will be no five hour shoots followed by several days of editing in order to produce three perfect images. There will be no exciting event photography, with the flexibility to capture a beautiful image amidst crowds and concerts. There will be no down-time in the darkroom, waiting in building anticipation to reveal the results of a day’s film photography. This job doesn’t feel big. No Mars. No Oscars. I’ll just be taking passport photos for people I’ll never see again.
I returned home from my day in the studio, write and cold. The promising career I had imagined seemed to dwindle from view. A career as a photographer, commercial or otherwise, does excite me. I don’t need to win awards or be shipped around the world to show off at exhibitions. I don’t need Vogue knocking on my door. I’d be happy taking pictures of wine bottles and lamps. Let me make a cookbook. That would be a start, at least. I feared that this new and wonderful opportunity to stay in the country would, in actual fact, transfigure horribly into a cell, locking me into a job that would be nearly impossible to escape. If I do get this job, I’ll never take a picture of a bottle of wine at work. If I ever want to grow my portfolio, it’ll be done by burning the midnight oil. The shock echoed through my bones. Especially when I was so interested in finally stepping into a new chapter. I wanted to leave behind professional lunchbox-packing and step into something big. I wanted to build something.
Maybe I’m building character, Mom said to me on the phone. I thought of the authors who wrote books that changed the face of modern literature in the late evening and early morning because they had day-jobs to work. This job gives me the opportunity to stay in Germany, earn a wage, pay my rent. I can still build something. I will still build something.
Now all I have to do is get the job… If you enjoyed this journal, please subscribe.