The Dogs Ate My Homework! Part Three!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Wednesday night we had our last Photography class.  In two weeks, we move on to Photoshop class with the same instructor, but I really wish this class was continuing.  It is fun being a co-ed again and back in class with my husband.  I told Megan I was pretty sure we were going to be elected Prom King and Queen of our class and all she wanted to know was if we were the only two in the class and was I even sure John would vote for me. 

The class is fun and the instructor has a good sense of humor.  When we arrived I asked him what white balance I would use to shoot a white (ok, dirty) dog in white snow.  He said it was an excellent question and did I mind waiting so he could share the answer with the group.  I told him I preferred we keep the answer private, just between the two of us, and he immediately asked John how he put up with me.  I think John said something like it wasn’t easy, but lots of wine helped.

 

Last week as you may remember for my assignment, I thought I had taken a fabulous photo of a bridge, only to have it used as the one and only example of a poorly lit photo.  The sad thing is I had gone back to shoot that bridge about six times because each time I presented Hayley with my newest version of the bridge photo she told me it was bad and once used the words, “it stinks.”  She also kept saying that I needed to think about composition and lighting and this is where it took a bad turn for Hayley.  Two things can happen when someone disagrees with me, 1) I tell them they are wrong 2) I dig in my heels and become obsessively relentless about making them wish they had gone the other way. Unfortunately for Hayley, I decided that I was going to get a good bridge photo that met her approval or die trying.  This meant I was out at that bridge almost every day, only to come back and hear her say, “I don’t like it.”  It drove me a little nutty and some would say obsessive.

I would listen for her footsteps as she came up the steps or for the door to open each night after she got home from work and yell out, “Come here, Hayley. I have another bridge picture for you to see.”  She tried to sneak in the door on a couple of occasions, but luckily my two best Doodle assistants alerted me every time she came home. I could hear her say, “thanks a lot, Fudge and Vern,” and her feet dragging as she came towards me. Any innocent question she asked me, “did you get milk today?” was met with, “why don’t you like my bridge picture?” A simple “Mom, I might be late getting home from work today,” would be answered with, “Oh good!  That will give me more time to get some more bridge pictures ready for you,” until she cracked like an egg.  Finally, she told me the words I had been longing to hear, “this one is good,” and even watched while I sent a color and a black and white version to my thumb drive to take to class. Later, when I came home and told the lying little backstabber that the teacher hated my bridge photo, she smiled in a villainous kind of way.  The smile continued this week when I told her I told the teacher the entire story about my photographer daughter and her wicked ways and how he validated her opinion and he said, “technically, we aren’t supposed to tell a student their work stinks,” but he said it like he thought he should be able to make exceptions for certain bridge photos.

 

This week the assignment was to shoot a photograph where light makes the shot.  I wasn’t sure I could trust Hayley at this point and I had my doubts when she kept telling me to submit a picture I took of an orange. 

This one.....

not this one.....

I could just see the teacher putting the orange picture up on the screen and then saying, “What smells in here?  Would the person who took this picture please turn in their camera as they leave the building,” and Hayley’s triumphant smile when I told her I no longer had a camera and there would never be another picture for her to critique.  Luckily, he didn’t say any of that, but turned to me and said, “Cutie?” Caught off guard, I almost blurted out, “I must warn you, John is extremely jealous when another man flirts with me,” but I could just hear John say, “when has it happened before?” so I kept my mouth shut.  It also dawned on me that he wanted to know if my orange was a Cutie orange.

Last week the same thing almost happened when a woman needed help with her monitor and he yelled out, “are you turned on yet?” I wanted to say, “so far, the class hasn’t been that exciting, but she’ll let you know,” but I held it in then, too.

 

The good news is the only picture he didn’t like this week was one of our cat. 

I didn’t take offense when he said, “it’s just a cat,” because he said the same thing to the creative girl in our class about her cat picture. I figured I was in good company.  When he got to my photo of Fudge, I did warn him it would be in his best interest not to say, “it’s just a dog.”  I also went on to say I was trying to capture the catch lights in her eyes, like I was Annie Leibovitz shooting the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. I figured he didn’t need to know the only reason I knew about catch lights was because the DK Photography group told me. 

I was pretty sure I had already been labeled The Dog Nut and talking about a dog website was not going to help my case.  He liked the rest of my pictures and he liked all of John’s pictures, too, and kept saying our daughter would be proud of us.  We just basked in the glory instead of spoiling the moment and saying, “you obviously don’t know our kids.” 

 

Bird lady irritated me again when she made the same mistake as last week and “accidentally on purpose,” included four times the amount of photos as every other student on her thumb drive and then said, “I don’t know why I submitted so many pictures this week.  You don’t have to look at all of them,” while we had to sit and look at all of them for half the class.  I regretted not bringing the 3,000 images I have of Fudge playing ball and turning to her and saying, “I hope you don’t mind.”

The creative girl in class once again did not disappoint and had a cool picture of her boyfriend.  She kept saying she didn’t like the black shadow on his nose, however, and John yelled out, “give it 35 years and you won’t even notice.”  This cracked the teacher up and I added, “He’s right!  There will be so many more things that will bug the crap out of you in 35 years, a black spot on his face will be the least of your worries.”  I gave her my email at the end of the class and it is weird how I haven’t heard from her yet.  The only other confusing moment was when I asked a question and the teacher turned to me and said, “What a great question! Wow, Laurie is evolving and crawling out of a swamp.”  WTD!  John said later the poor guy seemed totally shocked that question came from me and he seemed surprised, too.  WTD again!  No woman likes to be called a swamp creature and a dumb one at that by two men, one of whom she married. I told them both I would prefer to hear I crossed a bridge in my path.

We are having lots of fun with our new hobby.  Just yesterday Hayley and I were sitting in the living room with John when I noticed he was reading a book called, Understanding Exposure. 

I yelled over to him twice before he realized two other people were in the room, “Are you reading up on how to expose yourself?”  Usually Hayley thinks most of what I say is very dumb, but she laughed, and when he said back, “It seems the best exposure comes with a longer focal length,” she laughed again, but added we were both disgusting.  Since embarrassing our children has always been one of the perks of parenthood for us, we were pleased.  Even though our styles are completely different…his consists of reading up on how to do something correctly, metering, re-metering, composing, re-composing, and repeating these steps until anyone with him yells, “take the damn picture already!’ and mine is more like shooting twenty photos, looking at them on my camera, and going, “something is wrong with my stupid camera,” we aren’t sorry we took up a new hobby together.

 

Photoshop class starts in two weeks with the same instructor.  He stressed a lot during our Photography class to get the image correct right out of the camera, so you don’t have to rely on Photoshop.  He also added that any photographer who keeps saying, “I’ll just fix it in Photoshop later, “ should have printed on his T-shirt, “Bad Photographer.”  I just hope he doesn’t have strong opinions about teaching me to put my head on some Victoria Secret’s model’s body, because like I told the Apple guy who sold me the software, that was the main reason for me getting Photoshop in the first place. The last thing we did was complete a class evaluation which I was feeling pretty good about until the last thing the teacher said to me as I walked out of the classroom for the night, “I can fix almost anything in Photoshop except that bridge photo.”  Right then and there, I knew I had been too quick to give him high marks on his evaluation, but then I remembered our upcoming Photoshop classes and since I plan on saying, “I will just fix it in Photoshop later,” as much as possible, I am sure I can take care of it on the next class evaluation form.

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

I also disagree re the cat pic. I like the lighting. I don't think I have the patience for any classes (apart from Bridge) so I applaud your patience and going with your hubby is really impressive. Are we to deduce from all this that in future you will be taking all your own blog photo's.? I particularly look forward to more bikini shots. Of course Fudge and Vern are never boring, you can never have too many pictures of doodles.

[Camilla and Darwin]

Ha, looove this one! I disagree with him on the cat photo, I'm a fan. But I agree with him on the others you submitted. Especially the one of Fudge, really great! I also think you should have submitted the orange bikini photo, because that would make for some really interesting feedback.... ha ha.

[Pat and Traveler]

Ha!  Good one, Laurie!  I love these blogs about your class!!!!  The bridge photo will live forever!  lol