I'm a fair way into a sixty day shoot and on this, my third rest day I was in the mood to shoot some personal work. Partly because the client's shoot is now starting to form a pattern and is becoming more manageable thereby giving me some residual energy, and partly because I need to gain some balance, to redress the constraints of the client's shoot. I call this brain ironing. It's a way of making sure that I don't lose sight of the principles that form the core of my work. And it works: I can see a definite development from the first faltering frames, where there are so many creases, to the final frames where the formal arrangement of content is once again harmonising. The creases are gone.
Often with a long shoot, and one like this where there is a lot of travel, it's easy to become absorbed in the brief. This is not necessarily a good thing; the client is after all not just paying for the deliverables, she is expecting to see work that separates me from other photographers she might have also considered. So I have a duty to both myself and to the client to make good on both bargains... on realising this, it is almost arguable that it should really be a fee bearing task. But on reflection, I'd not want to completely suck out all the restorative benefits of a lovely morning spent on Madrid's suburban streets: some things need to be done just for the hell of it.
