Season 3 Into 4

I’m going to miss Season 3.

Season 4 starts tonight, so check back here on Monday and meet the newest members of the Intern Army.

In anticipation of the end of Season 3 – we decided to have one more major studio session. Six of Eight showed; we set up some gear and started shooting. I recently purchased a few new lights – so we thought that’d be a lot of fun to work with. The photos in this post where the light is coming from the left side of the photo were made with the continuous lights – and the shots with light on the right (or in front) were made with an Alien Bee strobe setup.

We even ordered pizza and made it a party.

Now – whenever the three months end, there’s a significant drop in the volume of shooting that most of the Interns do. The majority of them slow down considerably, or even take  a break. What I tell them now is that for the first month out – they need to go back and shoot what they really want to be shooting. Whether it’s models, or bands, or landscapes or abstract fine art – after all of the events and photoshoots out in the freezing cold, they really need to go back to shooting what they love, or thought they loved before they started the internship.

We’re protective of our Interns not because it makes some sort of good business sense – but because they’re family. It’s one of the main reasons it’s a free and unpaid experience. We’re unreasonably committed to them and we expect the same in return. Is that asking too much? We don’t think so – and this is why so many others on the outside don’t fully understand exactly what we’re doing here (truthfully on some days I don’t either).

We’ve asked a few to work seriously with us beyond the internship. Having a ‘friend that’s a photographer’ is the new ‘friend that’s in a band’ – and we know how difficult it can be to go at this all alone – however, all of our past interns can and do definitely call on us when they have a question, an idea, or need a little help. Once you’re in with our gang, there’s no escaping.

We have so many projects and crazy marketing ideas to try out that we can’t do it all ourselves – and we wouldn’t want to. It takes a team to do what we’re going to do this year and ridiculous doesn’t begin to describe it.  Because we’ve gotten used to thinking bigger than big – and while a lot of this is just hyperbole, we’re excited to get things started.

So for now, goodbye to Season 3.

Season 4 has a lot to live up to.

Ready. Set. Go.