Becoming a Peter Hurley Associate is SO important to me and sometimes (read.. "usually") I feel like I'm so far from it. Don't get me wrong, I don't really want to shoot exactly like Peter. I LOVE his work but.. what's the phrase?.. "It's better to be different than better"? That said, I want to be able to shoot like Peter when I try to. And then I want to take those excellent skills and apply them to my own work. It's all a progression. For me, the biggest value in the Associate status is the education and skill you gain in the process.

But there are often times when you don't think you're getting anywhere. And then you compare your game in 3 very short months and it gives you perspective.

I think the whole shoot was 10 or 15 minutes and we got 32 pictures total. My lights were placed wrong and I was getting deep socketing in everyone's eyes. I managed to make it not terrible with some extensive editing. Tori did great. I did not.

I had even learned things throughout that day that Tori's shoot could have benefitted from. I felt bad because, although she liked the pictures, I thought she got the short end of the stick.

I asked Tori to come back in because I have a few more clues now and was convinced I could do a better job for her.

When she showed up, I was actually still getting the lights set so we had time to just chat before we started. Even though this was our second shoot, I still wanted to wind down any nerves that come naturally for most people before a shoot.

The next hour was just "hacking around with the camera". In reality, I was working hard to get great shots but I tend to wrap my shoots in, "Hey.. we're just having fun and playing around here. Let's try...". At one point, I pulled out a fan. The results weren't great. I pulled out a different fan.. and we got what might be my favorite shot of the session.