Andrew St. Clair

Yesterday, I got to see first hand what it’s like to be a paparazzi er… a celebrity photographer. I meet up with Ben Hider, a freelance contributing photographer, who was staking out the side entrance to the Ed Sullivan Theater to shoot arrivals to The Late Show with David Letterman.

This is Ben, by the way. I met Ben at All Points West and even talked about him in my article that I wrote for The Grateful Web and—Oh Shit! The door is opening…

Eddie pretty much ignored the press and headed over to a crowd of autograph seekers.

So, I ran around to the other side and attempted to shoot some pictures of him signing autographs. I didn’t get anything great as he never looked my way. Then again, I didn’t yell “Mr. Murphy” or “Donkey!” in a Scottish accent.

As he walked back to his car, Ben and the other photographers took one last attempt. Of course, I was in the background. While I probably could have waited for him to walk back from signing autographs, I thought I’d attempt to get a different angle. Sure, it didn’t work out so well, but then again, it’s not like I was there working. It was fun. But, I don’t think that it’s something I’d want to do everyday.

Well, what’s going on in the world of Andrew St. Clair?

• I updated my Verizon Droid to 2.1 all by myself.
• I downloaded the ‘Stimulus Package’ map pack for Modern Warfare 2.
• After a year of driving myself crazy and buying cheap sunglasses, I bought some mirrored Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses.
• I bought Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection for just $9.99 at Gamestop
• I’m trying to find a new relatively good quality lens for my D300 without breaking the bank.

You see, this is why I don’t blog that much.

But seriously, As you may already know, I shoot bands and write concert reviews for TheGratefulWeb.com. Now, my boss Mike occasionally sends me press releases. Usually regarding upcoming tour dates. If they are playing in the city, I can usually pick and choose which bands I want to cover. One was from a band called Earl Greyhound; three-piece blues-rock band from Brooklyn. Having never heard of them, I looked them up on YouTube and they seemed pretty cool.

And since they are playing at the Williamsburg Hall of Music, I decided I’d give them a shot. However, I neglected to notice until 2 days ago that they are aren’t the headliner. They are opening for Coheed and Cambria.

Truth be told, I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never actually heard their music outside of a song in RockBand and the trailer for ‘9’. This means double the work, potentially. While writing this blog post, I realize I’m in a bit of a quandary.

While I’m going to shoot both bands regardless, I’m torn between writing about both bands or just Earl Greyhound. No matter what, I’m writing a review of Earl because I’m their guest. On the other hand, more people will be interested in the article if I write about Coheed. If I write about both bands that means more work. Then again, I’m trying to promote myself more as a photographer than a writer, so if I write about Coheed, does it matter in the long run? I guess I’ll make that decision after the concert. (My guess is that I’ll buckle down and review both Earl and Coheed).

Hey, wait! It’s seems like I do have something to write about after all.

So, last night, I was on assignment taking pictures for a club promoter at Element in NYC. It’s a pretty large venue set inside an old National Bank built in the 19th Century. Basically, I’m supposed to shoot people posing for the camera. However, I’m also considered a guest and don’t need to be shooting every second either.

If New Year’s Eve did anything it reminded me that while I like taking pictures of people, I really dislike many of the people in them. So, if you come across me in a club, you should expect the following.

1. If you bug me to take your picture, I will ignore you. This isn’t a corporate gig where people are running up to me saying, “That’s the Director of Corporate Finance, Overseas Division. I need you to get a picture with him and the CFO.” That, I will do with gusto. But, while I’m at a club, I don’t need to take pictures of anyone specific. I have no problem with someone asking nicely. However, I don’t take kindly to having someone forcefully poking me on the shoulder and yelling, ‘Yo! Over here!’ And, even if I had planned to take pictures of everyone in your VIP section, I will skip you entirely and move to the next section.


2. Don’t Order Me Around. There were quite a few people that were very demanding. Like, I was their photography monkey to do their bidding. One guy grabbed my shoulder, spun me around, got right up in my face and ordered me to take pictures of his group. Now, I had already taken pictures of his group. I stood there as I took pictures of a group which consisted of 3 couples. Then went out of my way to make sure that each couple had their own picture because they asked and I was a little more tolerant earlier in the evening. But, when I declined to take even more pictures he started to yell at me and proclaimed that he was “a VIP”. I told him that I didn’t care, to “get out of my face”, and proceeded to the nearest corner so that I could delete all of his previous pictures.


3. Being a perfectionist is impossible in a club situation. But, I try and make sure that if people take the time to pose for me that it’s a good shot. So, if someone has their eyes closed or they are making an unintentional funny face, I’ll tell them to hold it or say “One more” and I’ll take another picture. But, I hate when people demand to see their pictures the second after I take it. Even worse, is when they demand to see it, tell me to delete it, and do even more retakes. I got out of this last night many times by saying “I’m shooting with film, sorry!” This isn’t to say that I won’t show people their pictures. If I take a particularly good shot of someone, I may want to share it straight away.


4. Just because I have a camera doesn’t mean I will use your camera. I can’t tell you how many times people try and hand me their cameras so that I can take their picture. And many times, they will be very demanding. Even worse, they will give me a dirty look when I refuse. Look, I’m in a club with enough to worry about when it comes to my expensive camera equipment, (trying to keep it from getting drinks splashed on it, or bumped into, etc.) so pardon me if I refuse to hold something else (But most importantly, I just don’t want to).

Don’t get me wrong. If you’re really nice to me (or at the very least, respectful), I’ll go out of my way to take your picture. I encountered a lot of fun people who weren’t bossy, or drunk assholes that I felt privileged to be able to take their pictures.

Anyway, that was my New Year’s Eve, and a bit of venting, in a nutshell. Happy New Year, everyone!

For the last couple of months, the quality of Firefox on my iMac has degraded to the point that it doesn’t work properly on 30 percent of the sites I go to. Including YouTube (controls don’t work half the time until I refresh/F5), Facebook (uploading pictures is nearly impossible) and now Tumblr (wouldn’t navigate at all). I should also mention that it takes forever to start up once I’ve switched on my iMac (which is barely a year old).

Now, you might be thinking that it’s a conflict with the hundreds of addons that can be used with Firefox. Well, you would be wrong. I only have two running. One is Adblock Plus (which I have disabled), and Firebug, which is a really cool web development tool which is great for learning how things work.

So, at this time, I think that I’m going to go on a Firefox hiatus and start importing bookmarks into *gasp* Safari.