Changing Lanes

11th April 2010: Got a call from this Filipino lady who mumbled her name and the name of the company. She then asked if I was a photographer and if I'd be willing to work as a full time photographer for their company doing model portfolios. I said it depends on the package provided. She then went on to ask me how much salary would I expect and what do I do in general. She ended the conversation by saying she'd call me back soon after speaking to her manager. The thing is, I'm not really interested in doing model portfolios but I just said yes to see what the market is like.

12th April 2010: The Filipino lady calls me back and asks me if I'd be interested in coming to meet their manager at 4pm with my portfolio. I said I don't have a printed one so I emailed her a link to some of my pictures and she got back by confirming a meeting with her manager. Got there at 4:15pm. Was made to wait about 15mins or so. Now this place was basically just a shop made into a office with a funky orange and blue interior that comprised of a small reception near the entrance, a 4 door conference table next to it divided by just a wall and then two rooms. One room was the owners office and the second was I think a studio/practice area cause I could here loud music and someone screaming out dance moves in arabic. I wasn't expecting anything more cause they do have a rubbish website. Very amateurish and makes the whole business look like a scam especially with those images that seemed to have been taken from a Google image search. The guy who was screaming out the dance moves was the first one to interview me who was basically busy smoking and asking questions he didn't wait for me to finish answering. He was really interested in knowing if I knew how to retouch a picture and what company I worked for. He then decided to label my photography ambition as a mere hobby as I haven't studied photography. Idiot!!!

Back at the reception, I was asked to wait to meet someone else. Obviously I wasn't the only one there for the interview. A Filipino dude was there who was a freelancer as well working for safaris or something. A third photographer came in 5 mins later. By then the next person to interview me had come. He led me to this other shop that sold computer stuff and took me to the office inside. He asked me the same questions the previous guy had asked and saw my portfolio that was on a USB I had brought with myself. He too didn't care about the pictures but was more interested if I could retouch pictures. Basically I should know how to make natural skin look like plastic. He then asked me to take a picture of this Filipino lady who had joined us in the office. I obviously didn't have all my equipment so I told him that taking a good picture would be difficult cause I need the flash to be off camera. He didn't care. He told me to use the on camera flash for the picture which I did and he asked me to fix the picture. He then asked me how much would I charge for a day on a freelancer basis irrespective of how many pictures I take and told me he'd call me back for a test shoot. Annoying jerk...didn't know anything about photography and thinks photoshop can fix everything. I pity the people who try to get work through them.

I made my way back to the initial office where I was asked to wait some more to meet the owner who ended up asking me how I was three times in the gap of 10 secs. He asked me what company I worked for and looked dazed at my answer. He also asked me if I knew how to photoshop and then told me he'd call me back. I left in an hurry

What a fiasco. I'm not going for the test shoot. I don't want to work with a bunch of baboons who think photoshop is everything....

On a completely different note, seems like I'll be staying in UAE so I need to look for someone to sponsor me. Time to go around begging....

I also need to get around sending my resume to this place I'd love to work for. Just haven't gotten around writing an email and a cover letter. Need to stop procrastinating cause time is running out....