Journal Essay Assignment - Question #4

4) What were some of the challenges/problems faced while on this internship? How did you deal with them?

A major problem faced was not knowing the software, and having to reteach myself everything I thought I knew about photography software. The program utilized by Cycle Shots is called DRUMS, and it is basically a batching tool for mass quantities of photos (as in entire leagues, schools, and sporting events all in one program). I was familiar with the data entry aspects of the program, but when I began learning how to Verify Crop and Correct, I struggled. The monitors are not calibrated like they are at school. In Caz, what you see on the screen is (most of the time) what you'll get out of the printer; the colors are least close and it doesn't require too many test prints to get a good looking print. These monitors are not calibrated to the printer, and Frank has never felt the need to calibrate them, since he's the only one who works with them, and therefore is well aware of the quirks and what one needs to do to correct them on the computer before printing. For example, to get a proper skin color to print, the image on the screen must be magenta-blue. Too much green will cause the picture to print yellow. If you make the photo on the screen look perfect to the eye, it will print in drastically (and unsellable-ly) incorrect colors. The contrast works the same way - if the photo's contrast looks perfect on screen, it's going to print incredibly light.

As if correcting a "good looking" picture wasn't hard enough, I frequently had to correct images that were ... shall we say, less than professional looking. Cycle Shots formats and prints for multiple photographers that work for a separate company altogether, and what we think is a good picture doesn't usually match up with what they give us. Because Frank is so good with the program and the correcting, and the prints often turn out near-flawless, the photographers he processes for are none the wiser that their photography skills may be lacking here and there.

Cropping within the program was an issue as well, as different photos needed to fit into different templates. I was unfamiliar with the templates, and therefore struggled sometimes to gauge how tight of a crop was necessary. If the crop was too wide, I would lose heads and feet when put into the template later on, and if cropped too tightly, definition in the faces would be too difficult to see.

This type of eye-brain coordination was something I had trouble adjusting to. I couldn't seem to get it right for the longest time, one particularly hard day being June 1st. I was not used to having to edit the colors so much just to get a good print. I'm used to it being easier, I suppose. What you see is what you get, right? Not this time around. I eventually got better, but I still don't think I made them perfect every time like Frank; he's been doing this every day for the past 10 years. Because he knew what he was doing, I frequently asked for his help and approval to get better. His criticisms were sometimes very direct, almost cutting, but in retrospect I needed it. I spent a few days telling him how this was never something I wanted to have to do the rest of my life, but eventually I found a calmness about it, a sort of lullaby of repetition, and found it almost relaxing.