A second set of eyes.

People often forget that being self-employed means you are running your own little business. Not all self-employed people are good at business. They may be good at their trade or profession but they may not have the skills it takes to reach their true potential. That is why you need a guy like Clemens Rettich behind you.

I actually met Clemens while on a photo shoot for Bamboletta Dolls back in the winter. We chatted a little then but I bumped into him again at Coffee on the Moon while my photo exhibition was up there. We chatted for quite a while and decided it was in our mutual best interests to work together. He liked what I had been doing and I liked his ideas for me. 

Last week we met up at the Tea Farm just outside of Duncan for a photo shoot and a nice afternoon tea break. Margit and Victor are the enthusiastic, artistic owners of this gem of a place!

There is a cool old barn that has been converted into a studio inside but the exterior has a lot of character. So we decided to do some photos around this.

The top photo takes advantage of a backwards clock on the blackboard, leftover from a mad-hatters tea party. Clemens is not afraid to confront such nonsense. Not at all :)

These photo were taken in the mid-afternoon so I was using a lot of lighting power to compete with the sun.

 This photo has an extra layer of lighting - up in the little loft of the barn I hid a light just to help illuminate the door.

 This one is pretty straight forward. I think there was one key light and one fill.

 And the same lighting for this one. I wanted a different perspective and this one allowed me to get rid of the shadows on the barn and the ladder came in handy as a prop.

 These last three shot are from a meeting we had downtown at the Twisted Mug Cafe. I chose this location since it has some nice natural light, interesting seats and it is where I had been having meetings with Clemens. I think the location is pretty accurate of where you might expect to see Clemens doing his work, meeting a client and giving critical advice. Did I mention, Clemens was instrumental in the direction my "Behind the Vines" exhibition went? Yep. He gave me some good advice. That's his job. A guy like this acting as a second set of eyes on your business is priceless!

 Ok, back to the photos. Natural light you ask. Yes. I wanted to do this because it is a busy coffee shop. I didn't want to be intrusive or have my lighting gear get knocked over. I knew the natural light was good here so why mess with mother nature?

So there you have it folks. My advice is to get good advice.

kurtknock.com