News from TX

Well kids. You’re looking at (or looking at the words of) the new photographer for Ladd Photo Inc. My interview went very well on Tuesday afternoon and I was invited out for “burgers and beer” on Wednesday to seal the deal. We’ve worked out a nice sounding plan where I’ll be making some decent money to start and then after 3 months I’ll get both a raise and be added to the health insurance and benefits plan. I’ll be assisting for the first little bit but after getting my feet wet I’ll be shooting for them on my own. The good part about that is that I get both the “day rate” as well as my normal pay plus a commision off all the shots that I take that the client selects. Mmmm, commisions are tasty.

So, I have a job. A kick ass job at that. A little about the company… it’s a husband and wife team. The husband, Paul, takes the pictures and does all the artistic stuff while Carrie, his wife, handles the clients and booking and things like that. They are the official photographers for the Houston Texan football team, the local (channel 2) news, the Miss Texas pagent, Miss Teen Texas, and a whole host of other things. They also do weddings on the weekends, commercial shoots for Southern Living, Architecture Digest, print ads for a bunch of big Texas corporations in the area and a while ton of other things. These guys do it all. I was “sold” repeatedly on the fact that they do something different on a daily basis and that they’re never bored.

I count myself very lucky that both Lauren and myself have jobs where we’re doing EXACTLY what we wanted to do out of school. Most people do something in their field but how many people can say that they got the job they always wanted right after college?

So, the plan is to stick around here, get up to speed in terms of work (work with their equipment, get used to how they work, etc) and then come home the 2nd week of August to get all my belongings. The reason being that I’m going to be on an 8 day road trip to the Miss Texas pagent the 21st through the 29th. Talk about trial by fire. I suppose if I was able to handle a secret service-style wedding in Maine, this should be a walk in the park. So, I’ll be home in August for a week or so to get everything squared away.

Just wanted everyone to know whats going on. I’ve got to run, a HUGE lightning storm is about 15 feet away. I’ll let you guys know more about the job when I start on Tuesday. Thanks again to everyone for their support. I’ll update this whenever I have a chance.

Take care everybody. Matt out