Day One

Just wished to give a brief report of what I shall call Day One of being a photographer. Well. Day One of being able to call it my day job, at any rate. Having given up my position in the newsagent I worked in, my daytimes are now entirely free, free to make arrangements, unfettered in accepting commissions, and finally – finally – able to focus my attention upon furthering my career.

I am going to picture the feeling right now, if you will indulge me. There is no other reason for these paragraphs than to remind myself, should I ever become bored of having a little more time to call my own, what a wondrous feeling it is to have that time, and to remind myself how… how… claustrophobic my working week used to be. The majority of 2009 was, necessary as it was, a contradictory mish-mash of absurd commitments and little pockets of availability, joyless, and infused throughout with a sense of slight dread as another twelve hours loomed ever larger, dishing out unspeakable newspapers to Norwich’s finest unwashed. Only twelve hours, mind, but good Gollum, did they last a long time. More irritating, though, was the inexplicable ability of that small dealing of hours to render an entire day a write-off. Rather than make phone calls, send emails and arrange meetings, the morning before a newsagent shift was always a blend of sleeping in and watching (old) football; even days off would be spent in this way, as a reward for the twelve slow hours just gone by, and an odd sort of denial of the twelve slow hours coming up.

Spending most of one’s time at work standing just beside the shop’s owner would test the character of anybody; perhaps the worst thing about it was the necessity of being polite. To everyone. Once or twice, that involved assenting to meet customers for tea; to stay in the owner’s good books I agreed to enrol on a mind-numbingly inane retail skills course, involving a mathematics project that I could have done at the age of ten. For a job in a newsagent, it definitely had a way of spreading its tentacles to take up more space in one’s diary.

Yet, I am being a little unfair. The shop’s owners were – are – a lovely couple, generous, flexible and helpful. In a different environment, they would be far more of a pleasure to be around; I’m quite sure they’d admit that themselves. The point is that it is a little unhealthy in any job, or even in any relationship, to spend so much time in the immediate vicinity of the same person. One can only tolerate that to a point.

It says a great deal, though, that I spend a good deal more time working in the Fat Cat than I did there, and consider it a thousand times less of a burden than the newsagent. I have three evenings coming up this week there, and am actually quite looking forward to them. Space in the job, and the freedom to forget about it afterwards, you see. Those things become a treat after you’ve been deprived of them in another job.

…and I’m done. Without the faint but persistent distraction of newsagent dread coming up, I have arisen earlier in the day, made far better use of the time and – just today, on Day One – achieved just as much as I did in the preceding few weeks. If you’re still reading this, God alone can help you, but would you like to know the best thing about turning my daytimes into a blank canvas for my photography career? I’m looking forward to tomorrow…