In a real surprise for me, my first paid gig as a photographer was not a friend wanting shots of children, an engagement, wedding or the family: it was a corporate fund-raiser run by a not-for-profit organisation! The 2009 HYPA (Helping Young People Achieve) Bingo Night was quite an event, and kept me on my toes for several hours!
HYPA is a division of SYC (the Service to Youth Council), a not-for-profit Youth Agency in Adelaide. They were also good enough to give me my first professional job as a Social Worker after I graduated, which is how I got my foot in the door for a photographic gig!
Needless to say, the demands of shooting a six hour event with over 120 attendees far exceeded those of photographing my friends and their children at the beach or the park, and this was the first evening I had to keep everything really and truly top-notch. There were lighting issues (the hall itself was a total nightmare!) batteries to keep charged, key people and speakers to photograph (numerous times, preferably) and a million other things to do. Anyway, it felt that way.
In the end I was pleased with how things went, though of course looking back there were things I wish I'd done differently. But it's little use dwelling on the 'If Only' and the 'Should Have' moments, and on the whole I think my first pay was earned well enough.
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