Click. Click. Click.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about wanting to focus on my photography (sorry, I’m a punster). Now I have an opportunity to do exactly that, and to push myself to do it well. In a nutshell, I have an assignment to write a magazine article about San Francisco’s coffee roasters. I’m supposed to provide the artwork, either by paying a photographer out of my own fee or by acquiring photos some other way. And I realized that I have the equipment and the know-how to do a decent job of it myself — maybe not as well as someone who takes pictures for a living, but certainly well enough to satisfy the needs of this particular magazine.

And so today, when I took my laptop to one of the city’s leading coffee roasters, I also had my DSLR in the bag. And after I interviewed the owner (who was, incidentally, a lot of fun to talk to — I love when a workmanlike interview suddenly turns into a real conversation), I took a bunch of shots of the cafe, the stacks of beans in their burlap sacks, the beans whirling around in the big roaster. I wrapped up by getting permission come back on another day to take more if I need to. And I’m going to do the same with the other folks I’m interviewing.

I still have plenty of time before my deadline to arrange for a pro photographer if I need to. But so far, I’m pleased enough with my results that I’m hoping I won’t need to. If all goes well, these will be my very first published photographs.

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