When I was there at Swissotel on Thursday evening, dropping in to see how's everything going, I was pretty pleased to have seen what was there. The set up and everything was getting better every year.
I remember in 2006 when we had our first prom night on-site printing, it was my project and the EXCO worked very hard on it. Because it was our first major project, we roped in our members as well and had them to give suggestions on the work flow. Our discussion took place after the 2006 College Open House, and it went on till around 8pm. The school servants were locking up and requested that we leave.
We had 10 photog members then, but we didn't have enough manpower. December 6th was the date of the prom nite and the EXCO reported to school early that day. We had a month or two of preparation, clearly written workflows, steps, and loaned all the laptops we needed from the school. They were incredibly slow, and adding to that, we installed Photoshop CS2. I recall clearly that JS changed one of the desktop pictures to "I am a laggy comp. Just kill me."
After a round of very delicious gui chap at kallang, the exco, mr cheng and a boot full of equipment set off to Pan Pac hotel. At 3pm, 3 members turned up but the remaining 3 members were missing. 2 hours later, they didn't come. We had to make do with the manpower shortage, but JS and XQn were very great help, though I was instructed to personally change the cartridges for JS because we were using expired ink! Rofl...
We didn't have backdrops then, and the shooting was pretty haywire. I guess there were a lot of mistakes we made, plus it was our first time doing it, and Chee got a scolding for something he did that was really funny- on hindsight... When on the way home, we counted the earnings and we made a grand total of $278.
The EXCO were so proud of ourselves. That was our first proper print and sell project, and it was considered a blast for us. We had fish porridge at bedok north for supper and were sent packing home, and I fell asleep by 3am.
We reported back to school at 8am the next morning, but no one had any grouses. As far as I remember, we were actually quite proud of ourselves.
When Prom Nite 2007 came, boy, it was MY prom nite! I didn't actually attend because it costs $90 and no one in their sane minds would actually pay that much for some 8 course dinner that you can't really enjoy much because all you really do then is to take photos... So I turned up in a nice outfit and........ my camera bag. =P (I'm convinced no one's in their right minds after the A levels.)
That night, my juniors earned themselves $900+. I couldn't be more proud of them. We only had one grey backdrop, and the hilarious thing that happened during prom night was what I called our "pit stop crew"- everytime a group of people moved off from the backdrop, a bunch of those on duty at the booth with flock onto the backdrop and start using tape to patch up the backdrop, thanks to the killer stilettos the ladies had been wearing.
This year, although I already said that I won't be shooting this year, I couldn't help but drop by. Using "meeting my client" as an excuse, I snuck out of the house and dropped in to see the kiddies. Well, I must say the Prom Nite on-site printing project has really come a long way. From an equipment base of 3 DSLRs, 2 Selphies, a R230 (crap thing), a R2100, and a Pro9000 with no backdrops, no strobes... up till today- a list I don't think I'd ever bother to write out- all I can say is...
"WOW."
When I heard that 4 digit figure of our earnings this year, I must say I was privately envious, and a little bit jealous too. However, as one of the seniors who kick started this project, I am really really proud and thankful of all the people who have made this happened, and Mr Cheng's foresight for buying the backdrops (to which we actually vehemently objected, must have been a teenager thing to oppose to every sane decision) and that this project would not have gotten such a great success without every batch of maturing "J2s".
With love from Grouch,
