Day #7 of Trevor Carpenter’s December Challenge. This is a photo of my wife, Allison. She graciously allowed me to photograph her like crazy. I kept telling her not to smile, pretty much so I could make her laugh, I love when she laughs and she gets a very natural smile. The other smiles are too fixed. I’m not happy with the lighting, I need to start taking these earlier in the day and many more outside.
Of course, today I started the day in Tennessee at 4:00am. I then proceeded to fly from Tennessee to Charlotte, NC. My flight was delayed to come home and I got home around 1:00pm. While I was at the airport I did see two potential people that I wanted to take portraits of. I chickened out to ask either one of them. I have to get over this fear.
The Charlotte airport is strange, don’t get me wrong it has free wireless internet so I love it. But the strange thing about the airport is the bathrooms. In some men’s rooms there is an attendant. A man is there who is constantly cleaning the place, handing out paper towels and has a bowl of mints and mouthwash and a tip jar. I just want to pee guilt free in a no tipping zone. It also threw me for a loop because I was not expecting to be expected to give a tip for using the bathroom. I can understand that swanky places in high society or glitzy bars have an attendant but the airport? But not every men’s room has an attendant. So I like to pee on my own terms and I can get my own paper towels thanks. You saved me like what, two seconds. Come on!
I’d been away for a week so I got some time to spend with Eva. I even took a few photos of her in her nice new Christmas Dress.
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I was talking with Randy from Utterz today and I learned that Utterz now can automatically upload to Flickr as well as to moveable type. Utterz just keeps getting better and better. And Once I get my new phone I’m going to pay a call on the folks at Utterz to interview them. After the first of the year when I get my new EnV!
At least you get to pee inside. I have to go outside. Have you ever tried to pee outside when in the middle of winter? When is it sleeting at like 3am and you try to hold it but you can’t so you finally go out. It is so hard to pee while you are shivering and getting sleeted on.
Sorry I don’t feel bad that you had to pee in a bathroom with and attendant handing you towels. That must be rough.
The thing you need to remember is you are not required to tip people. If the attendant being there bugs you don’t tip you are only reinforcin the behavior. I learned in training if you reinforce a behavor it will continue but it you ignore it it will be replaces by some other behavior. Think about it for a while. My A has some good books on this I can send you.
If you career is sitting in a mens room at the airport I think you have bigger things to worry about than if the blog guy gives you a 50 cent tip. Tipping because you feel guilty is just wrong. Tip if you want to don’t tip if you don’t feel like it. Tips should not be expected you should take a job for the salary and tips should be a bonus not an expected part of your employment. If you can’t live on $3/hr you should not take the dog. Tipping just subsidizes employers who pay crap wages. Minimum wage is there for a reason there is no reason you should be able to pay and employee less because they can get tips.
In a resturant you pay for a meal and expect a waitress. I should not have to pay the bulk of the waitress or waiters salary. That is the job of the establishement. I should be able to tip 0 if I get ok service and go up from there. Even if I get a poor server I am still expected to tip 15% what kind of crap is that. If I hire a gardener and he does an awful job I fire him and don’t pay.
Tipping is no longer tipping it is too expected. Lets just call it like it is. You should be able to walk into a resturant and subcontract your own server. You should be able to even bring your own if you want because the resturant is not really employing these people you are.
America needs to get over itself and fix this systems. The only one who wins in this system is the establishment. They get to pay low wages the workers and the consumer are hurt by this tipping sytem.
You aslo sometimes see the lame argurement of well that extra dollar means more to them than to me. Well sorry a dollar is a dollar if means 100 pennies to both of us. It is not my job to balance out the economy. If you want that check out China or some other communist country
What a great lady – letting you share the picture with the blogging world. I do a lot of portrait photography and find that morning light is the best – late afternoon seems to cast a yellowish tint. I enjoyed your writing and pics – the road is spectacular!
Stephen, you certainly have some strong feelings on this subject. while I agree with some I still cannot help feeling slightly guilty about not tipping in certain situations. I appreciate you sharing your points of view on this.
Hi Michelle and welcome to my blog. I’m glad you enjoy the photography. I need to get outside much more often than I do to get the good outdoor shots. Glad you enjoy your time here on this blog. Please visit again.
Greatest portrait of them all. Beautiful and natural.
Stephen Dog does have strong feelings. I can understand them too, but my kids have worked as waitresses and so we know the other side (which is, theory be damned, the reality is I need the money).
But back to the point: Allison can use this portrait for all sorts of professional things. It’s important to have a great portrait around.
Thanks Andree. I think this is a very nice photo of Allison and very nice ones of Eva as well. They both look beautiful.
I worked in the food service industry as well. And I know that Stephen does have strong feelings and I think that they are more about changing the system rather than not tipping. And sometimes you do feel guilted into tipping. And tipping should be based on service rather than just an expected 15 or 20% across the board. It is with anything else, you should be earning the tips because of the good job that you do. If you do poorly then don’t expect a tip because culturally we are being guilted into it. If I do poorly in my job I shouldn’t expect a raise.