Coffee & Pie Oh My

Photography Guide: Parties

- Get your parents to buy you a new digital camera; it must be an SLR or nobody is going to take you serious. Also remember to make sure you leave the neck strap on there so you look like a broken-in tourist. Read up on how many megapixels the camera is for you will be asked such questions at multiple points throughout the night.

- ALWAYS switch to Automatic option. It will guarantee with your expensive digital camera you get a hit every time.

- Do not drink any more than five drinks in the lead up to shooting photos. This will insure that you follow the previous step.

-Try to move around as much as possible, it will insure you get a varying number of subject and unique backdrops

- Keeping drinking to a sensible level will insure that you are able to correctly check your photos as you shoot them. Don't worry about settings, the Auto option has you covered.

- Ignore composition. Just be sure to make sure that your subject is directly in the middle and getting plenty of that flash action. Rule of thirds? Huh?

-Always bring a flash with you for your fancy digital camera that is large enough to draw generous amounts of attention to yourself. This will also insure that people will pull out their perfected "I am partying pose" on demand. Additionally it will have the affect of moths being drawn to a light; this is what you want. Attention to yourself not only means more notoriety but will also draw more people to your blog.

- Shoot as MANY photos as possible and always show the subject the results so you can can commend each other.

- If there is any behavior from other party goers that you can turn into a fad amongst your elitist scene be sure to get your friends to replicate it. Just make sure you take heaps of photos of the act and then you can claim it later as your original idea. It is also a good idea to twitter about such things, this will no doubt reinforce your "crew's" discovery.

- Be sure to make some sort of watermark for your photo's so that everyone knows your work, your unique style of party photography may not be enough for people to realise who shot those amazing photos

-ALWAYS post the photos on your blog the next day so that people can comment on how amazing the night was and see their party pose from the night before. The Cobra Snake runs his ship like this so why shouldn't you?

- Submit your photos to a local street press to show how hard you and your friends were partying, they in turn may repay your professional photography skills with such lucrative items as tickets to Australian Hip Hop 'concerts' in your local town (Extra points if they are V.I.P tickets).

- Sit back and wait for all the people at the party and everyone in the small town to look at your photos and give you a pat on the back via facebook. Nothing and i repeat NOTHING is as gratifying as friends using your photos as their Facebook display photo. It won't be long now before your shooting vice parties

The Reality

- A second-hand film camera which was purchased with a social security payment will draw questions all night such as "Where is the LCD?" and "People still shoot film?"

- Don't get a flash, this will only serve to make sure that photos actually come out

- Arrive late and proceed to drink as quickly as possible to not be 'that sober guy'

- Get too drunk and fumble with your settings

- Settle in out the back of the venue and proceed to spend most of the night drinking and smoking in the dark so that even if there is something interesting happening there aint a chance in hell your going to be able to shoot a photo of it.

- Drinking will boost your ego with photography much as it will with all life skills, making you think you are alot better at what you are doing than you really are. The result of this will be getting back a roll of photos all out of focus and the realisation that you had bumped some setting on the camera you didn't know existed.

- Hiding your camera where you think it won't be stolen is always a great idea for when you start to get rather drunk....... until you drink too much and forget where you hid it, an easter egg hunt of sorts will proceed.

- Receive your roll of film back from Woolworth's to realise that you have gotten three "O.K" photos back from the roll

- Post the the out of focus picture up on the blog that noone looks at. When you get around to it.

Simon + Emerson, Halloween, 2009