Gus the Camera Man from KHOU 11 News.

You may have heard I was on our local news station a few days ago in Houston, TX. They were doing a story about Shoe of the Month Clubs and wanted to see some of my shoe collection and interview me all about it. I belong to ShoeDazzle, yes Kim Kardashian is the Co-Founder of this business. However, this is a BRILLENT idea. I won’t go into talking about the shoes because you can watch the interview here.

Anyways, I was to take my shoe collection down to their studio and that meant seeing how the camera guy works his lighting and being able to sit in the green room! I was in the green room of the Deborah Duncan Show. In the pictures there is a huge photo of her and I believe her son on the wall. It is a gorgeous picture done in wrapped canvas.

So, I was interviewed by Tiffany Craig. You can tell she had been in the business a while because her line of questioning wasn’t just a list of questions. She made it into a conversation and that made it easy to ignore the camera and just talk about another one of my passions…MY SHOES! She was very easy to talk to and genuinely interested in what I had to say. She was very petite and super sweet. I also learned later that she was proposed to the night before and of course she said YES! So, Tiffany if you need a wedding photographer I am available ;) and Congratulations.

Another interesting character was Gus the camera man. He is quite, has a dry sense of humor and takes his job very seriously. I did manage to get him to laugh a few times and we really hit it off when we started to talk about lighting. He showed me his three part set up: One soft box light to my right side, a small spotlight to my left and a small pin light right behind me (These are in the pictures below). He uses battery operated lights because they need to be on the go a lot and may not have power sources next to where their story is. But the one brilliant thing that Gus had was his secret diffuser for his lights. He uses something so simple and so cheap….he uses WAX PAPER…I KNOW BRILLIANT RIGHT?! I have to try this out. He just clipped it on with a few clothes pins and he was good to go. In fact, Gus gave me his stash of wax paper and clothes pins as a parting gift. To top it all of Gus let me hold his camera! This camera was HEAVY. I think it weighed close to 15 – 20 lbs. I will never complain about my 7 lb camera again! He showed me how to zoom in and out and I was surprised that it is not color. It is black and white with little lines going through the picture. Kind like if you were to take a black and white picture of your TV or your computer. When you check out the interview watch how steady Gus can move the camera with one hand lowered close to the ground. That is talent people…and lots of muscle! Thank you for all the goodies Gus; you are a one cool cat! 

It was a great experience and at first I was skeptical to go on there. I use to be a model and super skinny and tone. Now after marriage, bed rest and a baby I am a size 10 and just self conscious a lot. A lot of times I let my mind get in the way of me living life. I am trying to be more comfortable in my own skin and trying to not let negative thoughts take control me. I think this was a huge step out of my comfort zone and I have to say, I didn't look all that bad either!

Here a few picture of the experience: