First crappy snow in Minneapolis
I ventured out into the snow early this morning to make my way to WordCamp MSP at the Best Buy HQ. Roads were pretty bad already at 8AM with lots of sloppy slush being thrown up onto everyone’s windshield’s from passing cars. Be careful out there Minnesnowta!
This is my first ever WordCamp and I believe it’s the first-ever WordCamp in the Twin Cities. WordCamp is a day of workshops for bloggers who use WordPress. After a few sessions this morning I am swimming with new ideas for content and delivery. Lunch was pretty good, catered in from Buca. Looking forward to the afternoon sessions.
If you’re a WordPress user and can brave the roads I recommend that you come check it out. Registration is open all day, I think.
© Jeff Foley
I always love it when I find photographers online who give kudos to the people they work with. Especially the photographers who give credit to assistants who got their back, time and again.
Check out what Jeff Foley at Foley Photography has to say about his A-1 assistant, Krystal.
And, you can see Krystal’s blog at Krystal Photography.
Working as a photo assistant and traveling to a location shoot can be a lot of fun. I’ve had many, many opportunities to travel and work on location, and one thing that each has in common is that every one is different. Working with different photographers will inevitably lead to traveling to many different locations, working on various types of shoots, with many different types of people. So, I guess the other thing that all location shoots have in common is that they are hardly ever boring. But, it can also be a lot of work. If you like lugging gear, working your butt off from sunrise to sunset, overcoming adversity, dealing with weather and other uncertainties of the road–then assisting on location might be the life for you.
There is both an art and a business to traveling and photography. The photographer must know what the client expects from them. As a photo assistant, you must know what the photographer expects from you. If there is a producer, they will handle many of the minute details. But the photographer and assistant will need to be on the same page with concern to ad layouts, gear to bring or rent when arriving, job roles of everyone on the production, and catering to the client. Sometimes, the assistant will double as a mini-producer and handle, or assist, with such things as car rentals, hotel reservations, getting lunch, pulling permits, scouting, and scheduling. Making it all work takes resourcefulness, creativity, hard work, and many times, a lot of overtime.
Bauer -> Behind The Scenes from Jonathan Chapman Photography on Vimeo.
Here’s a great little behind the scenes video shot of Jonathan Chapman and his crew doing a very interesting shoot for Olson and the Bauer Hockey Athletic Camp 2010. I’m not posting this just because I am a huge hockey fan (well, maybe a little), but I just wanted to show that there is still some great imaginative work being done out there. I love it when everyone puts their heads together and pulls-off something fun like this!
You can see Jonathan’s blog at Jonathan Chapman Photography/Intrigue.
Well, shoot! I’ve been crazy busy. Hardly enough time to think let alone get caught up, here, on the blog. My apologies for leaving you hanging. Being extra busy the last couple months has lead to some scheduling conflicts when booking shoots, so I thought this was a good opportunity to talk about them here on APhotoAssistant.com.
Many freelance photo assistants may have one to five photographers who they always work with, almost exclusively. If you’re not there yet, no worries, you will get there. Lately, I’ve been working, a lot, out of town. Traveling, and just being generally busy, will easily complicate your schedule and make it difficult to always be available to the main core of photographers you work with. It’d be great if everyone was so busy that we could just book 3-5 days each week with the same photographer, but let’s face it, that’s probably not gonna happen–unless you are a full-time studio assistant. A good gig if you can get it, but that’s whole different topic for another time.
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