An assistant is a necesity for many a commercial photographer’s shoots, sometimes more than one, but it has always fascinated me what my fellow photographers look for in an assistant.
I’m not talking about the likes of Mario Testino, but for us mere mortals…
I have a friend who looks for a very technically able assistant, indeed, long ago I once assisted a beauty photographer who could not load the film in her own camera (so old!). She was most put out that I wasn’t familiar with her particular camera. I resorted to the manaul and it was sorted.
Personally, I would never expect an assistant to turn up on a shoot and be instantly able to work all of my equipment. In my experience, the specifics of using the equipment in terms of setting it up and basic operations can be taught relatively quickly and easily.
However, the ability to make small talk and strike up a conversation at a moment’s notice with someone
you have never met before and probably won’t again is not something that is easily taught.
Since specialising in people and lifestyle photography, I have to say that Nicky, who has assisted me for a few years now, is a fantastic assistant for me. Don’t get me wrong, she is technically very able, but she can chat also with everyone.
Nicky is immediately at ease with the diverse range of characters we come accross on shoots, which ranges from people living on the streets to high maintenance American lifestyle models and everyone in between!
Which means she puts our subjects at their ease too, leaving me to do get the job done – capturing emotion for visual communication.
Together, we keep it seemingly natural and unstaged when the reality is often anything but. Which brings me on to praise Polly for her logistics and production – but I’ll leave that for another day!