TIPS60 - How to be an invaluable assistant

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on how to be an invaluable assistant. I'm John Harrington. When you're assisting a photographer, your role is to make the photographer's job easier, to make it possible for the photographer to focus on making the pictures. That means you need to do what you're told, when you're told and exactly how you're told, and don't complain about it. If you're asked to do something, if you don't do it, the photographers going to end up having to do it or another assistant going to end up having to do it. So the thing you need to do is focus on making photographer's life easier. Carrying equipment, thinking two, three, four steps ahead of photographer, anticipating what might be happening. Make yourself invaluable, the photographer will call you again and again. But it's important for you to understand that you're not there to socialize with the client, you're not there to socialize with the photographer, you're there to get a job done and help the photographer get the job done right and make that photographer look good. Any questions, any dialogue between the client and you, you need to defer to the photographer.

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