So yeah, kinda unexpected but like wow. I'm still scratching my head thinking "Why me?" Its funny really. When bad things happen you go "Why me?!" but when good things happen I often wonder the same. Still, having a top professional photographer and the editor of "Professional Photographer" going "OMG WOW" over my work has made me think "Huh" more than anything 
Seriously though its been great. I'm actually in the same magazine as top professionals that I've respected for quite a while. What follows is the write up of the day...
So a few weeks back I saw a forum post by Karen McBride asking for an assistant. I emailed her for the details and we had a chat on MSN about the day. It turned out that she was being interviewed by Professional Photographer for their "Day in the life" article. She wanted an assistant or two to create a real atmosphere. She called in a great guy called David Baird who really knew his lighting stuff. He was to be her assistant and I was to be his. Getting there was fun. I got stuck on the motorway for 30 mins and was panicing that I'd be late. I had to call Karen and explain. She said it was cool as David's train was late. I got there and it wasn't at all what I expected. I was kinda expecting a stereotypical studio on the highstreet or something. It was actually this old factory that had been done up, a tiny amount, to allow artists to work there. Musicians, painters, photographers, etc. It had a very cool lift. Really old fashioned style, but as we've recently found it can be stopped mid-floor by someone opening the door. The studio was awesome. It had the floor space of my parents entire house. There was a large quarter for studio work with HUGE softboxes. Another quarter was a kitchen. Another was a chillout zone with a couch, matrix like green seat and a coffee table. The other quarter had Karen's work on the walls and a place to work. All day I kept thinking "This is what I need." I was really nervous for most of the day. I was nervous enough about assisting but then with Professional Photographer in the background documenting it I was very very scared While we were waiting for the band to turn up we all got our laptops out. It was like an Apple / Canon store. We had the following;
The 10-20 on a 1D "works" and its just uber wide. I looked at least 8ft tall. I had the chance to play with a 1Ds. I held it, looked through the viewfinder and put it down. Ignorance is bliss. I had just got my 30D and there was no way I wanted to spend the next few years thinking it was rubbish and that I needed a 1D. The great thing is that this was all backed up by what Karen said. She recently toured with Robbie Williams as his official gig photographer using none other than the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8. This really filled me with confidence. If its good enough for events like that, its good enough for me. She actually stole my 30D for the shoot as it was producing the results she was after with my 10-20 and 24-70 on. Again I was filled with confidence that it was all about how the photographer uses the kit they have.
Karen told me to show Ian Farrell (who has a photoblog) my HDR shots and he was blown away. We were chatting and he mentioned that he was missing a digital tutorial for the next issue. I told him that I've already written one on HDR and he couldn't believe his luck. He comissioned me on the spot and I was picking my jaw up off the floor for the rest of the day.
The band turned up, Dear Eskiimo, who are great. Katie really knew her stuff. Put a camera in front of her and boom, instant shot. Of course it takes a bit of time to get a really perfect shot as I saw on the day. Karen was taking some excellent shots but she felt things just weren't working. We had lunch in the form of Karen's Mum and sister who provided an entire buffet! There was even a tea boy. After lunch we got back to work and things started to pickup. We did notice a slight glitch in that Karen's Mac only had CS1 so it didn't support the 30D's RAW format. We had no net connection so we couldn't update it. Thankfully mine worked. She was shooting RAW + high res JPG as she preferred JPG but wanted the RAW's to have a play with HDR. So we used my Mac to do all the previewing. This was a great thing. I know people who say to never show your client the shots but having seen the other side of the coin I don't believe it now. You're there to produce something great. Whether you have an idea or the client does you need to work together and get that on film. So by sitting down with the client and going through the shots with them you can say whether you think its working or not, as can they. You're not there to simply take photos and run off home to process. If you look closely at the image of Karen at her desk, thats my Mac Its also my camera in the photos. Haha, random claim to fame 5pm rolled up and Ian had to leave. He was really disapointed as he was having a great time, we all were. After he left we put Fatboy Slim on (I think) and turned it up. That was the biggest tip I got that day. You could totally see how the band reacted to the tunes. They were more relaxed and livened up. The same for Karen and things just flowed. The great shots just poured in.
So by the end of the day what had I learnt?
Good tunes, good people skills = good photos. All the rest you can probably read in your average photography guide, but to see this in action was so helpful. Believe in yourself, go for the kill and have a kick ass soundtrack
Seriously though its been great. I'm actually in the same magazine as top professionals that I've respected for quite a while. What follows is the write up of the day...So a few weeks back I saw a forum post by Karen McBride asking for an assistant. I emailed her for the details and we had a chat on MSN about the day. It turned out that she was being interviewed by Professional Photographer for their "Day in the life" article. She wanted an assistant or two to create a real atmosphere. She called in a great guy called David Baird who really knew his lighting stuff. He was to be her assistant and I was to be his. Getting there was fun. I got stuck on the motorway for 30 mins and was panicing that I'd be late. I had to call Karen and explain. She said it was cool as David's train was late. I got there and it wasn't at all what I expected. I was kinda expecting a stereotypical studio on the highstreet or something. It was actually this old factory that had been done up, a tiny amount, to allow artists to work there. Musicians, painters, photographers, etc. It had a very cool lift. Really old fashioned style, but as we've recently found it can be stopped mid-floor by someone opening the door. The studio was awesome. It had the floor space of my parents entire house. There was a large quarter for studio work with HUGE softboxes. Another quarter was a kitchen. Another was a chillout zone with a couch, matrix like green seat and a coffee table. The other quarter had Karen's work on the walls and a place to work. All day I kept thinking "This is what I need." I was really nervous for most of the day. I was nervous enough about assisting but then with Professional Photographer in the background documenting it I was very very scared
While we were waiting for the band to turn up we all got our laptops out. It was like an Apple / Canon store. We had the following;The 10-20 on a 1D "works" and its just uber wide. I looked at least 8ft tall. I had the chance to play with a 1Ds. I held it, looked through the viewfinder and put it down. Ignorance is bliss. I had just got my 30D and there was no way I wanted to spend the next few years thinking it was rubbish and that I needed a 1D. The great thing is that this was all backed up by what Karen said. She recently toured with Robbie Williams as his official gig photographer using none other than the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8. This really filled me with confidence. If its good enough for events like that, its good enough for me. She actually stole my 30D for the shoot as it was producing the results she was after with my 10-20 and 24-70 on. Again I was filled with confidence that it was all about how the photographer uses the kit they have.
Karen told me to show Ian Farrell (who has a photoblog) my HDR shots and he was blown away. We were chatting and he mentioned that he was missing a digital tutorial for the next issue. I told him that I've already written one on HDR and he couldn't believe his luck. He comissioned me on the spot and I was picking my jaw up off the floor for the rest of the day.
The band turned up, Dear Eskiimo, who are great. Katie really knew her stuff. Put a camera in front of her and boom, instant shot. Of course it takes a bit of time to get a really perfect shot as I saw on the day. Karen was taking some excellent shots but she felt things just weren't working. We had lunch in the form of Karen's Mum and sister who provided an entire buffet! There was even a tea boy. After lunch we got back to work and things started to pickup. We did notice a slight glitch in that Karen's Mac only had CS1 so it didn't support the 30D's RAW format. We had no net connection so we couldn't update it. Thankfully mine worked. She was shooting RAW + high res JPG as she preferred JPG but wanted the RAW's to have a play with HDR. So we used my Mac to do all the previewing. This was a great thing. I know people who say to never show your client the shots but having seen the other side of the coin I don't believe it now. You're there to produce something great. Whether you have an idea or the client does you need to work together and get that on film. So by sitting down with the client and going through the shots with them you can say whether you think its working or not, as can they. You're not there to simply take photos and run off home to process. If you look closely at the image of Karen at her desk, thats my Mac
Its also my camera in the photos. Haha, random claim to fame 5pm rolled up and Ian had to leave. He was really disapointed as he was having a great time, we all were. After he left we put Fatboy Slim on (I think) and turned it up. That was the biggest tip I got that day. You could totally see how the band reacted to the tunes. They were more relaxed and livened up. The same for Karen and things just flowed. The great shots just poured in. So by the end of the day what had I learnt?
Good tunes, good people skills = good photos. All the rest you can probably read in your average photography guide, but to see this in action was so helpful. Believe in yourself, go for the kill and have a kick ass soundtrack
4 weeks and counting... *sniff sniff* You can actually see my Macbook Pro on page 67