JEFF SINGER BLOG - SAN FRANCISCO EDITORIAL & COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER » 7×7 Magazine

Can I Get Some Assistants

Jeff Singer — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 07:44:06 +0000

It seems like talking about assisting on your blog is all the rage right now. It started over on “A Photo Editor’s” blog and now has continued over on “Whats the Jackanory.”I never really did much assisting. A few years ago I got a late start in photography after many years in the tech field. I was 32 at the time and I felt like I was too old to be assisting and didn’t really want to do it. Not because I thought it was beneath me, but rather, I felt the need to get to work on my own career having had such a late start. It surely wasn’t because I felt like I had all the knowledge and skills and was ready to be a professional photographer… quite the contrary. I mean, at the time I had literally only been using a camera for little more than a year. What the hell did I know?I assisted a few San Francisco advertising and editorial photographers on a few shoots but soon discovered that I was a.) really bad at assisting and b.) really didn’t like it. So, partly due to my own stubbornness and largely due to my own ignorance I stopped trying to get assisting work and decided to focus on my own photography. Another reason for my decision not to assisist (aside from nobody hiring me) came on one of my last attempts at working as an assistant. I emailed Timothy Archibald, another great blogger, to see if he needed an assistant. Thankfully, rather than hiring me, he gave me some encouraging words. I hope he doesn’t mind my quoting his response (which I can only imagine having been made while highly intoxicated):

I just got a chance to visit your site, your work is wonderfull. the portraits are very human and introspective, important qualities that are hard to find together in one shot.that said, i would discourage you from trying to find work from me. you clearly should be supporting yourself being a photographer! currently i am not in need of anyone as an assistant, but i will keep you in mind. tho i’m quite sure you will be on your way as a photographer by the time i’d ever get around to giving you a ring. ha.keep up the good work and do not sell yourself short.

Now, maybe this was his way of politely blowing off someone who would clearly be a horrible assistant, but the joke was on him because I took his comments seriously and it helped my push to do my own work.There are some aspects of the photography process that I feel I missed out on by not assisting. Andrew, over at “Whats The Jackanory” pinpointed exactly what it is I feel I missed. Here is what Andrew had to say:

I learnt so much [from assisting], but in the end I was more interested in the process then the technicalities, I enjoyed watching how people worked, their relationship with their subject whether it be alive or still didn’t matter. Everyone has a different approach and it always fascinated me especially my first time out with someone new, how did they tackle things differently from the others; were they calm, nervous, high energy, a talker, quiet, shy, did they like music, silence, were they a screamer, a shouter or were they in total control, was it all an act, a means to an end, or were they for real, what you saw was what you got, how did they interact with the client, the models etc etc.

Since I did little assisting I’ve never really worked with or watched other photographers at work. I always had this feeling in my mind that maybe I’m doing something wrong. Maybe the way I’m interacting with the subject isn’t right. “How would ‘so and so’ do this?” Is everyone looking at me and thinking “this guy has no idea what is going on!!!!” Do I need to be more talkative, do I need to be more outgoing, do I need to shut up, do I need to be funnier, do I need to be more serious, and on and on and on.Over time this has passed, but I will admit to having the thoughts pop in my head every once in a while. I’m finally getting to the point where I realize that I just need to do what I do and go about my business. Its when you start trying to be like someone else or do things the way another shooter would, rather than the way you would do it that the results aren’t as good as they could be. If you were hired to do a shoot its because they liked YOUR work, so don’t try to be someone else, just do your thing and the results will be good.I’m still fascinated by how other photographers work, so any chance I get to hang out on a shoot and watch another photographer working I take it. But now I’m there as a peer rather than an assistant… which means, when they have me take in their dry cleaning after the shoot, I know no starch on the collars.

Roz Savage: Rowing the Pacific

Jeff Singer — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 22:08:15 +0000

Someday I may be as tough as Roz Savage , but I doubt it. You see, Roz Savage is a 40 year old woman who can’t be more than 5’2″ tall, and as of today she is in the process of rowing from the San Francisco Bay to Australia. She will be the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.Come to think of it I’m not all that impressed… she is after all stopping in Hawaii. But, I’ll cut her some slack. The trip to Hawaii alone is expected to take about 70 days. And, she is doing this all on her own with no “safety” boat staying close at hand. She will literally be in the middle of nowhere should anything go wrong.Strangely enough a couple days before I got the assignment to photograph Roz for 7×7 Magazine I went kayaking in the bay. I haven’t been kayaking in years. Isn’t it strange how things happen like that. Anyway, I didn’t feel the need to mention it to her. I doubted she would have been too impressed considering after about 45 minutes of fighting a light breeze in the bay I had just about all I could handle. Hey, I didn’t have the equipment she has. I’m sure I would have lasted at least an hour with her gear.On a side note, it seems like the issue of bottled water, which I wrote about last month is a popular topic these days. I was reading the New York Times this morning and read a new article about the backlash at people who drink bottled water. It was in the New York Times Style section, so I guess this means that if you don’t drink bottled water you’re stylish. They even mention that the cool new accessory is the reusable plastic Nalgene bottles. Hmm, I wonder if those fit in the Hummer cup holder?

Its Easy Being Green

Jeff Singer — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:51:00 +0000

Unfortunately I’m a fairly simple minded and easily persuaded person… I’m the type that reads and article or sees a dateline segment and thinks “yeah, that’s terrible, lets do something about it!” A friend of mine works for Current TV which is Al Gore’s TV network. So, of course my friend had the new issue of Fast Company with Al on the cover.One of the articles in the decidedly Green issue was about bottled water. Now, I know the last thing you came here for was to get the views of another idiot spouting information you either already know or don’t care all that much about, but hey, this is my blog so I’ll say what I want. I have no doubt bottled water has had a positive effect on society if only for the fact that there was a time it wasn’t available and people instead were likely drinking a bottle full of sugar in some form or another. But when you learn about the effects all these bottles of water have on the environment from creation, transportation to disposal it makes you wonder why the hell you’re drinking the bottled water. After all, we all (especially for those of us living in San Francisco) have equal quality water coming right out of our taps. Just about everywhere we buy our bottled water will also have perfectly good tap water for us.I’ll end my little diatribe and let you read the article and decide for yourself. So, how am I going to bring this around to photography? I’m not, directly anyway. Only to say that over the last few months I’ve done a couple of shoots for 7×7 Magazine that were on the green side. The picture above is Sarah Weiner of Slow Food USA which is an organization that wants to reach out to consumers and demonstrate to them that they have choices over fast food and supermarket homogenization and to create a movement that protects taste, culture and the environment as universal social values. You mean, I shouldn’t be eating this Big Mac right now? Well, at least I went with the tap water. On to the next cause.