Last month I got the opportunity to assist a couple of great photographers on very different shoots, one day after the other.
First up was Pat Graham, we were shooting PR photos for Kate Nash at Spring studios. I was acting as second assistant / time keeper overlord with Ben Norton as first assistant / technical king. It was a long and tiring day as I had moved house the day before. I hadn’t assisted in a studio for years and never on a digital shoot but it was a really good experience. Plus it’s the only chance I will get to spray Kate Nash in the face with water, admittedly she was behind glass but it was pretty surreal. The first shot from the shoot will be published in next months Q Magazine.
The view whilst standing in for test shots.
Whilst on that shoot I got a ring from Laura Pannack, a very talented young photographer who makes beautiful and sensitive portraits. Laura has just won the World Photo Press award for portraits, this is the big league! She assists Simon Roberts down in Brighton which is where the link was made. She needed an assistant at short notice (the next day) for a Guardian Weekend magazine shoot. Despite being shattered and my life still being boxes, I said yes, it was a good opportunity to observe a great photographer at work. The next day we travelled to Witney near Oxford to photograph Sean and his crocodiles! It was an interesting shoot under quite difficult lighting conditions. Laura tends to use natural light whenever possible, much as like I do, so I was mainly holding the reflector and moving furniture. It was a fascinating to see how Laura composes her pictures and the things that she takes into consideration; the colours, the angles, clothing etc. At one surreal point I was holding the baby crocodile as seen in the picture below whilst watching Laura at work.
© Laura Pannack 2010
Guardian Weekend Article (Published 6th March)
A truley odd end to a tiring but rewarding couple of days.
