We started talking about assisting last week. It’s really the best thing to do when you want to get into photography because this is something that you do and not just think about. It pays to listen and observe how somebody does things especially since much of what really goes on in a shoot is hard to put in a book.

So, we’ve already discussed how you’re supposed to respect the fact that another person’s shoot is another person’s shoot. Part of that is remembering that you’re not a guest.

2) Do learn to act like a professional though you may be in some function with a lot of cool people. There was this guy who volunteered to shoot in a wedding once and said that he charged a certain amount to act as backup. The primary photographer just took the guy’s word and hired him without really looking at the guy’s work and doing a bit more of digging into the guy’s shooting background. That was really bad and shortsighted. Two major things resulted from this:

a. The guy came to the shoot with nothing but his camera, a kit lens (nothing wrong with that but…) and a flash. The primary photographer really should have tried to find out more about the guy’s stuff. Knowing that, he would’ve been able to more accurately predict what the guy can be made to do. Knowing a colleague’s equipment enables one to plan more effectively. Oh, and the guy also showed up with just one memory card worth one gigabyte. Total no-no. You don’t go to a shoot with only minimal memory space. You always double what it is you estimate to be your required memory space. You can’t ask for a download when things are getting fast and furious. Why not just borrow from the lead photographer? Mister volunteer had a camera using SD cards while the primary and secondary photographers were using cameras with CF cards.

What else? He only came with one set of batteries for his camera and one set for his flash. By the time the wedding got to the reception (and this wasn’t even a lengthy wedding by a long shot), his batteries had died and we kept pestering the primary and secondary photographers to lend him batteries. Good thing the two were using rechargeables that charged quite quickly.

b. We said in the past that photography can be such a bragging contest about equipment, about this, about that. So, volunteer dude during reception starts talking to guests about what he’s done as a photographer in his photography life which actually comprised a year. He did this as the primary photographer was still working, setting up a formal portrait shoot. Nice. C’mon. Does the primary photographer have to act like an a---hole to get people who asked to be included in a shoot to help instead of yapping?

c. Of course, all of this may just be excusable if the shots volunteer dude turned in were good. His year or so in photography generated nothing but snapshots any guest could’ve generated. How much of his shots were used in the final batch? Around, well, almost nothing. Imagine how painful it was for the main photographer who paid this guy. Lesson for primary photographers: Do your homework about people who work with you. Lesson for volunteer dudes: Try to prepare and ask the primary guy for what exactly he needs and show your shots when the action is less furious so that he can tell you in what way to improve or what shots he’d like to see.

The primary photographer in this story wised up a bit (emphasis on the “bit”). The next time somebody volunteered, he really considered the team to be just composed of the two original photograpehrs with the volunteer as a possibility of maybe a few good shots but not something he’d rely on. What’s more is that he made it clear that he wasn’t paying for the guy.

That proved to be a good decision as the guy didn’t really have any experience shooting and many of his shots needed work. More, he showed up with no flash. Now, regardless of your attitude about the use of a flash, you do need light and things can get dark in many shoots especially if it’s a wedding. Other things: The guy had just one camera battery, an 18-55mm kit lens and a 50mm f1/.8. You can do a lot with that stuff if you’ve had a lot of experience but, as said earlier, this guy didn’t. Lastly, again, just one memory card. That might have worked if he had a card with at least 4 gigabytes on it but that wasn’t the case.

3) Do learn to accept that if you are new at shooting, you are new at it. As such, part of the deal is heavy lifting though some photographers may be kind enough to let you shoot.

One major difference between volunteer one and two in our example is that when volunteer one started holding court, making as if he was this really experienced photographer to some of the guests as the primary guy (the one who was really hired and had tons more in experience and knowledge than he had), the second guy tried to help out as much as he could. He held up lights, picked up bags, handed lenses, helped with packing up stuff, etc. No pretensions that he had a ton of experience tucked in his proverbial belt.

4) Last about the heavy lifting: Don’t act like you’re more important than the primary photographer’s driver. If you’re just learning and need to get more experience, do be humble enough and realize that you may not know as much as the driver.

An intelligent driver will actually learn from watching a photographer do his thing. If not the shooting itself, at least how the equipment is handled. Many so-called new photographers (calling themselves such as soon as they’ve pressed the shutter buttons on their new, out-of-the-box DSLRs) know absolutely squat about handling things like different types of lights, making use of light meters, lenses they don’t have, etc. A photographer’s drivers will most likely know all that especially if he’s been around for a while with the guy. It’s actually possible to tell the guy, “Hand me the fish-eye” or “The 70-200, please” and the guy will understand. Eventually, such people can even do simple metering tasks (“What’s the aperture reading at this light’s ¼ power?”). Moral of the story: Help the drivers with the heavy lifting and try to learn a thing or two from them. They’d be willing to buy a cigarette for you or even let you bum off them if you’re nice.