|
My first job in photography was for this couple that did the sports portraits for all of the rec centers and local little leagues and Pop Warner teams in the area. They were on par with those horrid school picture sweatshops, but I was still in high school, needed the money for a car, and really thought Photography Assistant sounded like a cool as gently caress job title. I'm not even sure where to began. I got the job through a friend who was quitting. He wouldn't tell me why he was quitting and I never had an interview with the couple who ran the business. I was told to show up at an address that was way back in the sticks and being as this was before Google Maps, I had to buy a map at the corner store to even get a reasonable idea of where they were. After the couple showed me around and told me a bit about the set-up they plopped me down in front of a PC and dropped a double ream sized stack of order forms and mumbled something about docking my pay for every mistake I made, then they wrote down the file path and name of the executable for the file, then disappeared in to the back of the house. The house itself was this massive rambling structure and the work area was in the first of many massive living rooms. About half way through the stack I can hear the couple talking about something which escalates in to a screaming match. "GOD DAMMIT DEBRA!" followed by someone slamming a door. "DAMMIT MEL!" another door slammed. It was silent for a moment, then I hear these weird creaky voices yelling "Dammit Debra! Dammit Mel! Goddammit Debra! God Dammit Debra!" Mel and Debra had two huge African Grey parrots that lived in a little room between the work area and the family kitchen and any time there was a loud noise both birds would start shrieking "DAMMIT MEL! GOD DAMMIT MEL! DAMMIT DEBRA! KISS MY rear end! GOD DAMMIT DEBRA!" That ended up being the soundtrack for my entire time at M&D. Mel and Debra had three of the shittiest children I've ever met. Spoiled, arrogant, and mean little fucks who would occasionally come in to the work area and knock over the stacks and stacks of "filed documents" or try to engage you in a conversation then run to their parents claiming you had hit them or tried to touch them. After five months of solid data entry I finally got the chance to go out and actually assist. Like Captain Bedsheets, Mel and Debra's equipment was beat to hell and unreliable in the extreme. Everything was either vintage 60's or 70's gear (this all took place in the mid-90s), obviously second or third hand, or the cheapest knock-off brand they could find. Mel himself was a gouty old man with a consistently sour smell and a disposition to match. He either didn't know or didn't care about high capacity film canisters because after 36 exposures I had to be ready immediately with another loaded camera in his hands before the next child got in to position. There was usually just enough time to rewind, eject, and load another can before he'd start yelling "FILM! FIIIILLLLM!" Sometimes he would seem to get really upset with the way some of the kids posed and would have to go show them how it was done, usually by strategically bumping and grinding against them with his crotch accompanied by grunts, sighs, and a few muttered instructions. Once, while I was unloading the back of the van he started yelling. Not his normal angry yell but this incoherent shriek. Then there was silence. Then he yelled "GOD DAMMIT DEBRA MY FAT rear end IS STUCK IN THE VAN AGAIN! GET THE loving POLE FOR CHRISTS SAKE!" They had a special pole for wedging Mel out of the driver's seat of their '78 Chevy conversion van. Sometimes I would have to help Debra with the back-end parts of the business. Usually data entry but sometimes sorting, packing, or making the lovely little photo trinkets they sold for an obscene mark-up. Debra would take these opportunities to tell these sad, intensely personal stories about her childhood, her marriage, and her lack of sex life. I was fired monthly. After a bad fight, either Mel or Debra would storm in to the work area and fire whoever happened to be there, only to call and apologize profusely a few days later and beg you to come back. One time Mel accused me of making eyes at Debra which sparked off a fight that ended with the phrase "GOD DAMMIT MEL, SO HELP ME, ONE OF THESE DAYS I'M GOING TO LET HIM SATISFY ME WHILE YOU'RE GONE AND THEN WE'LL SEE WHO'S loving WHO!" One time I was fired because I refused to make lunch for Mel and Debra's children. One time I was fired because I told Mel that ASA 200 and ISO 200 were the same speed of film. I lasted about a year, mostly because they paid $10 an hour at a time when minimum wage was $4.25.
|
#
¿
May 13, 2016 00:56
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 11:24 |
|
|
The clearest memory I have of that place is Mel getting stuck in the van and the 10 minutes it took Debra to finagle him out. It was one of those things that starts out hilarious but just makes you want to cry when its all over. One other moment I remembered, Mel and Debra were Jewish and had two separate kitchens so they could keep super kosher, but Mel would always stop by this chain BBQ place called Woody's and order two pork chop plates. He'd eat one there and get the other to go, and would try to sneak it in to the house when he thought Debra wasn't looking. I walked in on him eating one of the pork chops once and he had that face like a dog that had just gotten in to the trash, only his mouth was ringed with BBQ sauce. squidflakes fucked around with this message at 22:56 on May 13, 2016 |
|
#
¿
May 13, 2016 22:39
|
|
|
My one other assisting horror story isn't as bad as the last one but it is one of the reasons I cut ties with a company who had been giving me reasonably steady work. A some years ago I quit my day job and started putting full time effort in to my photo business. The first year was tight but I managed and the second year was looking pretty good until everything seemed to dry up in late August of 2011 or so. Through some friends I got in contact with this local cruise company that did weddings on their party yacht and while they already had a photographer, a local mom-tographer turned wedding pro, she wanted a back-up so she wouldn't have to work every weekend. Since I was technically listed as her assistant the deal was that I got a pretty generous day rate but I had to turn over the raw photos to her for processing. She had a signature look, you see, and wanted to preserve the illusion that she had done all of this work herself. Any sudden increase in the quality of her work or her apparent leap in skill was purely coincidental mind you, she'd been taking classes... yeah, that's it, classes. After six months I started noticing a trend in the weddings she bailed on. Namely, if it wasn't 100% white people, she wouldn't show up. After I was contacted by a few of the couples about their photos I also found out that non-white couples were being given the absolute worst shots, poorly edited, and were waiting months for maybe a couple of dozen outtakes. I went to the cruise company about this and they blew me off. They also told the photographer and she sent me this horribly racist screed and threatened all sorts of retribution if I went to the media or "the Black Panthers." Instead, I contacted the couples I had already shot, sent them my edits from the raws, and apologized profusely. Regular client work stared picking up after that so I told the cruise company I'd be busy til further notice and that they should find someone else. December of 2012 (I think), I get a frantic phone call from the owner of the cruise company. They were hosting some ridiculously fancy super duper special wedding and the regular photographer bailed, and her new assistant called in sick, and the wedding was going to start in an hour. I threw out a ridiculous number for my fee and they agreed. I got there in half an hour, got set-up, and started mingling for candid shots. They weren't kidding about the super fancy either. The first couple I shot was probably wearing jewelry worth more than my house. The bride looked like she'd just waded through the English crown jewels. The regular momtographer suddenly appears out of nowhere and drags me in in to the kitchen. She starts hissing and whispering about how I needed to make her look good and don't gently caress this up and how I have to give her half of whatever I was making because this was *HER* gig and how dare I, etc, etc, etc. She then stomps out and demands to see the bride and I think that's when it hit her that the entire bridal party was African. Like, got here by plane last night from Nairobi, African. All of these women are wearing these amazing silk and embroidered dresses and jewels and perfect make-up and she might as well be wearing a burlap sack. Still, they were all gracious and pleasant while she's doing her best to avoid touching them and wearing this awful grimace that I'm sure she thinks is a smile. The ceremony goes fine, the bride looks like the pinnacle of all beauty in the world, the groom looks like the luckiest doofus in the world, but they had an obvious chemistry and it was pretty cool to watch. The momtographer is stomping around trying to find good angles. She's packing something like a D3000 with the kit lens and she's just rapid firing for all she's worth. She orbits back to me every so often to whisper awful poo poo about interracial couples or to tell me that I should change my aperture for some loving reason. Anyway, the ceremony finishes up and I'm trying to get the families together for group photos. The momtographer has disappeared and I'm trying to wrangle a good fifty people but everyone was in good spirits. The mothers of the bride and groom want endless variations on groups, poses, positioning, and what have you, so it takes a good thirty minutes to get through all of that. By this time everyone is itching to get to the reception and I really need to get some water. I think I'd been sitting a full minute when the momtographer comes bursting in to the kitchen ranting about how no one can find me and she can't believe how lazy I'm being and how I'm just like one of those lazy n*****s out there. About half the kitchen staff is black so there is this sudden brief silence but she's completely oblivious. The mother of the bride has asked her to do some shots in the women's dressing room of the bride changing in to her party dress, but she flat refuses. She walks me over to the women's dressing room and says something like "I refuse to be alone in a room full of n*****s so my assistant will be taking the photos." to the mother of the bride. This poor woman looks like someone has just hit her in the head with an axe handle. She stammered something like "But, he's a man." After that it was an escalating shouting match between the mothers, the momtographer, and the cruise company owner. Like, both mothers in tears, the momtographer dropping n bombs left and right, the cruise company owner trying to smooth things over, a total mess. In the end, I was working directly with the bride and groom to get them their photos. The momtographer refused to give up any of her photos, then later claimed they had been lost in an accident. The cruise company owner, for some loving reason, gave half my fee to the momtographer who claimed I had been drinking on the job and she had actually done most of the photography with my camera. They called me back exactly one time after that but I flat refused to ever work with them again.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2016 01:31
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:For that matter, did you sign a contract with them or did you just make a verbal agreement? It was just a verbal agreement and I fully understand how that was my gently caress-up. The cruise company isn't one of the big ones either, they operate two boats and a small reception hall. The boats hold something like 75 passengers if you pack them in tight. I'm not sure why the cruise company keeps the momtographer around. My guess is that the company owner and her don't exactly disagree on certain things, but the owner is more able to keep her mouth shut and take people's money.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2016 18:11
|
|
|
Her photo blog is down, but she may have changed it. However, her stuff is still up on the cruise site. Here are a coupe of her typical shots.   And these are from a wedding party that paid for a second shooter. Hers  Mine 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2016 18:30
|
|