How To Do A Professional Assignment – Step Two

How To Do A Professional Assignment – Step Two

by William Lulow

Once you’ve decided how many and what kind of photographs need to be made and, you’ve found out who will be the judge of the images, you then need to begin to assemble the production team, if one is necessary. You might need an assistant(s), stylist, location, or extra equipment. You may need to arrange for transportation and parking. All of these things constitute the “expenses” for the job. In the days of traditional film media, this would have included “film and processing.” But, today, since there is no film there isn’t that expense, but there certainly is the time it takes for digital upload and downloads, retouching, sizing, image transfer to flash drive and/or printing. These are still time-consuming expenses and must be included on the invoice. Don’t forget that you will probably have to arrange for reception at the location (if it’s not in the studio), with off-load instructions and addresses. Especially in NYC, you can’t always take a hand truck full of equipment through the pedestrian lobby of a downtown building. You’ll probably need to use the service elevator for all equipment, which is often on a different street. (Many times I had to drive my vehicle onto an elevator, go down to a central receiving area, off-load my equipment, leave it with my assistant while I went back up and found a parking garage for the car. All of which took some time).

If I have to travel to a location by plane, the equipment I bring will be mostly portable lights. I have rented equipment from a few different equipment rental facilities in major cities. So, you have to arrange for all of that as well. Once, I took the company plane for a factory shoot for Becton-Dickinson. I also had to take an airplane equipment case which was needed for a factory shoot where large equipment was being manufactured and required a lot of lighting. These days, however, transporting heavy lighting equipment such as power packs and flash heads is rarely needed. The quality of most portable flash units is much better than it was say 20 years ago and you can usually rent lighting equipment in most large cities.

You will then need to decide what equipment the job calls for. How many and what kinds of lights you’ll need and what the physical layout of the location is. This might entail a “location scout” – where you or a member of your staff goes ahead of time to look at the location and see what kind of equipment is needed. You still have to do this step even if the shoot is in your studio. I make notes when I do this and sometimes even take pictures of the location with my iPhone. I used to shoot Polaroids, but now iPhone pictures are fine. As an aside, I often use these photos in “How to..” articles such as this.

Upon deciding what equipment you’ll need, what the location looks like (or how you’ll need to set up the studio, you can then begin to assemble the items you’ll need for the shoot. The first thing will be an art director’s sketch of what he or she wants the photo to look like. Most of the time, if you are shooting for an agency, they will have a mock-up of what the ad will look like. It is your job as photographer to turn that idea into reality. Or, it might be a company’s website. If you are shooting corporate headshots, like I do a lot, you will need to note what the ones they are already using look like. You will want yours to look similar, at least in overall tone. Unless, of course, you are starting from scratch for them. Then you can make them the way you want.

To be continued…