Monday, June 25, 2012

benjamin - Photograph by Massimo Perego

name: massimo perego

comments: .hi there!..

..i am Italian, 27 years old,gradueted last year in
photography at the international design institute in Milan.
I am now looking for a photography assistant opportunity
here in vancouver..
..school was my biggest experience even if i worked as
assistent for few photographers in Milan in the past few years..
..look forward to hear some good from you soon..
..best regards..
Massimo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18577174@N03/

I hope that my response to Massimo does not cause him to ease into a hot tub of water and to slit his wrists!

Dear Massimo,

I am a 70 year old man who came to Vancouver in 1975. I worked for just about every Canadian magazine, very good newspapers and many magazines around the world. I call that era, the age of the halftone process. It began in 1872 with the first publication of a photograph (it had not been possible before and the photogravure was much too expensive) in a newspaper. From that point on books, magazines and newspapers (not to mention advertising billboards) all tried to get the best photographers. These photographers traveled (and were paid to do so as I was) all over the world. That world ended in the 1990s when journalism in print began to die. Here in North America it is virtually dead. Nobody has yet to figure out how to make money with photographs on a computer monitor.

The romantic idea that you might have of the photographer's assistant working with a good photographer taking pictures of nude or semi nude beautiful models is pretty well dead. Most of the photographers of my generation are gone, dead or selling real estate.

The only photographers still in business are doing the terrible heavy work (thousands of pictures that have to be "fixed up" as proofs) of shooting weddings and it is very competitive.

nicole - Photograph by Massimo Perego

For you to come to Vancouver would be a complete folly and your chances of finding a job very slim.

In my many years as a photographer I may have used an assistant about 6 or 7 times. The nature of my work was to photograph actors, politicians, directors and I wanted the one on one intimacy that would have been broken by an assistant.

I hope this does not discourage you but perhaps things are better in your country. If you get depressed you can always watch past episodes of Commissario Salvo Montalbano! They are very good.

Sincerely yours,

Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

P.S. I really like your portraits.