As an assistant, there are a lot of hats you have to wear. Errand runner, light setter, gaffer tape expert. Sometimes being a model is one of these hats.

I spent the last three days setting up lights (and then sitting under them) for a photo shoot with some suitcases. There are some photos of me pulling a girl around in a suitcase but let’s save that for another time.

For the past two and a half months, I’ve been interning at Via, AAA’s travel magazine for Northern California, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. On top of adding several new destinations to my travel list, I’ve already learned a lot about magazine production, from pitching and assigning stories through the various levels of editing, and I hope to share my discoveries over the next few months.

During my first few days of work, I learned that it’s nearly impossible for freelancers to get feature pitches accepted at Via (you have a better chance of getting accepted to Harvard). There are a number of reasons for this, including the magazine’s bi-monthly frequency and small size, the fact that editors map out feature stories as much as a year in advance, because the magazine has grown to depend on a group of tried-and-true veteran freelancers who are given regular assignments, and because it’s very rare that you and I have heard of a must-see destination that a travel magazine ed

It should be obvious that when your duties as a photo intern have almost nothing to do with the company’s emphasis, the internship is a bullshit call for free labor. Just in case, let’s have a little fun examining the above listing.

I’ve been teaching a class at 3rd Ward called “Learn Your Digital Camera” for the past year now. 3rd Ward is a “member-based design center” that offers sweet classes from mine to skateboard deck making (I’m dying to take this one).

I just finished reading Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordan and got pretty excited about the photographer-writer team that was Dorothea and her husband Paul. Collaboration baby! I suggest you read it. Linda Gordan is a history professor at NYU and takes an academic route in her writing, analyzing events, stating information where primary documents are scarce, which isn’t always the case in biographies.
At the end of the book they mention a grant set up in their names for a writer-photographer team. I’m a fan of collaboration and the cohesion that exists in a piece when information is shared and stories are worked on together.
You game Serena?

Lauren Greenfield traveled to a few cities’ fashion weeks and documented the whole she-bang. My first thought was…is that it?

And look Dave, more underpaid writing opportunities!

I wanted to survive on freelancing, even if it meant only eating rice and hot sauce and creating a permanent ass imprint on my couch.

That’s when I became a sweatshop worker.

This is not how I imagined my first appearance in the New York Times. I imagined a well lit subject, doing something immensely interesting, in a large photo above the fold on page one. Never did I imagine getting caught in the dragnet for a piece on Micheal Musto. Granted, I was acknowledged in this article, but not by name.

For the record, my butt looks lumpy due to my phone in my pocket. I have since learned my lesson and do not plan to store my phone there ever again. Also, I typically don’t look that disaffected but that was an especially boring evening trying to interview Martha Stewart for the New York Times where I got possibly 45 seconds of her time after waiting over an hour. At an antique show.

I hope my next appearance includes a byline.

Since I write for my boss on Sundance’s fashion blog, I try to keep up with the other bloggers. Typically, its all fine and swell but fashion just doesn’t get my heart all a flutterin’. This post by Christina Turner, however, got me going! James Blagden took an old radio interview with Dock Ellis and illustrated his crazy tale about pitching a no hitter for the San Diego Padres while on LSD. Collaboration at its finest! According to Turner, Blagden is currently at Sundance with this video. A personal project turning into a trip to Sundance? I’ll take two.

via Full Frontal Fashion