Don’t look back in anger

When I was a young (forty-something) Foundation Degree student at Newcastle College, I was lucky to be farmed out as an assistant to a few local photographers in all sorts of genres. The experience will last with me forever as a great, all-round set of lessons in what to expect in the real world.

I spent a good few nights photographing guests at tables in St James’ Park during the Christmas events there - using my trusty old Nikon F5 film camera and an ancient Metz, side-mounted flashgun. I worked with a renowned commercial photographer who is now one of the top-rated in the world. I remember loading Mamiya RB67 film backs in rapid succession while having the worst respiratory disease in history. I assisted on fashion shoots with an Essex-based hairdresser photographer who had a love of Newcastle nights out, looked after a product studio’s phone calls during the lunch breaks of the staff there, and spent days cutting out breast-pumps for catalogues. More interestingly, I assisted with some new-build interiors work with one of my tutors who gave me some tungsten-balanced slide film as payment.

At one point I was referred by my head tutor to an advertising firm based in Newcastle’s Ouseburn district. They became the subject of a TV series a few years back as they all decided to spend a week working totally naked. This firm wanted some basic jobs doing and I gave them a day rate which was more than the weekly wage of my old job. The briefs were relatively simple, and I got through them without a problem.

I’d mentioned the work to my tutor who had taken me on the interiors shoot, and didn’t think any more of it - until the work and all contact from the agency stopped abruptly. It transpired that he had rang them and threatened them with something or other regarding the legal copyright of anything shot by a student. The guy halted my foray into the commercial world in one minute, but never came back to me to explain what he’d done - I heard it from a third party. I hate snakes, and there are plenty of them out there.

Anyway, I’m not going to dwell on stuff like that - it’s always best to just move on straight away, and since then I’ve had a wonderfully diverse and exciting 20 years or so to look back on. On an even more positive note, my interiors work stands toe to toe with my old tutor’s stuff. I’m assuming he’s retired from the industry now. If you see him, let him know I’ve still got the 120 Tungsten Ektachrome in the fridge!