The following is the formal exposé to the topic. It was written to Tabatha for her professors and her to read for her photography class. As such, there is much overlap between the podcast and the written version below, but not entirely:
This was supposed to be a review of my experience with my intern Tabatha, but it evolved into a commentary of theory vs. practice.
Let me first be clear that my time with Tabatha was short. 30-40 days spread out a couple times a week a couple hours at a time is hardly enough to truly assess someone. I think that Tabatha satisfied all the criteria of the internship. She followed me to nearly every single shoot during that time period. She assisted me with every aspect of every shoot and every task and even helped me assemble 3x 4’10’ aluminum sheet panels. Truth be told she was a better presence than I expected. I usually don’t allow assistants and interns to come to my shoots. Usually they are more of a distraction and obstacle to my workflow. Tabatha proved useful and did not get in the way of my process.
My goal during this time was to demonstrate to Tabatha how I work. What I am driven by and why I do what I do. The purpose of even the smallest tasks was simply to reveal the inner workings of my mind; how I approach things, how I react to them, and most important how I solve problems. To this end, I believe I succeeded in delivering a unique and intensive internship to Tabatha. As a result, there exists no other person on Earth that understands how I work as a photographer, more than Tabatha Gallais. We routinely had philosophical discussions about my approach to photography.
Admittedly Tabatha’s internship was an eye-opening experience for me. I don’t have any formal training in photography. While I am no stranger to higher education (BA in Economics, MA in Psychology and an MBA), the academic approach to photography is somewhat foreign to me. I have created several educational programs during my tenure as a photographer instructor. I created a “New Media" class at the New York Film Academy where I taught MA Photography students how to manage their websites, social media, SEO, etc. Under the LUCIMA brand, I created webinars for fashion photographers to systematically learn retouching and other aspects of fashion photography. Also under the LUCIMA brand, I created live weekend workshops that taught pre-production, production and post-production for both still photography and videography. Despite all the classes I have taught, there exists a fundamental difference between how I think-learn-teach photography and how formal education systems think-learn-teach photography. This discovery culminated at the end of Tabatha’s internship in a conversation with her assessment of my philosophy as a photographer. Her conclusion was that I had no philosophy towards photography.
In my feeble attempts to explain to her and concede that many aspects to my work are not driven philosophically, I failed to define and defend my true position as a photographer. Theoretically, I am driven by a love of beauty in the female form. Practically I am driven by everyday constraints and problem-solving.
It is at best a conjugal relationship between two warring factions.
At the time of our conversation, I tried to explain to Tabatha that my approach to photography was more “mechanical” and that I approached photography the way a robot or a computer would approach photography. To solve existing problems. To simplify and remove all extra variables and “moving parts”. Philosophically, I attempt to distill my process down to its very core. A basic and raw interaction between two human beings through the art of fashion photography; devoid of all the bells and whistles that you would find on a typical shoot. What Tabatha visually observed was a task-oriented photographer that wasted little words and got straight to the point of achieving his desired outcome. In other words she observed a very effic