Long story short, I had two additional photographers to help me with an event in Charlotte. Both of them couldn’t make it and let me know the day of. I had a young woman to help with the photo booth aspect of the event. Attempting to cover a corporate business event of 70+ people and run a photobooth is something I wouldn’t want to do solo. Money is good, but being safe and having help is far more mature. So what to do when both photographers cancel, and the event starts in 45 minutes? Enter Ms. Williams, the assistant turned photo-booth overseer for the night.

My backup plan was for me to cover the event, and ask Ms. Williams to run the photo-booth. I would put the camera on a tripod and Ms. Williams would operate the camera from the laptop. One pose, one look, that’s it. Nothing fancy, no creative posing…basic. That was the backup plan…And then came another idea. Convert the help to the MVP of the day.  You see, Ms. Williams said a few weeks ago that she wanted to take some pictures. She said it casually, but I remembered it. I told Ms. Williams that she was going to take the pictures for the photo-booth. That she would do fine, and that the camera does most of the work. You just have to tell it what to do.

After I got the “evil-eye”, I gave Ms. Williams the camera, told her what to do if the image was too bright, if it was too dark, and what I wanted the composition to look like. She took some test shots, and it looked good to me. I shared some creative poses that I do with subjects and then came a shock. Ms. Williams said she was going to take some pictures of the event and walked off. Instantly, she became the MVP for the night. She took that camera into the other room, asked the people for permission to photograph them, and all I could see was the consistent flashing of the speedlite. Granted, a few minutes later we looked at the pictures. HORRIBLE!!! Shutter speed to low, way underexposed, blurry…horrible. Didn’t phase me though. A few adjustments, a few test shots and she was in business. Maybe not a profitable business, but not in the red.

About 20 minutes later, and after an awesome free dinner, the photo-Booth got started. I can honestly say that 90% of the images from that night were of the MVP of the night…the “Assistant-turned-photographer”. Ms. Williams. I got a chance to have some fun and take some pictures with her. Thank-You Ms. Williams for stepping up and really saving the day. Take a look…

P.S. I don’t have assistants. I have teammates and team members. If I do anything, it’s always a team effort, and I play my part as well. Some folk like the solo route…and some folk can’t go the places my team and I are going…