I am normally a one woman band, but I need an assistant to come with me to my bridal show at the Ritz Carlton on Jan 6 in San Francisco. Basically you will be helping me set up and tear down the display, handing info out to brides, and running the booth if I have to take a bathroom break or something. You will also be doing some talking to the brides--ie if I am already talking to one bride and another bride comes up and had some basic questions about my business, I need you to be able to answer them...so you need to be friendly, intelligent, a good conversationalist and good at thinking on your feet, and able to familiarize yourself with the basics of my biz (pricing, style, policies, etc...) so you can know what to say when asked. I can train you on that stuff too.

Anyone with basic photo knowledge and the qualities above should apply. This would also be an ideal job for someone who does some freelance work on weddings and is familiar with some of the terminology, but who is not a wedding business owner.

Since this is a slow time of year I'm also willing to consider other photographers who currently run, or plan to run, their own business, but please understand you will need to be absolutely 100% ethical in terms of committing to NOT mentioning your own business, handing out your own cards, etc. while working on this, no matter how tempting it may be, and to immerse yourself in advancing the interests of my business. Please think hard about whether you can do this--in addition to potentially great, high paying weddings/brides there may also be venues and coordinators there who you may be dying to work with, and you will need to basically forget for the day that you have any interest in those people outside of what you are doing for me.

Finally, depending on traffic I may ask you to walk around at some point and take a few nice shots of my and the other people's booths, booth details, etc. You can shoot using my gear if you dont have your own and on my cards.

Since you will be providing such a valuable service, I am willing to pay more than the usual assisting rates: My idea is to pay you what I would pay a second shooter of equivalent experience for the time involved, since I will need a similar caliber of creative thinking as a 2nd shooter would give me.

My normal 2nd rates are $20-40/hr. DOE. If you believe my reasoning on payment is faulty, I am willing to negotiate--I want you to be happy enough to give this your all.

One extra perk: if you do shoot weddings under your own name, and if you do a great job at this, I will be happy to pass on all the inquiries from this show that I cannot fulfill myself (because I'm booked for the same date, etc.) to you.

Please email me at info (at) cohnfrankelphotography (dot) com for more info if you are interested. Please include a resume and/or a statement of your relevant experience and why you are interested.

Thanks! Lauren

Why don't you partner with someone? More advantages in the long run.

Wow Jon I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you this since your new avatar, but you sure look sexy in pink

I do plan to eventually take on an associate to cover booked dates and lower packages, but I'm not ready for that yet--I'm just myself moving out of the lower end and still need to work on my own perceived value and branding as a higher end photog before I start offering a cheaper alternative. As for a partnership--it might be a good thing if the right situation/person came along, but frankly this is such a cost-heavy business when you are doing it right I can't imagine being able to make the kind of profits I want to make if I shot with someone else right now, unless that someone was my significant other, so 100% of the profits would go toward our lifestyle. Maybe in 3-5 years when I'm getting twice the fees I'm getting now.

I am basically a loner though and I don't know if I would want to give up the day to day control a full partnership might entail.

...and now back to our regularly scheduled topic....

ah man, if i were going to be back in town by then I'd do it just for the fun of getting to hang out!

i keep meaning to meet up with the pug group sometime just to do some networking. i gotta get a less crazy life.