Photography was Always a Thought

In London there were job opportunities galore for a talent like me. I knew something photography-related was just around the corner.

At my first photographer’s assistant interview, the photographer showed me around his studio with its lights, cameras and white walls and asked if I could use Photoshop. I could, and proceeded to work on his computer for two hours before being offered a job paying five pounds fifty per hour, much less than the seven pounds per hour I got for data entry which was proving barely enough to pay for rent, transport and food. Considering factory workers were paid five pounds fifty per hour, I thought my seven pound per hour suggestion fair. Turned out I was wrong. I found myself walking back to the Tube.

For my second interview as a photographer’s second assistant, I arrived at Mr Photographer’s studio, eager with smiles and portfolio in hand.

Mr Photographer was a thin man in his mid-forties, who wore black everything: a black leather jacket, black dress pants and black shirt. His assistant was his exact replica differentiated only by being twenty-five years old and his intense too-much-eye-contact staring.

Mr Photographer and Creepy Assistant were having trouble colour matching photographs on their newly purchased printing equipment. From my time at the copy shop, I had learnt how to adjust colour profiles for print so was ushered into the new computer room where I worked my magic and produced the colour-matched printed photographs.

Proud of myself because they had struggled, I was surprised my efforts received blank stares from Mr Photographer and a long, blank and more intense lingering stare from Creepy Assistant. But I wasn’t disheartened. This must have been the first test.

Next, Mr Photographer told me all about his work with Jaguar and how in a few months he and Creepy Assistant were off to Los Angeles and so would the new assistant. And that could be me!
I must have failed test number two by not responding with the expected level of enthusiasm. When I said his work for Jaguar sounded great and what a great opportunity that would be, they stared at me like I had missed the point.

Perhaps “great” wasn’t the best word choice. In hindsight, I could have overdone the superlatives and said “best most fabulous opportunity” or “super-best opportunity in the world” followed by “I would love to go to America and shoot photos of Jaguar cars. If only I could go because I really really really want to go.” Then cried a bit and through tears said, “If I went to America and I saw a Jaguar, I would wet myself.”

The third test took place upstairs in a small studio with Mr Photographer and Creepy Assistant discussing the next day’s photoshoot. They needed to choose a model.

Mr Photographer produced and spread a pile of cards across the polished wooden studio floor.

They were photos of women’s hands. They needed a hand model.

We stood in silence, looking down at the cards while Mr Photographer and Creepy Assistant thoughtfully considered their options.

One of the women’s hands was posed with a limp wrist and long stretched fingers, a look I describe as “response to flattery” or “flirt.” Another had her pointer finger in the palm of the other hand, an esoteric pose understood only by those in the hand-modelling game. For all I knew, the pointer-finger-in-the-palm pose exampled a top hand modeller’s best qualities. Maybe I was looking at the Kate Moss of hand models.

I looked at my own inferior hands then at the serious faces of Mr Photographer and Creepy Assistant, feeling the corners of my lips spasming to a grin, my smile possessing my face as often happens when it is inappropriate to laugh, and a snigger shook my body, threatening to erupt as a hearty laugh.

The silence lengthened as Mr Photographer and Creepy Assistant gave their full attentions to the cards.

The longer the silence persisted, the funnier the hand modelling became.

Creepy Assistant said, “We used Sophia last time; she was amazing.”

She was amazing? I thought. Amazing how? Who were these people who decide to become hand models? Were their faces and bodies ugly and asymmetrical? Were hand models also foot models because people with beautiful hands are also blessed with attractive feet? Are hand models discovered by hand-modelling talent scouts? Were any of these hand models out shopping one day, reaching for something from a stand and were recruited? Did someone tell them they had beautiful hands so the future hand model looked up a hand modelling agency and launched a career?

Mr Photographer responded with absolute seriousness. “Yes, Sophia was great on the Vogue shoot.”

I stared down at the cards as if in mourning, searching my mind for sad dark thoughts to stop the laughter: my cat dying, having to watch one episode of Coronation Street, a hand model having both hands crushed in the doors of the Tube. I couldn’t stand it. Surely Mr Photographer and Creepy Assistant could see the funny side.

“Do you think they wear gloves to protect their hands when they are not working?” I asked with a giggle, imagining a beautiful woman in a bikini on a beach wearing soft white fabric gloves.

Mr Photographer stared at me pretending I hadn’t spoken.

I said, “What if they chip a nail or cut their hand? Is that the end of their career?”

The creepy assistant’s laser eyes told me to stop and he lost the little British colour from his already pale face.

I knew the job wasn’t mine. But I didn’t care because I didn’t like these people. Worse, I couldn’t stop the words coming out. “Do you think they get hand-lifts as they get older? Like aging celebrities? And do their wrists and arms, like the necks of people with face lifts, show their real age?”

There was no opportunity to haggle over an hourly wage. Mr Photographer was “interviewing a few more people.”

I was never going to be a photographer; my London destiny had to involve at least seven pounds per hour and for me, that meant administration.

There were plenty of those jobs around.