Life experience as a skill

Photographers and filmmakers are mistakenly thought to only need skills with a camera. But as a working photographer and filmmaker, I also need finance knowledge, business acumen, social skills, design and decorating instincts, project management, leadership, creative thinking, marketing, data analytics, colour theory, editing skills, etc etc. There are just so many elements you have to build in yourself behind-the-scenes that leads to a good shot.

In this example, we were doing promo material for a golf course but my models had limited golf experience. So I also needed to teach them how to follow through in a golf swing despite never having played golf before myself. These types of improvisational situations are going to come up constantly and you need to be able to pull knowledge out of nowhere like you downloaded it into your brain off the Matrix. You've seen other shoots I've done where I needed to know how to climb things, drive things, wrangle things...

Life experience is needed on every shoot I do. Don't just look to hire for pretty pictures, hire for the adaptability of the person holding the camera!