For a day, I worked as a photography assistant. And it was unrelenting from the get go. The call time was 8am, at a converted old police building in Chinatown. I know because I was early and went exploring the building, which had a sign that said "Straits Settlements Police" or something like that. It was dark and creepy in some corners like those buildings you see from poorly made Singapore ghost flicks.
It turned out that my first task was to load all the equipment onto the van. Well, can't say that I didn't expect it, because the friend who recommended me the job had warned me that I was in for a good time. The equipment was bloody heavy. Take an elephant, put it in a black suitcase, that was exactly what some of those cases weighed like. They were so heavy they wouldn't budge even after I tried pushing them along the ground.
But the day was only just beginning. I was transported to an old industrial building somewhere in River Valley, to the studio where the shoot would take place. The photoshoot was for Harper's Bazaar, and like most magazine shoots, they come with a certain set of colourful characters. The intern wardrobe assistant wearing funky clothing (zebra stripes) who spends her time steaming costumes, rushing around finding accessories and cutting the masking tape pasted on heels so they don't get damaged from use. Who is actually a design student, but she can't find a job doing design anywhere, so she's basically helping to keep the clothes in order on set.
Or the flamboyantly gay stylist, who couldn't have made a bigger impact on arrival. At exactly 9am in the morning, while I was still groggily eating my breakfast of fried beehoon, he walks right in through the glass doors of the studio with a flourish, wearing a loud floral print shirt (don't they all wear those) and going "GOOD MORNING SUNSHINES! I LOVE YOU ALLLLL~" He was a good sport though, although he did unnerve me a little at the start, because he couldn't stop talking about his holiday at some beach resort and about the massages. At some point it becomes too much information.
And of course, the art director was also gay, like he would take the costumes and start dancing around in them. No, dancing is not the word. It should be prancing. Like a freaking pony. There was this coat he was wearing that had long sleeves, which he just draped it over his shoulders and proceeded to twist left and right so the sleeves would fly up and down while hopping around. Yeah, definitely gay. Not to mention that he knew all the lyrics to Lady Gaga's songs that were playing in the background. Yes, the soundtrack was Lady Gaga. Now why was that also so predictable?
And there was a Caucasian model, who was everything that models usually look like. Tall, angmoh with a vacant stare, and skinny. Very skinny. The moment she walked in, the photographer and stylist went together "WAH, SWEE LEH!", probably because she didn't understand hokkien, but the meaning wasn't lost on anyone else. And during lunch she didn't eat, she just wanted a diet coke and a fag to smoke. Zero calories.
She was accompanied by the producer of the shoot, who was also angmoh, and rather distant, in an I'm angmoh and too good to talk to the rest of you way. And she made that even more obvious by not eating lunch with the rest of us, eating her packed lunch of pasta, and ordering Subway sandwiches for tea while we were all eating chips. And her dinner was from IKEA. Thanks, we know you're angmoh, but we eat chicken rice here.
And so the shoot was underway. It took quite a long time to start, like way after lunch, because the model had to be made up for the first shot, and the set wasn't ready. Which was what I was supposed to do. It was crazy tough work, from setting up the backdrop with two C-stands and a huge roll of grey paper, to mounting all the lights and softboxes in all the different positions. And between shots, it was more of the same, like every shot the model had to change a costume, and get her hair and makeup redone, and the whole set had to be reconstructed.
It was funny observing the model at work though, especially her exchanges with the photographer. The photographer would be like "I need more of that," without ever specifying exactly what "that" is, and then going "yah yah that's it, a bit more, yes good good" no matter what the model does. Either she's telepathic, or anything she does is always good.
And sometimes, the photographer would even go up and do the poses, easily the best part of the photoshoot. It was ridiculous how seasoned he looked posing with tiny Dior bags, holding them limp-wristed. If it wasn't in a professional context, or the fact that he's actually the one paying me, I think I would have burst out laughing.
But nothing could stop me laughing to death inside, trying to reconcile the image of a grown man being all ladylike, as he put it, "channeling" his love for a tiny Dior. When he started doing the shoulders thing, like sticking a shoulder out front, tilting his head and doing something with his face so the shot was "sultrier", my eyes just died.
The shoot continued for a few hours, which was pretty uneventful, and eventually, the photographer said the words that we had all been waiting for - "It's a wrap!" But you know what's the worst thing about being the photography assistant on a shoot?
Well, even after the wrap, your work has just begun. Which was basically take down the whole set even as you watch the model, art director and stylist file off saying their goodbyes, while you die a little inside wondering why you took up this job, lugging bloody behemoths of suitcases while the photographer naps on the couch. And then pushing trolleys full of suitcases to the van and loading them in, and then taking them out and putting them back into the store. It makes me just tired thinking about it. And then you need to get home.
And that is the life of a photography assistant. No skill required, just muscles.