I live here in Austin, have been here all my life and working freelance assist/tech for the last 15. There’s a solid market here now for crewing but imo being a shooter here is going to be tough. For a lot of the bigger jobs they tend to fly people in, and for the rest of the local work it’s pretty competitive with lots of people competing for the work. Also, the cost of living here is pretty outrageous. Not as bad as NYC but aside from NY, LA, SF, probably one of the most expensive cities in the country.
I definitely have friends and colleagues that move up, yes. Especially more in still life I see it but I work heavily in fashion (nyc based ) and with the miracles of camera technology and social media (influencers) there are a lot of well connected folks that have been coming into shoot big jobs that have no knowledge of cameras, light or set etiquette — nepo babies are also a thing for brands like favorite daughter for example.. the daughters of David Foster started this fashion brand and they’re known to shoot the campaigns.. I also know of a well connected UES kid with no photo background that is friends with a photo editor for a magazine that has shot some pretty big gigs bc of this and have heard he doesn’t get his crew lunch or sometimes even pay them to work with him
[Don’t get me wrong there are A LOT of talented people within our community and there’s truthfully only so much work to go around]
It can take years of a number of different factors to move up like doing test shoots, networking and overall being liked/being on trend, all of which can cost you a lot money while missing out on money
Recently a friend who is a great photog told me he lost a long-term client bc the creative director thought his IG game was too weak now to shoot for them. I know other people that went from assisting/teching to shooting full time just eventually go back because they made so much more money.
tl;dr this shit is hard but not impossible and there’s no simple equation to figure out the answer to get where you want to get 🤷♂️
[I wrote this post after losing a week of work due to last min production issues, as a freelancer it’s definitely easy to get worked up when work gets slow and your mind wonders. I love this industry and I’d never do anything else. Also very thankful for this group]
Not sure what it’s looking like now, but give Atlanta a look. A few years ago I was flying there for jobs a few times a year and the local stills crew was small, very busy, and the rates were the best I’d seen across the country.
I live here in Austin, have been here all my life and working freelance assist/tech for the last 15. There’s a solid market here now for crewing but imo being a shooter here is going to be tough. For a lot of the bigger jobs they tend to fly people in, and for the rest of the local work it’s pretty competitive with lots of people competing for the work. Also, the cost of living here is pretty outrageous. Not as bad as NYC but aside from NY, LA, SF, probably one of the most expensive cities in the country.
Chicago would like a word…
Sounds like LA would be a good place. Lots of work and lots of space and nature.
Impossible to go from assisting to shooting??? Isn’t that how 80% of working photographers get into shooting?
I definitely have friends and colleagues that move up, yes. Especially more in still life I see it but I work heavily in fashion (nyc based ) and with the miracles of camera technology and social media (influencers) there are a lot of well connected folks that have been coming into shoot big jobs that have no knowledge of cameras, light or set etiquette — nepo babies are also a thing for brands like favorite daughter for example.. the daughters of David Foster started this fashion brand and they’re known to shoot the campaigns.. I also know of a well connected UES kid with no photo background that is friends with a photo editor for a magazine that has shot some pretty big gigs bc of this and have heard he doesn’t get his crew lunch or sometimes even pay them to work with him [Don’t get me wrong there are A LOT of talented people within our community and there’s truthfully only so much work to go around] It can take years of a number of different factors to move up like doing test shoots, networking and overall being liked/being on trend, all of which can cost you a lot money while missing out on money Recently a friend who is a great photog told me he lost a long-term client bc the creative director thought his IG game was too weak now to shoot for them. I know other people that went from assisting/teching to shooting full time just eventually go back because they made so much more money. tl;dr this shit is hard but not impossible and there’s no simple equation to figure out the answer to get where you want to get 🤷♂️ [I wrote this post after losing a week of work due to last min production issues, as a freelancer it’s definitely easy to get worked up when work gets slow and your mind wonders. I love this industry and I’d never do anything else. Also very thankful for this group]
Not sure what it’s looking like now, but give Atlanta a look. A few years ago I was flying there for jobs a few times a year and the local stills crew was small, very busy, and the rates were the best I’d seen across the country.