The Life of a Second Shooter

It took a while for us to figure out how to write this Blog post as it is very important to us as a Team! So I, Victoria, will be writing from my perspective on being a Second Shooter!

Being a Second Shooter and Assistant for Molly was a HUGE opportunity as it provided me with the ability to learn alongside an already established, professional, and talented photographer that was willing to educate me if I was willing to WORK HARD! In the beginning, back in 2012, when Molly asked me to be her Second Shooter I was over the moon excited and BEYOND nervous. I had never photographed a single person! How was I supposed to assist her in weddings?! I guess there was just something in me that she saw 😉 … But seriously, she saw something in me that sparked an interest and she acted on an instinct, so here we are!

If you’re a fellow Second Shooter – hats off to you! Don’t you love being able to be taken under someone’s wing and be a partial fly on the wall during hectic wedding days?! If you’re not a Second Shooter, but are interested in what it consists, please of read further! Molly and I have been talking a lot about who we want as Second Shooters in the future, so if what is described below interests you, and if you’ve been wanting to learn & work hard as a photographer – this may be the perfect opportunity for you! Since we have partnered and have been double booking it’s important that we have multiple Second Shooters to work in our team, and although we have a few already, we find it important now to provide the flexibility of having multiple Second Shooters and Assistants as we understand that people have crazy plans during the summer weekends and we want to give people equal opportunity to learn and work for us!

Being a Second Shooter is hard work, but extremely rewarding! A typical wedding day usually consists of 6-7 constant working hours on your feet alongside and separate from the head photographer and fulfilling almost every request imaginable! I could make a list of everything I’ve done in those 6-7 hours but it would take forever… no seriously, it would take FOR-EV-ER. You really never know what a wedding day is going to consist of no matter how much you or the bride plan it out! You also never know what condition your head photographer may be in **ehm, Molly** … Haha! I’m kidding… But seriously – our second year shooting together Molly was pregnant with her second son and what I didn’t realize was the job description also meant working for a stubborn 38-Week pregnant photographer who constantly crunched on ice during office hours, needed mostly everything carried for her, the car brought to her, helping her stand back up after kneeling down, and having ALL emergency contacts put into my phone JUST IN CASE the baby decided to arrive during the wedding day! Honestly, what would she do without me?! :P… I say this all in a joking manner, I wouldn’t have traded for the world as I feel like it actually brought us closer and I know Molly appreciated everything I did for her!

So ANYWAY! Back to the ACTUAL Second Shooter part! Since Molly and I are going to be looking for a couple of Second Shooters I thought I would highlight just what we’re looking for! Along with being presented an excellent opportunity to learn, you’ll also be taught and expected to represent the professionalism that comes with being a professional wedding photographer! We’re really looking for someone who wants to learn just as much as we’d like to educate. We need someone who won’t have an issue parting ways during the wedding day as the head photographer goes to see the bride – the Second Shooter will need to go find the groomsmen and take photos of them getting ready and hanging out; during family formals you’ll need to keep those who aren’t in the shot away from the head photographer – kind of like a body guard! (Just kidding! But it sometimes feels like this!). We’re also looking for creative minds! There have been plenty of times where Molly has turned to me in the middle of the FORMALS and put the ball in my court asking “So what would you do now?” or, “How would YOU like to pose them?” – this has challenged me and put me on the spot – the NUMBER ONE thing that happens Every. Single. Wedding! Although we want to educate, we love learning ourselves! So if there is a certain pose or location that I’ve spotted, I confidently tell Molly and 99.9% of the time – she’ll go with my suggestion and even let me pose the couple and give them direction! (That other .1%? That’s when the wedding days is running late!)

To put what I’ve described as a visual I’ve put together side-by-side images of examples of what we’re looking for in a Second Shooter! So, on the LEFT is Molly’s shot & what she was doing, while on the RIGHT is MY shot and what I had to do at the exact same time!!

If you want to see what we’re looking for – THIS IS IT!

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