On Topic: Jennifer. Brilliant Hydro Engineer. Former Assistant and....Ben's Favorite Babysitter.

 

Like a lot of other fortunate occurrences in my life I met Jennifer at a swimming pool. She was one of two talented swimmers who taught my kid to swim well. He was about two years old when they got started. I met J. at a time when she was an engineering student at UT who also competed in triathlons. She needed some part time income and pretty soon she was working freelance alongside my first assistant, Renae, on photography projects; like the big events we used to do for clients like Dell, Motorola and IBM. Both my assistants were much more competent than I but neither of the them was particularly interested in actually becoming photographers. 

Working in tandem there was nothing that they could not handle. I never had to entertain a second thought about them dealing directly with clients, solving logistics problems or taking care of the talents who came through the studio. 

That both of my former assistants moved on to successful careers, happy marriages and the raising of beautiful children always makes me happy. 

One bonus of having them in the studio was that I had a constant source of people willing to sit for portraits while I experimented with lighting and new lenses. This image was a black and white test for a new Hasselblad lens. At least that's what the notes on the file tell me. Probably that 180mm that was nice and sharp but had such lousy out-of-focus rendering on detailed backgrounds.