Guest Lecturer- Scott Grummett

NUA 2010 Grad Scott gave us the fundamentals about being an assistant photographer. He showed us a couple of example emails he received from people wanting to assist him, and highlighted exactly what was wrong with them. This was incredibly helpful and gave us a really good insight on how we can contact photographers and the language we should use, also what to avoid saying. He highlighted the importatance of offering what we can do for them, not there other way round, and to make it memorable. He gave a good example of ‘the tea guy’, who sent him a graphic chart depicting types of tea. He hired ‘the tea guy.'

He emphasised the importance of being honest, knowing the team, looking busy, taking notes, being early, making tea, and most importantly, that an opinion is earned.

He has shot advertisements for KFC, Nandos, Elephant atta, Esquire.
something which stood out to me was the importance of building relationships and how these can help us progress as photographers. Scott contacted a lone burger bar in london called honest burgers.
He was a regular in there and knew the owner well. He asked to shoot some of their food for them in exchange they could keep the images for advertising purposes.
Since then Honest burgers have expanded rapidly and become a franchise. He has followed them throughout their journey as a business and still shoots for them every season. He said it has turned into a nice little earner.