CAPIC Assistant Workshop in NAIT Studios

Here Michele Ramberg (second from left) oversees the assembly of a lighting soft-box as she recruits students to participate in her demostration.

Darren Jacknisky of Bluefish Studios along with assistant Celena (centre) demonstrate how they go about setting up their equipment and getting the money shot. Michele Ramberg serves as the model.

This is a bit of a late entry but we'll go with it. On Saturday March 20th the Edmonton Chapter of CAPIC (The Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communications) held their first Assistant Workshop. The venue was the Photographic Technology studios.

Among the presenters were a panel of six prominent local professional photographers including Curtis Trent, Curtis Comeau, Michele Ramberg, Chris Stambaugh, Nathanael Sapara and Darren Jacknisky. The panel members answered a number of student questions on assisting. Lunch was included and provided a good opportunity for students to mingle with the professionals.

After lunch came individual demonstrations by Michele, Chris and Darren along with his assistant, Celina. Chris talked to the students about wedding photography assisting and gave a good breakdown of what would be expected. Darren then presented with his full-time assistant Celina and they discussed and demonstrated how they would set up a shot. Michele was last but not least and recruited students to help her set up a shot for a magazine cover.

According to main organizer (and recent grad), Dorothy Carter, "It was a great turn out with 18 attendees!! I organized it for Edmonton with lots of help from Michele Ramberg, Brett Gilmour and Darren Jacknisky. For the Edmonton workshop we followed Calgary's outline for how the day would go. I'm just really pleased to see that CAPIC is growing and that we can offer a variety of events to the commercial community."