I had several digitech jobs in this year which paid me more than $1000 per job but that’s it. They no longer hire me at all instead of lowballing just like other photographers. I have at least more than 5 years of experiences in photography industry but getting works is too limited so far. I’m sick and tire of getting works from photographers who only wish to pay $100~200 per day! They even threat me that they already have assistants to replace me which left me no choice so I planned to find photographers and agencies to contact for possible opportunities since a month ago.

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But finding potential clients to provide both photo assistant and digitech is quite challenging in NYC. I gathered more than 500 photographers and 200 photo agencies from Wonderful Machine, Models.com, Photoassist.com, ASMP, APA, agency list, parties, and more to send emails but all I got was 40 photographers and 4 agencies responded to my emails and yet, all of them already have a team for both PA and digitech position which makes me gloomy. It feels like it’s impossible to break the barrier between me and the market. Major studios like milk, Pier 59, or Dune? They didn’t even respond or not interested.

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I have experiences and skills but I feel that I’m being mistreated so far. I tried my best to promote myself to photo industry but I’m out of options. Word of mouth did not and can not work as I dont have any connections or networks. Since I found photographers from many sources, I have no idea where to find more photographers.

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Any suggestions what to do next?

  • 0000GKP@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    You mentioned ASMP. Did you join as a member and put your information in the Find an Assistant database? If an ASMP photographer wants to hire an assistant that they aren’t already connected with, that’s where they are going to look.

    Same applies to APA. These are paid professional membership organizations. Networking happens within the organization. If everyone goes outside of the organization, the the benefits of membership are reduced.

    Wonderful Machine reps photographers. Many of those photographers are members of ASMP, APA, and other professional organizations. It is not to their benefit to respond to solicitation emails from you, much less to hire you instead of hiring someone from within their professional organizations.

    • Neat-Appointment-950@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      They are useless. I’ve been part of both ASMP and APA for a long time but after I researching photographers, I found them not useful and not really active.