There are a lot of details to consider when planning a custom shoot, even after you find a photographer: rounding out creative briefs with staging instructions, taking care of legalities like model and property releases, selecting the best images from all of the photos taken…
With Assignments, one of 500px’s on-demand photography services, our photo editors simplify the process by taking care of all these details for you. Our sales team is the primary contact for our business clients, so we thought we’d share a little about one of the folks behind the scenes. Read on to meet one of our photo editors and discover how he helps make the custom shoot process clear and simple.
Meet Dave Fitzsimmons, Senior Photo Editor for Assignments.
As a kid growing up in Brampton, Dave always had a strong love of film production and photography. He spent summers directing home movies with his brother and cousin.
While in college studying photography, he found an interest in commercial and architectural photography. After graduating, he became Head Hotel Photographer for a Toronto-based hotel rich media company. For three and half years, he traveled North America shooting hundreds of hotels, and eventually launched his own hotel photography company called Photoworks National. Dave now brings this in-depth industry experience to the Assignments team.
As Senior Photo Editor, every day is fast-paced and full of unique challenges for Dave. “I love being in a position to work with passionate photographers from all over the world and share my knowledge and advice with them to help bring their work to a higher level. My job allows me to put all of my years of experience in hotel photography and image editing to great use, and I can’t ask for anything more than that,” says Dave.
Our photo editors act as liaisons between clients and photographers. It’s Dave’s job to make sure photo shoots go smoothly and photographers have all the information and insight they need to deliver top quality, on-brand images.
In the day-to-day, that means seeing to things like:
Giving clients a realistic sense of timeline and scope. Dave has a knack for matching needs to timelines and can tell clients what they can expect from a weeklong project versus a month-long project.
Helping write creative briefs. These crucial documents spell out important high-level information—such as style points, so the look of the hundreds of photographs from dozens of photographers are consistent—right down to the nitty gritty technical details, like camera height, placement, and proper white balance settings. Staging details are another important component of briefs. A good photo editor will include all the do’s and don’ts for staging, such as turning off TV screens in the shot and closing toilet lids!
Providing example images for photographers to emulate, as well as other resources that help make the photographer successful.
Seeing to all the legal bits like model and property releases. Dave also spends time educating photographers on the difference between editorial and commercial use.
Helping curate photos. Once photo shoots are complete, Dave sifts through the images and chooses the ones that best match the client’s needs, ensuring only on-brand photos make the cut.
We’re so proud of our talented team members like Dave who make our community a place for photographers to thrive.
Interested in getting custom photography for your brand? Get in touch with our sales team today.
All photos by David Fitzsimmons.
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