If you are thinking about shooting|interested in shooting} along side of us, please contact us after reading everything on this page. If you haven't read the entirety of whats on this page, then please do not bother contacting us as we will simply guide you back to this site to read our list of requirements.  If you happen to contact us, and we are unable to get back in touch with you, please don't take it personally.  We only have so much need during the wedding season and of course we are not able to work wtih everybody who applies with us. 

Physical Presence vs. Remote Presence

Our primary studio is in Nashville, TN and Louisville, KY, but we shoot weddings and events in lots of countries. We shoot a good amount of our ceremonies right here in the Nashville and Davidson County Area. About 20%-30% are shot in Louisville, KY, 15%-20% in Lexington, KY, 10%-15% in the Franklin, TN area, and 10%-15% in destination locations. With that said, most of our assistant needs are for photographers located in the Nashville/Louisville area, but we still require talented shooters in these other areas through the year.

Skills Needed

There are a few important qualifications that we expect from each person.

A genuine personality - This doesn't mean that you have to be the most outgoing or social person, but, you DO need to be looked at as someone who has enough charisma, knowledge, and social intelligence to function with groups of people and often lead them during the photography session as is necessary on wedding days.

Required Tools - There are many great photographers out there, and there are probably just as many tool-sets.  What we say here may irk many photographers, but ; obviously this isn't our reasoning.  While great images can be shot with cameras that are 10+ years old, we simply have chosen to standardize on a certain modern digital equipment with minimum capabilities. 

- Camera (Digital Only):

Allowable – Prosumer Camera (Canon 40D or above, Nikon D90 or above). 

Desired – Professional Camera (Canon 5D and above, Nikon D700 and above)

 - Glass:

Allowable – At least one fixed aperture zoom lens (17-105mm f/4.0, 24-70 f/2.8, or 70-200 either f/2.8 or f/4.0)
Desired – Full set of lenses at fixed apertures, including a 50mm, 27-70mm f/2.8, and 70-200mm f/2.8

- Lighting:

Allowable – Canon 430EX or Nikon SB600
Desired – Canon 580EX II or Nikon SB900, On-Camera Diffuser, PocketWizard Plus II, Battery Pack

- Memory:

Allowable – TWO Chips which match your camera, 8GB each
Desired – TWO Chips which match your camera, 32GB each

III. Creativity + Technical Skills – The last and probably the most important qualification is having both creativity and technical skills. These are developed over time with experience and training, but, it’s important that you start with a minimum foundation of these two skills upon which we can build.

How much will I make?

Understanding: We have no problem sharing all of our techniques, approaches, and tricks to those who are genuine in their interest to learn and develop with our studio.

Referrals: We highly encourage all of our assistants to operate their own studios; and we send all of our client inquiries for booked dates or below-budget weddings to our network of assistants.

Connections: Our mission is to build a network of photographers who that can share their expertise and help each other out when available. We have plenty of opportunities for you to meet our other assistants; and many of our assistants second shoot or assist each other on their own shoots.

Images: We allow assistants and second shooters to post images taken by them on their blog with a few restrictions and exceptions. Please contact us for details.

Actual Pay: Payment depends on the length of the wedding and the quality of your results. You can contact us for exact rates.

How To Get Started

Please send us an email at info@shaneandraychlephotography. If we choose you, we’ll give you a call to discuss your goals, expectations, etc. Vs. having a formal interview process, we would rather see you in action by inviting you on the next wedding in our schedule as a 3rd or 4th shooter. This first wedding will be one for which the client has not booked an assistant, as we don’t feel it fair to charge clients for assistants with no experience working with our studio. This is a learning/unpaid job, but, your obligations are limited and we only ask that you show up for the hours that you are available.

If everything goes well and we are happy with the image quality, we would then schedule you for future dates as a paid assistant.

We hope to hear from you soon