The average high school student’s weekday plans usually consist of going to school, working on homework, hanging out with friends, and maybe even attending a club event or two. Junior Henri Humar, however, was in California working for the company Tether Production, helping on a 7-day photoshoot.
Humar’s parents gave him the opportunity to work for their company, assisting with various tasks: prop shopping, model management, and location scouting. His official title was assistant production manager, where he was a helping hand to the production manager and any other departments that needed any kind of assistance.
He also got special permission from the school itself to miss class, with all of his absences for the week being excused. This allowed him to focus solely on the production and worry about his schoolwork later.
“It was a really cool experience,” comments Humar. “I got to meet a lot of people, and it taught me a lot about both photography and management.”
Tether Production is a South Florida-based company that specializes in photography for companies and campaigns. They’ve shot in locations like West Palm Beach and Miami Beach for famous clients like Komos and Iris Apfel.
Their most recent photoshoot took them all the way to the West Coast, working for client Urban Planet, which is a Canadian clothing company targeted at young adults, similar to Pacsun and Hollister. The shoot itself lasted a total of 7 days for their new spring campaign at well-known filming spots like the LA Galaxy soccer stadium and the Pink Motel.
One aspect of Humar’s job was loading and unloading photo equipment when they moved from location to location. This sounds like a simple task, but when the equipment costs tens of thousands of dollars, it becomes a little more nerve-wracking.
“I wouldn’t say I was scared to move the equipment, but the thought of dropping something definitely crossed my mind once or twice,” remarks Humar. “I had to be really careful, because one slip-up could delay production and cost a lot of money.”
Another one of his tasks was prop shopping, where he would get a general idea of what the client wanted in the scene so that he could find props to match. An extension of this was model management, another one of his responsibilities, where he would help pose models to make the shot most appealing for the clothes they were wearing. Any other questions they may have had were also directed at him, such as when the next break would be or anything similar.
After the shoot was over, Humar returned home and went back to school, continuing his normal high school life just as he had before, and finishing the schoolwork he’d missed during his time in Los Angeles. However, he wasn’t the same as any ordinary kid anymore; this experience gave him knowledge he wouldn’t just use in school, but also in his future.
