If Not... You Are The Prototype

If you haven't run out to your local airport bookstore to pick up this month's issue of R&T... well, what can I say. I'm hurt. But it's okay.

You can now read the NASA NP01 prototype test online as well. To do so is to miss the printed-paper beauty of the photography, done by the combination of Robert Kerian and Milk, his mononymous muse/assistant. I still remember the day I met Milk.

"What's your name?" I inquired.

"Milk," she responded.

"Milk. Well. How do you spell that?" Behind me, I could hear Matt Farah spitting his food into his hand. Milk is a very placid young woman. Truth is that I'm jealous of Kerian, and all the other photographers. They all get to have assistants. Nobody questions this. When a photographer shows up at an auto-journo thing, he brings an assistant. It is widely understood that a photographer needs an assistant to change lenses and carry boxes and be the target of emotional, sometimes merging into physical, abuse. Without an assistant, a photographer cannot fully express his creative self.

Do I get an assistant? Haha fuck no. Even when I pay for an assistant out of my own pocket, I get emails like this from manufacturers:

Thanks Jack. We need to talk about the women you've been bringing to these events... They've been seen at the evening hospitality suites, and the two women who accompanied you at Palm Beach did attempt to join our private lunch.

THEY ATTEMPTED TO JOIN THE PRIVATE LUNCH. No fucking shame, these assistants. But Milk gets to come to the private lunch. You bet she does. Tell you what. I'm going to buy one of those extra lens things you put on your cameraphone. Then I, too, will be a photographer. And I'll have my own assistant. Feel free to apply in the comment section. I'm accepting qualified female applicants between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three. A warning, however: no matter what your name is now, I'm changing it to "Megatron".