Everyone needs help, and photographers, generally speaking, need a lot. Having the aid of a good photo assistant is invaluable to a photographer. There are plenty of benefits for the assistant, too, especially when the photog they’re working with covers a wide range of genres, giving the assistant an opportunity to experience a variety of photo settings and situations.

Unfortunately, actually finding a good photo assistant can be more challenging than one might expect. Assistants are often college students or recent grads and, naturally enough, people of that age often have other things on their mind besides work. As a result, it’s not unusual for assistants to be late, show up too hungover to be of any good, or not even show up at all.

The working conditions are not overly exciting, either. Sure, they may get to meet hot models, but the assistant is going to spend all his/her time lugging equipment, holding/moving lights, climbing in/on/under things and places that might be less than safe, and cleaning EVERYTHING. Not exactly glamorous.

I found a new assistant, though, and I’m quite excited to introduce her to you. Her name is Leohna. She’s 13 months old and seems to be a natural. She took right to my camera bag and immediately began an inventory of its contents, proving that she’s definitely a self-starter. She was very excited about all she found there, and was quite eager and willing to help.

Leohna is very attentive, catching everything going on around her. She’s also very flexible, and did not hesitate to fold herself pretty much in half in order to get a better perspective of the situation (I wish I could still do that!).

She’s not quite perfect, of course. She wasn’t too terribly clear as to exactly what she was supposed to do with the film, though she was certainly eager enough to experiment. She also has a tendency to hit the bottle pretty hard, though on hot days like this I can’t say I blame her. She does practice moderation, though, and knows when to put the bottle down and get back to business.

Leohna also makes a pretty good model,  as you’ll see in some of the later shots. She comes with her own helpful entourage whom she calls Mom and Dad, which came in quite handy when Leohna couldn’t quite reach things on her own. Leohna’s very expressive, which is something a lot of more experienced models could/should learn from her. She was on time and arrived ready to shoot. She’s definitely going to be a contender for top model!

So welcome Leohna, feel free to suggest captions to her photos, and look for her to be gracing to cover of Vogue any day now.