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Emily, Roving reporter

My work experience with PMP Digital

PMP Limited is one of Australia's largest commercial printers. The company is so large that they have separate locations and organisations throughout Australia. This includes advertising, delivery, print, data and the digital area, where I had the chance to do work experience over the Spring holidays.

PMP Digital is a photography studio where they take photos for catalogues such as Kmart and other clients around Australia. PMP Port Melbourne offers digital photography, creative and graphic design and photo shoots among its services.

Styling shoes

To start off my week, I worked with a stylist (who arranges the setting for the photos) and we 'styled' shoes for the photographer to take. I know what you're all thinking: "shoes?" Yes, although it was repetitive at times, placing a shoe one after the other on a table all day, I learnt that there is more to it than meets the eye.

This included having to 'fix' or properly correct a shoe which may have come to them in bad condition. This took time and energy as it was very fiddly trying to make the shoe look attractive.

The shoot took place in a photography studio and I was amazed by the sorts of cameras each photographer used. They had the usual simple digital camera, but instead of looking through the viewfinder and snapping the picture on the camera, they used the computer to do the work for them.

This involved changing the exposure and also taking the photo. It was really interesting and different to what I expected, and it showed what we are heading towards in the future.

Fashion shoots

The next few days I worked with other photographers. Most of them were working on the Kmart catalogue but in the different sections of the store, such as the Living section which has furniture beds and the Fashion section which has clothes for different age groups and genders.

The fashion shoot was great - they took photos of lots of models in different clothes and I got to have an inside look into what actually happens when taking photos of models.

A really tricky thing I observed while watching the photographers was the importance of getting the lights just right. This especially was the case when dealing with wine bottles because the lights reflected off the bottle glass.

They had so many techniques and so much lighting equipment it was hard to keep track. The way that they created light was amazing. If there wasn't much light on the set, they would simply place a piece of cardboard where they needed it and the cardboard would reflect the light onto the set.

Photoshop fun

The last few days were really sad as my experience was coming to an end, but this made it more fun. I worked in the computer room where several people used Photoshop to fix different things on the photos.

Photoshop is the famous - or should I say infamous - computer program that publishers use to create the perfect image. Models get made into what some argue is an unrealistic - even impossible - form of person.

Because I don't have Photoshop at home, I was taught the basics and I was surprised by how hard it could be and what can actually be done by using this magnificent program! I was shown past things that they have fixed as 'before shots' and 'after shots'. This included things such as changing the colour of food to make it look fresher than it really was.

When my tutorial session was over I was asked to fix a photo of a chocolate Easter bunny that had been broken in lots of pieces. Surprised by this request, I became really nervous and scared but by the end I was able to make a broken up chocolate bunny brand new again just by using Photoshop.

Since I am a lover of photography I found this work experience very interesting. I learnt a lot of things I did not know before, and I truly believe that there is more to life than meets the eye. If you want to a career in photography, I suggest you give photography work experience a try - it's a very creative yet structured way to make a living.

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