guys, I could use some friendly advice...

[atanabe]

in my opinion, internship/appreticeships should be paid positions, though not all are. surely you will be there learning, but you will also be working your *** off. your boss will benefit and should be paying for that, and your pay rate should reflect your experience and ability. You should also be protected by worker's comp and un-employment insurances, both of which require you get a paycheck. if your boss has a legit business, he will also have a general liability policy, which will cover your actions if you are his employee, so if you drop that crystal vase and are being paid, his insurance will cover, but not if you are not an employee.
I am making an important distinction between "employee", which I am recommending, and "freelancer" the latter being an IRS dodge for the most part with a very specific set of conditions required

Interesting thoughts regarding compensation and liability. I came up as an assistant, went to school at Art Center Collge of Design and during my fifth term was presented with an unpaid job to assist Pete Turner by the chairman of the department. I jumped at the chance to learn from him and did not ever consider the aspect of pay or insurance benefits. But that was in the old days I guess and I was young and had the desire to learn from a person who I admired and respected. In the end I worked my *** off, sunrise shoots followed by sunset shots but I would never trade that for anything. Also the unpaid position came with a nice check that paid my tuition for the next semester.

 

[jlm]

it is different when you are in school, where internships should be part of the curriculum. It pains me to see those faculty "pros" cheaping out by not paying for their assistants and it wrecks the job market for post-grad potential assistants

 

[jsf]

I had the good fortune to be hired as an assistant, I stayed for a total of four years. Believe me it wasn't the money. I worked amazingly long hours, but I have to say this, I could never, ever learned in school what I learned with a general commercial photographer. I thought so much of the experience that I went to work for three other photographers over the next three years, a horse photographer, a high end portrait photographer and then a middle higher volume portrait photographer. In each one I learned deep valuable lessons in lighting, handleing the client, listening to the client and every obscure technical aspect to photography including understanding physiognomy, facial architecture etc. When I went out on my own, it was easy to get and retain clientele, I mostly did product illustration, and architectural photography but with my background I was able to satisfy my clienteles diverse needs as they came up, so I did PR, executive portraiture etc, I would reccomend this experience to anyone who is serious about photography as a profession. Joe