And to clarify, by emphasizing his prints I meant that this is an opportunity to do some high-level work for him, not just to fetch coffee, though I’m sure that’ll be required too. To me, being asked to do skilled work is better than not. You have a chance to learn about those aspects of his operation rather than being stuck in gopher land. No, it’s not a class, but a person can treat it as such. Don’t forget that you can ASK QUESTIONS. Maybe they don’t state explicitly in the ad that they will teach you anything, but for christ’s sake, you can take the initiative. I’d hope they aren’t types who would just give you the brush off about everything. But again, we don’t know either way.

I’m not sure what it is about the creative industries that require so many unpaid interns, but it’s the same in sound engineering too. Most of the time you intern for free doing the shittiest jobs, and hope that they like you enough to take you on on a paid basis later. Maybe part of it is that they want to try you out before signing you to a binding contract.

But another thing is that all the outraged folks seem to be implying that he is heartless. If an intern ran into real financial difficulties in the middle of the internship, would he tell them to get lost? Maybe he would, maybe would offer them a little pay. Who knows? What is written policy to ward off the slackers and how much people are actually willing to work with you are two different things in my experience.

While I agree that unpaid internships suck, the people who take them are not really suffering in the same way. A discussion about unpaid internships in the industry would be really interesting, but to focus on Nachtwey as if he was the worst of the lot just because his work is about poverty and suffering in developing nations is strange. It’s not clear to me that people in that thread have any idea of things they can do about the general state of unpaid internships. They just want to tear into N.

And I think we are really in no position to judge because we don’t know the state of his finances. I’m sure he does well, but he is running his studio, presumably paying the other two assistants, and who knows if he can afford another one. I’m not saying he can’t, but we’re presuming a lot!

Yes, they require more time when needed, but this is for 3 months min. and I assume you have some leeway about when you leave. To do this for a summer is hardly so bad. Even getting a part time job or take a few assignments for 2 days a week would defray costs enough that sacrificing 3 months wages would not be quite so devastating if your costs aren’t high. The point and what I’d like to hear others’ opinions on is that there are always those people who are willing to make ridiculous sacrifices. I’m just not sure that it’s always true that they are the “privileged ones.”

But I don’t claim to know a lot about these matters, so I’d love to hear some input.