then in the last two years, things have kind of taken off. but although i've had several stretches of being completely booked and busy, there are two domains where i feel like i haven't been able to break through yet: making money and honing my skills.
sure, i've had a paid gig here and there. never more than two-digits at a time, though, and never with any regularity, either. i've known from the start how unlikely it is to make a living being a fashion model, and for the most part i've accepted that. but recently i've started wanting it more, and started to see what it might take to get there.
until this point, it has felt like the bottleneck to the next level of modeling (getting signed by an agency and booking paid work, especially commercial work instead of runway shows) is whether i have the right look—in other words, if someone else deems me worthy of being a model.
strangely enough, i hadn't thought much about how much actual modeling skill matters. for me, thus far it hasn't mattered. and thus i haven't really made much improvement, because i hit a minimum viable threshold for my skills and don't spend time trying to better them.
what that looks like in practice is me being nervous, shy, and uncertain when the time comes for me to actually strike a pose or switch up my runway walk. this then affirmed to me that at the end of the day, i don't have what it takes to be a "real" model.
but what is confidence anyway? it's just the result of doing something so many times you don't have to question whether it will work. i realized i do have one or two go-to poses that i can reproduce on command, because i've done them so many times in the mirror it's second nature now (though i talked about the failure modes of that in my previous post). and if i can do those, i can certainly add some more!
a side note: i'm not exactly sure why my figure modeling pose practice hasn't transferred into fashion modeling. perhaps they are mentally segregated in my mind. i'd like to try and intentionally channel it next time, because i never had a mirror when modeling for figure drawing classes, and could rely on myself to come up with creative and well-shaped poses, so i'm not sure why i struggle more with fashion modeling poses.
anyway, i've decided i can conquer one pose at a time. or even more specifically, one part of a pose at a time. for example, first up is better neck/chin placement. when i'm nervous i tend to pull my head inwards, which forces my chin down and back, creating an unflattering double chin. so when i'm anxiously hoping a photo will turn out like a cute caught-off-guard candid, it actually just looks like i have weirdly excess skin under my chin. and also that i'm not confident, which is accurate.
i'm taking all the posing help i can get—the most recent helpful tidbit was a tiktok suggesting imagining holding an orange under your chin: first pushing your neck forward, then your chin slightly down, then holding an orange-sized space between your neck, chin, and chest. and that's exactly the motion i'd like to practice so much that i start to do it without even thinking.
(i made this decision after i attempting doing some "modeling practice" today and realizing it's quite hard to do on my own—and also frustrating to pose so well in the mirror but then totally flop in photos. but the other part of this is that doing it on my own means i also have to do the photography, and that's a lot to learn at once! that's when i decided to focus on one thing at a time.)
a snippet from posing practice
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