i really enjoy modeling. as such, i haven't really made a significant effort to establish a portfolio or Do Modeling well, because i just do it for the love of the game and accept whatever opportunities i happen to get without putting much effort in. and thus far, that has worked! but i've also had dry spells where i've felt stuck and helpless because it felt like i could only model when someone else provided an opportunity to do so.
recently i've been wanting to actually try—to really take a shot at developing my skills. not necessarily to try to build a successful career doing modeling, but at least to have skills i am proud of and can rely on, rather than being nervous and hoping i do well, without putting in the hours to actually get there.
this means i've been thinking a lot about what successful modeling actually entails: what differentiates a successful photo from a non-successful photo? i'm not sure exactly what i even mean by "successful." it's different depending on the context, but i have a tentative sense of what images work and which don't, and what makes something like professional rather than amateur. in other words, what makes an image actually feel like something other than just "one person aimed a camera at another person," or "a person looking pretty in a pretty spot." there's more to it than that, and i'm on the hunt for identifying exactly what that is.
to accomplish this, i've been observing and analyzing other images—bookmarking posts that have that "it" factor, as well as ones that seem to fall short, in order to identify patterns. i've also enjoyed seeing more experienced people online sharing thoughts about what makes an editorial image look "editorial," and what makes a successful portfolio image.
one such thought was that you only add one image per photoshoot to your portfolio. adding more sends a negative signal as well as redundancy: it shows that you don't have enough work to fill a portfolio, or don't have the taste and sense to cull and cultivate your portfolio to a few strong images.
this is kind of a new concept for me, and a helpful thing to learn before embarking on my first self-arranged photoshoot (other names for this sort of photoshoot are "TFP" or "time for prints," "collab," or "test shoot." each of these implies neither the model nor the photographer are being paid, and are working on the basis of the shoot being mutually beneficial to the portfolio of both or all involved).
though part of me felt a lot of pressure to do well—as if my prospects as a model hinged on every single photo turning out well—keeping in mind that actually only one would ever be useful as a portfolio image helped to relieve some of that pressure.
and really, i didn't need any of them to turn out well. before the shoot, i worried about the possibility that all the images would turn out poorly, and everyone would see that i'm a horrible model—until i realized that bad shoots don't even have to see the light of day if i don't want them to. the photographer can share them all they want, but i don't have to put anything on my page (or portfolio) if i don't like how it came out. if the whole shoot was a bust, oh well, i can do another.
the only thing that well and truly mattered was morale. i had an inkling that if the shoot went poorly, my morale would take a big hit. i would question if i could ever be good enough, and would be at risk of giving up for good.
as i primped and prepped for the shoot, however, i got a welcome wakeup call from my fiancé, who encouraged me to remember teenage me: how it felt to have creative little photoshoots just for fun, and how no one remembers the ones i didn't like, and sometimes i even created ones so successful they still hang on my parents fridge. his message was clear: it doesn't matter if this specific shoot is successfully "professional" or not, what matters is that i have fun and remember how much i enjoy the process in the first place.
and i did! i had a lot of fun, and even wondered why it took me so long to do something like this in the first place. and i even got several very nice images out of it as well! the whole thing ended up being a major boon to morale, and i'm proud of myself for being brave.
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