How to make money and a living in the modeling business in Orange County and Los Angeles is stressful for most new models, upgrading and keeping that modeling portfolio current is another expense most models don’t want to deal with.
Enter “TFP” or time for print, increasingly models are trading their time in front of camera for “free” photoshoots which would have not happened otherwise or they would have paid for….well photographers got to pay their overhead too, remember.
And it is a flea market out there, especially here in Orange County and Los Angeles models and photographers increasingly trade time, these photo sessions are not for any particular client or product rather for their portfolios, the photographer’s portfolio in fact.
It is the photographer who has the major material investment in it as a business, and typically more than full time, for the models its a gig here and there while doing other full-part time work to make a living, while chasing their dreams.
Not easy for either crowd, but the risk is on the photographer who has to put together a winning portfolio and market himself (mostly guys) and go up the ranks against the ever dense competition on that Google first page ranking.
End of the day the photographers give a digital file of the shoot to the models, and everyone is happy for the most part. There are bad days and surprises that can be embarrassing! Photographer picks a model for a trade shoot, often they are fresh with no portfolio or professional photos, now the photographer is under the impression that a certain looking model is going to walk in the door.
She does walk in but with a zitty face and messy hair expecting to look glam in 45 minutes because she thinks the photographer has a hair and makeup artist booked, right? she is working for free so she wants it all.
The model walks in wearing that $20 Ross black dress with no suitcase full of fine outfits and furnishings, well for sure the photographer has arranged for a stylist to be at the shoot, since she is there for free…now this happens all the time because there is not budget and lots of expectations on both ends.
A typical photographer may have tons of great ideas thanks to Bing image search and Pinterest but how is it all happening? who is putting together the accessories, hair, makeup, outfits, backdrops, sets, furniture, etc. Then they end up shooting naked shots, right.
So then lots of portfolios of fresh models and hopeful photographers are full of “nude” (yes they always claim its artistic nude) shots due to lack of anything else which was not planned for and not paid for by the missing element here, the client.
Yes it is the client who takes the stress out of the business, it is they who pay the bills and make the world go around. The client has the final word in this world, for without the paying client there will be no industry and no business.
May God bless and sanctify the client for whatever his project and however not exactly what the producer, director, photographer, editor, designer, model, hair stylist, makeup artist, wardrobe stylist Et al envisions it should have been.
We say Amen to the client and his wishes.
