Tagged: model tips
Free Tits – part one
Publicity, charity and being a good Samaritan.
It’s nice to do things for nothing sometimes. I firmly believe in helping people out. I think it’s good for your self-esteem and confidence just to do nice things sometimes, because it’s in your power to do so. I think it makes you a better and happier person, and the world a nicer place. In theory it’s a win-win, and I’m a big fan of those.
I’m also a fan of doing things just for the fun of doing them, or because it’s good for your career or confidence to do them.
But for every well-organized event for a good cause, there is a complete waste of time of a shoot, and the potential to feel cheesed-off and cynical. It can put you off doing the good stuff. How do you tell what’s what, and make sure that when you give up your time, and allow complete strangers to photograph or film you, that you’re doing the right thing for you and your modeling career?
This is a three-part post on doing shoots for anything other than money. I only briefly mention TFCD/test shoots here, because it’s really about:
• Hey, this would be great publicity for you
• This is for charity
• I have this really nice friend that is into photography…
I’m going to start with a genuine message sent to a model. Or rather, loads of models. She just happened to send it to me, with comments along the lines of ‘LMFAO’
It starts with ‘Yo,’ and goes immediately downhill from there. Names, locations and details have been changed.
Yo.
WANTED: Girls who are up for having fun, open minded and wanting to gain GREAT Publicity!
LOCATION: Manchester UK
FEE: No Pay Im afraid, just free booze, etc and TFD.
DESCRIPTION:
Brian Smith is a Cabaret Performer and one of the Best in the World at that. He Travels the Globe Performing BIG shows and he has supported lots of Bands such as: The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Madonna, Etc.
Dubbed the ‘Michael Jackson of Cabaret’ and with a 5 Star Review at The Edinburgh Festival he is ROCKIN out his Life!
A DVD is being released and an extra will be an interview with Brian in which he keeps getting distracted by all of the hot girls around him in his place naked and in lingerie trying to distract him from the interview and questions! The Video will also be well promoted and splashed ALL OVER the Net. Fotos will also be taken one day too for use in your portfolios if you wish. x
FREE BOOZE all day and a takeaway at the end of the videoshoot.
Fun Times.”
If you got a message like this, should you do it?
These are my thoughts on this particular casting, as I would have them as I was reading it for the first time:
• This isn’t being sent to the model personally. It’s being sent to everybody, perhaps hundreds of girls, to see who bites.
• They’re not asking for models. They’re asking for ‘girls’. This makes me think they don’t really care who turns up, as long as they get naked and act a bit slaggy.
• I don’t think this is an opportunity for ‘Great publicity’ at all. I think this is a weird, staged party with loads of naked women, for the benefit of some nobody from nowhere, who wants to pretend to be Mick Jagger circa 1971 for the afternoon.
• If he was that amazingly awesome, he would have a bunch of fans and a street team to choose ‘hotties’ from, that would be more than happy to do this, and his team wouldn’t be contacting random models on the Internet for a free tits.
• Chuck us a web address then, so we can see the people he’s supposedly worked with & supported?
• It sounds very chaotic and unprofessional to me. Proper film crews and directors do not like chaos.
• Beware the words ‘open minded’. It tends not to mean you’d consider voting Liberal Democrat. It sounds like somebody somewhere on this shoot is expecting a blowjob.
• They are offering to get young women drunk and encourage them to take their clothes off, and be filmed naked and drunk. They’re not even asking for ID. And if you don’t leave in disgust when you get groped or get asked to lezz up with your friends, they’ll buy you a pizza. Classy.
• Naked, drunk photographs with loads of other random girls and a D-lister for my portfolio? No thanks, I’m clipping my toenails that day.
• “FREE BOOZE ETC,” does etc mean drugs? If I were offered free booze etc on a ‘let’s get naked & drunk!’ party invitation, I would assume that meant drugs. As the rest of the casting is so dodgy and seedy, and sounds more like a party than a shoot, I’m not giving this one the benefit of the doubt. So, drunken, naked, coked-up girls being filmed? I’m not touching this one with a ten foot pole.
• This is going to be an ‘extra’ on a DVD. It won’t be shown on TV. Which is probably a good thing anyway. But ‘extras’ on DVDs of nobodies that no-one has heard of, tend to be filmed by their mates rather than by proper film crews. And practically nobody watches them. Which is possibly a blessing in this case.
• Ooh but it will be splashed all over the Internet? Well, you’re not allowed tits and nudity on Youtube or Facebook or Myspace, so where the hell do we get to see this video? Porn sites? You can’t put it on Youtube and you can’t put it on Facebook if it’s got naked women in it. Publicity fail.
• Name dropping famous bands to get people naked for free is well dodgy.
I wouldn’t consider touching this with somebody else’s bargepole. Not with my worst enemies bargepole. Naff off.
If you’re a silly cokehead and you want free booze, or you just want to party & don’t care who sees the pictures & video then go for it. But don’t be under any illusions that this is in any way a good or smart thing to do.
I’m going to be diplomatic here, and say that perhaps the person that wrote this message is trying too hard to be lairy and funky, and accidently making it sound like a sleazy drunken orgy, and that the reality of the actual shoot was somewhat different. But I think it would be dangerous to give this situation, as it is worded, the benefit of the doubt. I think there’s a very real chance that any woman that puts herself in this situation, as it is described here, is open to being tastelessly exploited. Or assaulted, or drunkenly doing something really stupid with a camera in the room. So minus 100 cool points to team Brian Smith for coming across in this way. In the recycle bin of any sensible model it goes.
There are many shoots for bands/indie films/experimental pieces that are a load of lairy fun, and do end in a big drunken party, and everybody has a marvelous time. How do you tell the difference? A combination of common sense, instinct, looking at their past work and checking references.
Be very, very wary of any free shoot that appears to involve any combination of nudity, booze, drugs and random people turning up for a party. This is how people get exploited, assaulted, and do really stupid things on camera that they wish they hadn’t done.
Getting published VS getting paid
This is an absolute beginners guide to being published and paid as a model.
I’m using professional model Bailey K as an example. Here is a picture of her:
As you can see she’s very beautiful. I don’t know many girls that can look hot with a string of sausages on their head. So Bailey is a professional model, and she does a mixture of paid work and ‘Test’ or ‘TFCD’ and shoots for publication, which she doesn’t necessarily get paid for.
I’m using the word ‘published’ here to mean having your photographs printed in a magazine or newspaper.
Being published isn’t the same as being paid. You don’t automatically get paid if your photographs end up a magazine.
You could be published a lot and never paid for it, and you can be paid lots of times for shoots but never published. Most successful models are paid more than they are published, but they still appear regularly in ordinary and online publications.
Why would I want to be published if I’m not getting paid?
• For vanity. Some people just like seeing themselves in print.
• For publicity. The more well known you are, the more work you are likely to get.
• For credibility. So you look like a ‘proper’ model, rather than a newbie.
Where might I be published?
This is just off the top of my head, so I may miss a few things out.
There are lots of magazines and newspapers that use photographs of models. Nearer the bottom end of the scale are magazines like Nuts and Zoo, that encourage girls to send in sexy photos.
Adverts in magazines sometimes use models. The really posh adverts in Vogue for example, are going to feature models from top agencies. But there are all sorts of adverts that feature models.
This is called ‘commercial modeling’. You’re more likely to be advertising a new brand of Cornflakes or a driving school or gym than diamonds and handbags, but it’s the same kind of thing. You generally get paid for commercial modeling.
Photographers may submit photographs to competitions or for publication in photography magazines. This is more about the photograph than it is about you, but you can still count yourself ‘published’.
Sometimes models, designers, photographers & makeup artists collaborate to create a high-fashion style shoot for publication, but they don’t always get paid. Here is model Bailey K in a shoot for Toni & Guy.
Tip – A scan of a published photograph is called a ‘tearsheet’. In the old days if you were published you would carefully tear out the page and put it into your portfolio. Now we tend to scan the publication and put it into our online ports, but it is still called a tearsheet.
Alternative clothing designers often need models for their clothes. Because there are so many people that would love to model corsets/latex/wedding dresses etc, this often doesn’t pay very well, if at all. But it is a nice thing to have on your port, and you might score a free dress.
And finally, if you’re very, very beautiful and photogenic, and you happen to be in the right place at the right time & have the right attitude, you may do special features for men’s magazines. This tends to be models that have a fan base, or that have been launched by an agency, but it’s not unheard of for an independent model to be published in this way.
And after that, it’s mostly about taking your knickers off.
Pornography is a huge industry, and there is always a demand for fresh meat oops sorry I mean fresh faces. By porn I mean anything from Playboy to a top shelf ‘dirty’ magazine. Most models are paid for this kind of work, but a few will send in photos of themselves just for the thrill of being published.
Who might pay me and why?
Amateur photographers. From absolute beginners that couldn’t light a fruit-bowl, to camera clubs, group shoots and experienced hobbyists that want a particular look or style for a shoot. A lot of independent models work with amateur photographers a lot, on everything from fashion and portrait style up to the kind of stuff you would find on the top shelf.
Professional photographers for their own portfolios. This is one of my favorite types of work. Professional photographers need to stand out from the crowd, and one way they do this is to create an eye-catching & beautiful image with a model. They don’t get to shoot this stuff all day every day, so they tend to really enjoy it, and it always looks fabulous.
Professional photographers for clients. Clients can mean anyone from Vodaphone to a top shelf mag or the local Pilates class. These are nearly always for publication.
Professional photographers for private clients. Some rich guys like pictures of chicks shot to their own specifications, for their own ‘personal use’. They’re usually quite explicit, and they don’t tend to be published.
Porn or fetish websites. The kind of websites that feature specialist content & rely on member fees to make a profit. They need fresh content all the time and they tend to pay quite well.
It sounds complicated, but it’s easy once you get used to it. In a nutshell – If being paid is more important to you, don’t worry about getting published immediately. If you want to be published, you’ve got a bit of a clue about who to approach now. And if you want to be both published and paid fairly soon, approach a commercial agency or do porn.
Thanks Bailey K, for letting me use the photographs. Here is a link to Bailey’s online portfolio.
This is an off the cuff post, so feel free to add anything I’ve missed out in the comments below.
Your nipples look weird, you anorexic slut – Part one – Chrissie Red
Some of the links in the blog are 18+
If DeviantART were a town, you would drive through it extremely quickly with your doors locked and your windows shut. And even then you’d have to stop just outside MySpace to scrape the sequins and foreskins from the bumper.
I was chatting to model Chrissie Red about the thoughtless and often very personal comments that can appear at the bottom of a photograph on sites like DeviantART, and the idea came up to do a bit of a rant about it.
I threw this out to some model friends, and got a really interesting perspective from some very different models, on what it’s like to be on the receiving end of those really thoughtless, not-so-constructive comments. Stuff like: “You look like a man,” or “She looks anorexic,” or even “What a slut!”
How does it feel to read that about yourself? Does it affect your self esteem? Should it bother you? Do you care?
Now, there are some really great artists on DeviantART. Then again, there are some really nice people that live in Moss Side.
Certain pockets of DeviantART are so strange and odd to those outside each individual sub-culture, that it wouldn’t surprise me if you could buy mouse mats of people inflating their own genitals with bellows. Or a mug with a picture of somebody dangling from their garage ceiling by their nipples, and if the urge took you, you could do unspeakable, adult things to it, take a photo of it on your telephone, post it on DeviantART, and some wobble-job would probably ask you what you ate the night before, to get it that particular consistency and colour.
If the scientists that invented the internet in that little laboratory at CERN all those years ago, knew that this was one of the many ways in which the Internet was going to be used, they would have briefly considered locking all the doors and burning the building down.
And you know what? All of that is absolutely cool. It’s not a danger to society, or a symptom of anything sinister. It’s just people being weird and having wanks about stuff. That’s what people do. They probably do it slightly more than they did before DeviantART was invented, but there are worse hobbies. Like Farmville. And there is worldwide poverty and large-scale climate change and stuff, and some dweeb slamming his wang in the refrigerator door and taking photos of it is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. Even the Devil doesn’t give a shit about stuff like that. He’s like ‘Well, it’s DeviantART. I just let them get on with it,’
Chrissie and many other models that appear on DeviantART do not go trolling on other people’s photographs to tell them how disgusting they think they are.
Chrissie does not, on seeing an extreme close-up of the end of a man’s penis with a face Photoshopped onto it, type ‘’That looks like the Annoying Orange off Youtube, after he’s been left in the bottom of the ‘fridge for six months. You massive nutter,”
WARNING: Some things cannot be unseen.
You looked didn’t you? Well you can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Or “Your wife’s suspenders are doing your wrinkly arse no favours mate. You look like a plucked turkey in a basque, and there isn’t enough eye-bleach in the world to put this right,”
She doesn’t do this because it’s rude and thoughtless and hurtful (and she probably has less time on her hands than people that read up on nailing their own genitals to tables). It’s very direct and it’s very public. But when she reads her own comments, and those of her friends, people have said things like:
“I wish I was there with some trimmers for that bush!”
“Nice image, but she looks like an anorexic on her deathbed,”
“Your model’s nipples look weird,”
“Your model needs to eat,”
Creepy pube comments aside, these are directed towards a model that looks like THIS:
And this:
Oh, and this:
She’s a very tall bird is Chrissie. And she’s very slim. But her BMI is 19, which is within the ‘normal’ and not unhealthy range, according to doctors. She’s not anorexic, and doesn’t have the same body shape as somebody that is. I’m no boob expert, but there is nothing wrong with Chrissie’s. And she’s erm, quite happy with her natural, perfectly normal bush thank you very much. No vajazzles or stripper waxes for Ms. Red. So what goes through people’s minds when they write this kind of stuff? If you’ve got any clue on this subject whatsoever, please feel free to comment at the bottom of the page.
Chrissie tells me that she expects this kind of bullshit from ‘old men being pricks’ but not so much from photographers. Particularly young female ones, who you might have expected to have more of a clue about what is and isn’t an appropriate comment to make about another woman’s body.
What’s really creepy is when some random guy (sometimes a ‘photographer, sometimes not) will make a sleazy comment about the model, and the original photographer will agree with him and have a conversation about it:
“Here’s Kate looking hot & bothered,”
“I wish she was hot & bothered with me! I’m jealous,”
“Yeah I’m a lucky guy!”
“I wish I had your job!”
“I do love my job!”
Erm guys, this is public. Don’t talk about your model as if you personally rubbed the baby oil into her ass crack. You sound like a virgin. Or as Chrissie would say:
“Shut the fuck up, you high-fiving fuckwits,”
There are a lot of people outside the modelling world that would say ‘Well, if you don’t like the comments, don’t appear on the Internet with your norks out,’
Well, whatever job you do, you will encounter bits of it that you might not like. It’s OK to talk about it or read or write about it sometimes. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed, or that you should quit. Sometimes it’s just good to remember that it isn’t personal, and that everybody gets their share of thoughtless, nasty, throwaway comments.
http://www.purestorm.com/profile.aspx?id=Chrissie_Red
Photos by Rory Quinn
MODEL PROFILE: Misty
Misty is a model from Mersyside, UK. She’s also a dancer and a qualified makeup artist. Models that are dancers are very sought-after, and Misty is an accomplished and popular model in several genres. She’s also a very funny lady, and totally down to earth and modest, despite being ridiculously talented and accomplished.
You seem very versatile. How would you describe yourself as a model?
I’m a Polly Pocket model, small, pretty and can bend in half! Ha ha! In all seriousness, yes, I am lucky in that I can model to a wide variety of genres, I tend to have quite a chameleon look, and a face that takes makeup well. I would say my niche is in Dance and Figure modelling, including artistic nude, and in Editorial modelling, as you really need to be able to bend and make shapes, and use your face expressively to achieve a good shot in these styles. Having dance training is a huge advantage to me, and is what gives me the background to understand movement and posing and how to make my body look aesthetically pleasing in a photograph.
You’re an ariel gymnastics performer and a pole-dancing champion. How do people generally react when you tell them what you do?
I wouldn’t call myself a champion in general terms, not yet anyway 😉 I was the Welsh Pole Divas Regional Champion in 2010 and have reached 3 National Finals, and the Britain does Variety Live Regional Final for Northern England performing on pole, I hope to achieve a lot more over the next few years!
I tend to find I get the usual stereotype at first, phallic related jokes about ‘sliding down poles’, reactions of distaste where people have some stripper image in their heads of nudity, thongs, and 7 inch plastic heels… but then as soon as people see what I do, I tend to find the jokes stop pretty quickly! I like that, changing conceptions one person at a time.
What is your favourite photograph of yourself?
This is a really difficult question – I have photos in so many styles which I love for different reasons. But I’ll have to say this one by the uber talented Phil Winterbourne – I think if any picture has ever managed to capture my personality and character in one shot, then this is it. It has an attitude and sex appeal about it which I just love. I wish my face looked like this every day.
Where would you most like to perform?
Las Vegas. There are wonderful shows out there such as Zumanity by Cirque du Soleil where the Double World Champion Felix Cane performs on the pole – I would love to be good enough one day to be able to be a part of a show like that. Vegas is so unique in that is brings the gorgeous and the ridiculous together in one big glamorous union where anything goes and all performance art is accepted. I think there’s a real problem in our society in general where it’s considered ‘not okay’ to embrace your sexuality as a woman and just dance, be it graceful, powerful, erotic, whatever. Dance brings out every side of me, it reflects my mood, my emotions, my innermost desires and every aspect of my personality and being. I want to be able to express that without judgement. And possibly marry an Elvis impersonator.
Who is your favourite model?
I have so many models that I respect and admire, and could look at all day long, but for me my absolute favourite is Raphaella. I have had the pleasure of working alongside her and she is as lovely as she is beautiful and talented. The way she uses her body and face in so many ways to express emotion and feeling, and can span the genres from beautiful and classical to erotic, to edgy and look flawless in every shot – I find her breathtaking.
Thank you for talking to I/AM Misty. Where can we find you on the web?
What are ‘White Knights’ and why are they creepy? Part One.
This is a not what we mean by 'White Knight. Unfortunately.
White knights
A ‘White Knight’ is modeling & photography slang for a photographer who is a bit too protective and weird about his model ‘friends’. He’s generally harmless, a bit sad and likes to hang around with girls and play with their hair and stuff. This isn’t the same as being mates with a photographer.
The true White Knight secretly hopes that his favorite ‘friend’ will one day be distraught and confused about her boyfriend, her sexuality, or drunk enough, or hopefully all three, to let him shag her. They tend to live in eternal hope though, unless they win the lottery.
On the more sinister side, some ‘photographers’ get very possessive about the models they shoot with, and consider them ‘their’ models exclusively. They advise ‘their’ model to do lots and lots of shoots with them (usually on a TFCD basis) and to charge a lot of money for shoots with other photographers.
Naturally no other photographer wants to work with them, with some creepy, over-protective monkey hanging around, and being asked for ridiculous rates. So the White Knight gets to hang around with the model a lot, and be her bestest friend and stuff.
There is a certain type of photographer that ‘discovers’ new models, and then attempts to simultaneously ‘launch their career’ and keep them all to themselves at the same time. They tend to approach a pretty girl, convince them that they should model, build up their confidence on a series of shoots, and then get really pissed off and weird when ‘their’ model gets bored or wierded out, and goes off to shoot with somebody else.
There is a photographer in my local area that is well known for this type of behavior. Apparently (I’ve never shot with him as I found him weird on the ‘phone) his ‘studio’ is a shed at the bottom of his garden, and he tells his wife that the models he shoots are paying him – but he’s actually paying them!
When they get fed up of him and start to work with other photographers, he tells the most awful lies about them to other models. The most amusing thing he told me (within five minutes of my speaking to him on the ‘phone) was that my mate, who is a professional photographer, and one of the soundest, nicest people I’ve ever met, who was shooting a lot with ‘his’ discovery, had hopped over his garden wall with the model in tow, and tried to burn his studio down. This mate of mine had a debilitating accident years ago, and was left with limited mobility. He won’t be climbing over any walls any time soon. He absolutely pissed himself when I told him about it, and the model told me all sorts of stories about this guy’s wacky behavior.
This particular White Knight told me all sorts of lies about other photographers, mainly along lurid, sex-offender lines, and started to get manipulative and pushy with me, telling me that we had agreed to shoot together when we hadn’t, and suggesting he might ruin my career by telling everybody that I was unreliable. I eventually growled at him and he squeaked and disappeared. I haven’t heard from him since.
Photographers and models often become mates, and mates look out for each other. I’ve got some great mates who are photographers, and I don’t have to remove their tongue from my bum-crack after every shoot.
A good rule of thumb is that a mate will say “Don’t take any shit off that guy, he’s a wanker,” while a White Knight will come across all “I’ll protect you my pretty. The world doesn’t understand you like I do. I thought there was something weird about him; I didn’t like the way he looked at you. I’ve bought a family sized box of Jaffa cakes and a bottle of Champagne. Why don’t you stay at mine for a few days to sort your head out?”
Scare stories & real dangers
White Knights like to do a bit of scaremongering about model safety. They’re the first to jump on the more sensational stories, whether in the press or just gossip, about a model being dramatically assaulted. If you look a little deeper into the more sensational stories, you’ll often find that it’s nothing to do with modeling and photography at all. The ‘glamour model’ was a pretty girl beaten up by her boyfriend and the issue was nothing to do with modeling, but rather the poor girl having a horrible bastard for a boyfriend. But the White Knight types will use this kind of lurid tale regardless of the facts to scare newbies.
The cold fact of the matter is that many experienced models can tell you about the time that a ‘photographer’ (not the person they were having a relationship with but a relative stranger) made them really uncomfortable by acting weird, or being totally inappropriate, including deliberately trying to touch them up or talk to them in a sexual or abusive way. It doesn’t happen all of the time, but certainly more than it should (which is never). But this is the level of abuse that we’re talking about between strangers or people that have just recently met each other, when we’re being realistic and honest rather than scaremongering.
This is not to belittle anyone’s experience, but just to make it clear that ‘photographers’ that try to frighten you with lurid examples of murders and rapes, or make out that all other photographers are a danger to you as a reason why they should have your personal number and be your special friend are well, bloody weirdoes. Alarm bells should definitely ring.
Read Part 2 here
I’ve got my first shoot next week. HELP! Part 2
This is advice for a general casual/portrait/glamour shoot for a new model, either in a professional studio or a home studio.
Part 2 – How do I do my makeup?
Models tend to wear a lot of makeup on a shoot. Much more than most people normally do. What works on camera sometimes looks a bit odd in real life.
Unless there is a makeup artist, you will need to do your own makeup.
I’m splitting this section into two parts:
- If you hardly wear any makeup or don’t really know how to use it.
- If you are a makeup junkie that won’t leave the house without false eyelashes
If you’re not so confident about makeup:
Foundation/base
You need a very even skin tone, so you might need a thicker or heavier foundation than normal. But it depends on your skin. If you have very good, clear skin then ordinary foundation and powder is enough.
You absolutely need to blend it and color-match it well though. Blend it right into your neck and hairline, and make sure it matches the rest of your body. Don’t have a tanned chest and a powdery white face!
Blusher
Some girls don’t wear blusher. I didn’t bother until I was in my mid-twenties, but you need it on camera or you’ll look washed out. If you’ve never used it before, look at some Youtube videos to see how to apply it like this one: How to apply blusher
Use a big brush, not the crappy little one that comes in the compact.
Eyes
One of the easiest & sexiest eye makeup looks to do is the smoky type eye with a big, soft eye crayon. It is almost impossible to muck this up. You basically draw all the way around your eye with a soft eye crayon, soften and smudge it with a cotton bud and put a bit of eye shadow on top. Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, but it’s still very easy. Don’t do this right at the beginning of the shoot (stick to the natural look at first). But if you’re doing any rock n roll type looks, evening wear, sexy dresses etc. then the smudgy, smoky eye fits in with all of them.
Eyelash curlers look like horrible torture-devices, but they don’t hurt and they’re not dangerous. Give them a go, and put two or three coats of mascara on your top lashes only. Again look at Youtube tutorials if you don’t know what to do.
Lipstick
If you’re not very confident with eye shadow stuff, stick to bright lipsticks. You can look great in an almost bare face with a traffic-stopping lipstick, and they are easy to apply.
Makeup junkies
If you know your MAC from your Barry M, and you can copy a makeup look straight out of Vogue, then you don’t need any help from me.
But if you’re one of those girls that wears the same, heavy makeup look every day, then you need to be a bit more versatile.
If that’s you’re look & your happy & comfortable with it, then of course you can use it for photographs. But I strongly suggest you try a much more natural look as well. If your foundation completely drowns out your natural skin tone, and you wear stark black eye makeup, try just toning it right down. Mix your foundation with a bit of moisturizer, use less bronzer and a softer color like brown on your eyes instead of black. Heavy, black eyemakeup can make you look older than you really are, and as a model you really don’t want that.
General tips for all new models
• Take a mirrored, pressed-powder compact with you. Keep applying a thin layer of powder on your forehead, and anywhere else that gets shiny while you’re shooting. Check your face every once in a while & just dust some powder around. Shiny foreheads don’t look very good.
• Put loads of clear lip-gloss on. Tonnes.
• Use a highlighter on your cheekbones
• Natural nails or French manicure are the most versatile. But whatever color they are, make sure they are well-groomed.
I’ve got my first shoot next week – HELP!
What do I wear?
How do I do my makeup?
How do I pose?
What should I take with me on the day?
This is advice for a general casual/portrait/glamour shoot for a new model, either in a professional studio or a home studio.
Part 1 – What do I wear?
If this is your first shoot, then a couple of pretty/sexy dresses are a great idea. A pair of tight fitting jeans with heels, and a few different tops is also good. Go for a few different looks – rock chick with ripped jeans and black t-shirt, boho with flowery dress, brown boots and a big hat (but keep the shapes close-fitting or pull them in with a belt), sexy celeb with a bright pink dress and silver shoes etc.
Think outfits rather than dresses & tops
- Choose 5-6 outfits and plan everything, from the shoes to the jewelry.
- Choose 3 simple hairstyles to go with your outfits e.g. hair down, simple pony tail, hair up.
- Choose three different makeup styles e.g. natural, bright/funky eyeshadow & lipstick and dark/smokey eyes.
- Practice the hair and makeup looks, and try them on with the clothes.
Ten tips on choosing outfits
1. Brighter colors and more body-hugging clothes tend to work better than drab colors and baggy clothes.
2. Tight jeans and heels usually look great. You can do a few different looks with a pretty top, a smart white shirt and a rock n roll t-shirt.
3. Mini dresses also tend to look great on camera, especially with heels.
4. If you’re very young, avoid stuff that looks too grown up for you, and if you’re older avoid stuff that looks very teenage. It sounds obvious but loads of people get this wrong.
5. This is very general advice but: blondes tend to look great in any shade of blue. Dark haired girls often suit purple and red, and darker skinned girls can look amazing in really bright oranges, yellows and greens. Redheads can pull off bright blues, soft pinks and most greens really well. Don’t turn up with five black dresses, the camera loves color.
6. Go a bit overboard with accessories. Don’t just wear one red necklace – wear three red bangles, some matching earrings and red lippy too. What is a bit too much in real life is often just right for a photograph.
7. Make sure your underwear looks ok underneath your clothes. If you have a bumpy bra or one that doesn’t fit then your boobs will look strange.
8. If you’re doing anything in underwear, or you are wearing sheer or see-through, carefully cut the labels out before the shoot.
9. Take something weird with you to the shoot and see if you can use it – a fur hat, your Dad’s Black Sabbath T-shirt or a pair of silly sunglasses. You don’t have to use it, but if you’re having fun and you feel comfortable, sometimes the best shots are when you’re playing around with something daft.
10. Brightly colored tights are brilliant for shoots. If you’re going to wear something like a black mini-dress, a pair of mad tights will take it from ordinary to eye-catching.
I/AM 
