KW pictures wrote:

Thanks for the critique. Very nicely written.

Went to school in Rotorua. But lived in the south island for quite a bit. For sure best scenery


All over nz we are pretty close to the water
.Stink eh

but there are a few mountains near by


a few great sites in LA. Doing my best to capture them in their finest hour (usually after 3pm:) )

I won't give my up day job for a while based on what you have written. Hopefully it pays for the gear though

Ta very much. Rotorua is lovely. Of course, the South Island with its Southern Alps and fjiords is a dream. 

I think you can break out and just may really get there.

CBAPhoto wrote:
Hit me. Shooting for at least $500.00 here!

I went to your website which looked very Zenfolio. I wished the slide show running at the beginning was much bigger. I was happy watching it and it was clear within a few images that you're a wedding photographer who rounds out his income with smart ideas. I like how you pitch bodyscapes, very nice.

On MM your portfolio needs to be stronger if you wish to attract models. You have a gift for bringing joy to people who will never model, who will dream of modelling but would like model-quality photos. So, you go beyond "professional" with these couples to deliver marvellous images.

On your website your passion for photography is strongly displayed and you tell us about your book of photography. I would be interested in seeing it.

Back to MM. The portfolio here doesn't sing to professional models. They typically want someone who shoots the gorgeous.

What is your rating: $57,000 per annum. You-know-who-you-are-award. You make money here in weddings and you're shocked by how gorgeous some of the potential clients are. Word does spread. Your website does help. Your start another book of photography here because you love this. Very much.

LA StarShooter wrote:
https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/p … 3#19242723 shows that you can frame quite well. You don't always have to shoot from the way down and up and foreshorten their bodies. You have a tendency to do that. I feel this has the potential to be a great photo. She's advancing through the waves. The light is nice but I am not sure about your processing of her face or if the lens wasn't sharp enough. Her left side forehead has a highlight of light and I went and looked and wondered: Has that highlight been processed so that the shadow line is uneven or its it just the hairline shadow meeting that natural highlight? 

Here's what I think you should consider. Layering. Take that figure and give it omph. I so wish the breeze had cooperated and blown that hair out bit. It's gorgeous hair. I think you can make the photo more intense in layering.

You have a great studio by the way. Just awesome and this is what I found interesting, you promote the studio, a wonderful studio, and you promote your great gatherings, and your wonderful trips, and you're drinking on cruises and you're forming life long friendships and. . . whatever happened to your photography?

You're shooting not the best kind of models. They are nice. They are happy. But better a drama queen who's got it. Better a model who snarls: "Where's the food," but when you roll she's just starts rocking and sends gorgeous particles waves right into your lens and you think your eyes are bleeding from the encounter with intense modelling beauty and her legs are long. 

You shot a model who was really rocking a look. She was next to a truck. You had nice colours to play with and you instincts were good and then what do you do? You went down, maybe kneeled, and foreshorten her and what I thought was not a good angle. Yeah, let's make her legs shorter because we prefer dwarves? Oh, no. Oh, no. She had so much potential. So much. She could have had a great full-length portrait and she might have got a mag cover for one of those car cult or bike cult magazines. 

I found strange things. A mermaid by a khoi pond. Come on. Put her back in the ocean. That's where they are happy? 

You have 200 photos and you're a veteran and you don't have a website? A nice website so models can see fine work and easily review it in a slideshow. Is it against the law in Upland? Why haven't you organised the 200 photos into theme folders on MM?


I know, you're busy collecting the money for trips, for group model shoots, but this review is really about your photography, which I think you may have forgotten about.

I think you need to work on your angles. I think you're good enough to bang shoots right out of the camera, with little processing. Just put a little more time into the setup.

I'm sure you have better photos but this is what you showed me. I think you would make money in L.A. with your group shoots, going down to Mexico's fine beaches, drinking and shooting. You do have some good shots in there but it's overwhelmed but lots of under-performance.

If you up for headshots, fashion work, commercial, based on what you displayed, how would you roll? This is not about renting out a studio empire to photographers.

$40,000 per annum.  GOOD:you're good, but we are flooded with good and how can you become great is the burning economic question.

WOW... a 12 paragraph response... I feel special...   Sorry my shoot and edit style doesn't jive at your party amigo... but you obviously DIDNT read my self-description... MM's undisputed 'freak off the leash'...   It's just the way I roll dude... deal with it...

Select Models wrote:

WOW... a 12 paragraph response... I feel special...   Sorry my shoot and edit style doesn't jive at your party... but you obviously DIDNT read my self-description... MM's undisputed 'freak off the leash'...   It's just the way I roll dude... deal with it...

WOW.. a photographer of the week still does not cut it. So you got a hobbyist photographer and a photographer of the week by MM not up to standards, So how can you get a true critique?

Sylph Sia wrote:
Ohhh I'm interested!

I quite like what I saw and would have liked to have seen more images. In a few shots the hair was very creatively done. Some nice poses.

A website would be good for you with a slideshow. I know you're student and you may not have time. If you came to L.A.:

$40,000 GOOD:you're good, but we are flooded with good and how can you become great is the burning economic question.

Select Models wrote:

WOW... a 12 paragraph response... I feel special...   Sorry my shoot and edit style doesn't jive at your party amigo... but you obviously DIDNT read my self-description... MM's undisputed 'freak off the leash'...   It's just the way I roll dude... deal with it...

Deal with what? You're excuse is that your wild?

LA StarShooter wrote:

Deal with what? You're excuse is that your wild?

Searching my response... there's ZERO reference to the word 'wild'...

Lijo wrote:
i am guessing this is just for fun, because judging your work , I would say stick with you day job,

BINGO!...

Lijo wrote:
i am guessing this is just for fun, so let me know where u place me  on ur scale,
but don't quit your day job,lol

I went to the one website link you had and maybe the site is down right now, as I tried several different search engines. Nice credits.

Why don't you have a website? Your professional photographer so I am suprised.

Your avatar is nice, well done. You can light, but the rest of images don't have much power, conceptually-speaking.

$40,000 GOOD:you're good, but we are flooded with good and how can you become great is the burning economic question.

LA StarShooter wrote:

I clicked on your website link. A photographer should have a better photo of himself. The website took  a long time to load. Culturally an interesting experience from nudes to weddings and you seek Corporate work. I was interested in one image and it took a long time to load into full-screen. Gorgeous rugged man and why does he have a pit in the middle of his forehead. I think you may have uploaded a rejected copy or a copy that you were going to layer, because you didn’t mean for that to happen, and you may not have seen it, blinded by his beauty. I’ll link to the page but I think you’ll have to click on it to see it.  That can happen to anyone.

http://ericlabonte.ca/Folio.html.

If you tell me that is what he looks like: poor guy. Poor guy. Great muscles and a big pit in the middle of his forehead while he is gazing intensively standing in the swimming pool. I hope that one didn’t make his print job for his portfolio.

You have shot some stuff for Faces Magazine in Moncton and it’s a free mag distributed so that businesses in Moncton can market to residients there. GREAT.

You have one good fashion image, and then runway shoots. Come on! The one fashion shot is hot and good. Well done. The rest? Trash them or put them in a different section called: “I don’t know where to put these.”

Weddings: you may have done one and you have two shots, one of a woman alone in her wedding dress.

The glamour had about 4 images that worked in terms of poses, of composition, etc. The rest: you have to help the model find the pose that shows off her beauty. It really is your job. It’s only her fault if she refuses. If you explain that she should be on her side and she says “I don’t think that will look good, I never pose on my side, that’s ridiculous. No photographer, has ever—“ Then what can you do?

The MM  was much better in portfolio experience, but it needs trimming, reducing it to the best posed shots, so it looks like you and the model are part of a team that knows what it is doing.

I found mister-pit-in-his head on your MM. Because I like you and all the time I had spent on your slow website, I am giving you this present large: https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/p … 8#19357118

$5000 Part-timer.  It's great-that-you're-keeping your day job-award. You can do this part-time and you may be doing it part-time. You can pick up a wedding shoot once in a while.

You need to understand what is hot and what is not hot. You may have a future in advertising, judging by the three shots I saw. You’re not hideous but you’re uneven, so uneven that professional photographers here, wouldn’t have any competition. You should go on a voyage of discovery, developing your eye for what works. Bon voyage!

Thanks for the feedback!

LA StarShooter wrote:

I thank you for such a gracious reply which befits your gracious name. I noticed yesterday that it appears you are angelically descending, but not like a fallen angel, into our devil's paradise. I think it's July 24-27 that I saw on your announcement yesterday? Is this correct that you're booking at that time in L.A.?

Well, you're welcome! How could I not be both humbled and flattered by your critique?

Yes! That's absolutely correct! I'm booking paid work in LA while I'm there, if anyone's interested(Hey-hey-hey! Shameless plug!)... Rates are negotiable.

Still some availability July 24-27. Great memory!

Thanks again for the kind words

G

Jessie J Marie wrote:
I'm curious. Please.

I just stopped back, not intending to do another but as soon as saw your thumbnail it apparently commanded my index finger to press down and voila, click.

Let's begin with the negative: could you please put your small portfolio on a website because you can just run through it in under a minute that way. You don't have to put your name or your few but incredibly impressive credits.

I looked up the handle seeing the lack of credits on the photos. One had Turkey, and a mag.  I went okay: "Best case scenario: she removed credits because she doesn't want her agency to know she's here. Okay, let's put the handle into the internet."

The small body of photos would get you booked immediately. You really don't shoot with people here, through here. You're just too big. Not fat--don't put down the ice-cream you genetic wonder.

You like the British singer, mystery woman? I put in your handle with model mayhem with your handle and you didn't come up. I went to a forum that showed your handle and you're comment and you had disappeared.

Congratulations on that contract with a MaKup company. You're awesome.  I am surprised that you're not working more but hopefully you have a long contract with that makeup company as your work last year for them was phenomenal. I thought you had appeared in Vogue but that MaKup Company may have you locked up.

Acting? Why not.

Presuming you have that contract:

$225,000 per annum. You're-just-too-big-for-L.A.-Dazzler Award. You were discovered here. You think we forgot?

LA StarShooter wrote:
My assessment will also encompass your profile and perhaps even your website in giving a portfolio dollar value via Los Angeles professional photography standards for models and photographers. 

I'll also throw in a critique of the portfolio and of some photos.

Beware: you're now about to enter the land of snakes and liars and a honesty that slices people to the bone. 

$0 You'll never make it here award. It means that your work couldn't sell in Los Angeles.
$500 Homeless-stop-begging award. It means that your work would have a tough time doing well here and you might become homeless. Come on, you're homeless, admit it.
$1000 Stop doing crack and meth. It means that you may have one really good shot in that portfolio, but, baby, you're in trouble.  Your car is about to get repossessed. See, sleeping in your car is not fun when they are towing you away. Put the pipe down!
$5000 Part-timer.  It's great-that-you're-keeping your day job-award. You can do this part-time and you may be doing it part-time. You can pick up a wedding shoot once in a while or get model work for a small boutique.
$10,000 Maybe you've-got-steam award. Still part-time but starting to occasionally dazzle. But can you award new tires. The roads are tough on cars here.
$20,000 old pro but come here and you would starve if you went full-time. Be safe, stay where mediocrity pays.
$40,000 GOOD:you're good, but we are flooded with good and how can you become great is the burning economic question.
$60,000 Photographer and model: You're-almost-a-monster-now-Award.  Also: Model GWC camera model full-time. Photographer: The studio rental is eating you alive. Everything is eating you alive. You're almost very good. If you don't become great the sheriff is going to kick you out of the house. The foreclosure notice is in the mail.  If you're a model, and you get this rating, you're probably working with a lot of GWC camera models and you have to do better than this.

$100,000 Shark alert! Oh my God, you could eat anyone alive it seems but still you're not elite. You're making the cash but for how long? You're not quite a flavour, but you're eating well for now.

$250,000 Baby, you're-a-star-award. Photographer: There are sharks all around you. They want what you have got, that luminous glow, that spark, and they want to steal your gear and have you teach them for free how to use it. Model: Bank, baby, bank. You're talented, extraordinary. And in two years it could be over.

I'm going out to shoot a location for research. When I get back I'll give out these wonderful loving awards. Welcome to the Jungle.

I've got on my bullit proof undies.  This will be good...

LA StarShooter wrote:

You pitch to GWCs. You offer implied but not nudes. That's cut's out the art nude for you if you came here.

Your look is excellent. Your posing at times. There's one shot where you lead with your knees and it doesn't work in terms of posing. But there are other shots that make me think there's a fashion edge. So, I have a better sense of you than some, because youtake this seriously.

I think fashion would be tough for you but not impossible. You need to look up the stats and see where your body-type falls beside gorgeous. There's different kinds of gorgeous.

You should cull the weak images from MM as I saw on your facebook stronger stuff. Since you're primary market is. . GWCs, an appropriate website is necessary particulary if you visit here.

I want you to know that I found looking at your face a rapturous-experience photographically-speaking. You might be able to snag a magazine.

I think it would be a struggle for you without going nude as unless you bring a strong book and comp card here, you're competing without a hope against actress/models, who can really express well, and if they fall into the fashion stat range, well, you can't get a booking against them. I think you're level-headed, fun, and very mature. 

Here it is: $55,000 per annum. The-Thank-God-I-went-glamour-nude-Award. Hustler called. You pouted. No Playboy? It had started rough. You slept in your car and sometimes you cried. Agencies said comeback and when you did, they said "Who are you?" You found out that you just didn't quite fit the fashion stats. And you're so close!  Then as you started undressing for GWCs you managed to get shoots with good photographers doing art nude exhibits and glamour stuff. Your image made its way into a gallery and suddenly you're booking a mag cover. Not Hustler. It's some car cult magazine, but its start. You also learned that your book for fashion sucked and it wasn't the stats. You just didn't present a great book. You've started to build because you're a fighter and you're determined to win. You didn't return Hustler's call.

Thank you very much for your thoughtful critique. You made me blush! It's true, Im not sure where I fall under stats and where I would fit the best in the modeling world. If it wasnt for my large ribcage! I am most passionate about fashion and creative concepts, and since I intend to persue different paths in my life I likely will never do nudes. But I will still fight to create images that inspire thought and help me grow

LA StarShooter wrote:
I went to your website which looked very Zenfolio. I wished the slide show running at the beginning was much bigger. I was happy watching it and it was clear within a few images that you're a wedding photographer who rounds out his income with smart ideas. I like how you pitch bodyscapes, very nice.

On MM your portfolio needs to be stronger if you wish to attract models. You have a gift for bringing joy to people who will never model, who will dream of modelling but would like model-quality photos. So, you go beyond "professional" with these couples to deliver marvellous images.

On your website your passion for photography is strongly displayed and you tell us about your book of photography. I would be interested in seeing it.

Back to MM. The portfolio here doesn't sing to professional models. They typically want someone who shoots the gorgeous.

What is your rating: $57,000 per annum. You-know-who-you-are-award. You make money here in weddings and you're shocked by how gorgeous some of the potential clients are. Word does spread. Your website does help. Your start another book of photography here because you love this. Very much.

WOW! You make some great observations, and right on the money for the most part, except the money. I'm broke. Quite literally. I'm stuck in the wrong market for what I'm capable of, and there's no chance of escape. Thank you very kindly for your honesty though. Well said.

Meghan Devlin wrote:
I'm totally a homeless bum. Haha

Do you want to know if that's true or is it just a dream or can you really do something in L.A.

LA StarShooter wrote:
My assessment will also encompass your profile and perhaps even your website in giving a portfolio dollar value via Los Angeles professional photography standards for models and photographers. 

I'll also throw in a critique of the portfolio and of some photos.

Beware: you're now about to enter the land of snakes and liars and a honesty that slices people to the bone. 

$0 You'll never make it here award. It means that your work couldn't sell in Los Angeles.
$500 Homeless-stop-begging award. It means that your work would have a tough time doing well here and you might become homeless. Come on, you're homeless, admit it.
$1000 Stop doing crack and meth. It means that you may have one really good shot in that portfolio, but, baby, you're in trouble.  Your car is about to get repossessed. See, sleeping in your car is not fun when they are towing you away. Put the pipe down!
$5000 Part-timer.  It's great-that-you're-keeping your day job-award. You can do this part-time and you may be doing it part-time. You can pick up a wedding shoot once in a while or get model work for a small boutique.
$10,000 Maybe you've-got-steam award. Still part-time but starting to occasionally dazzle. But can you award new tires. The roads are tough on cars here.
$20,000 old pro but come here and you would starve if you went full-time. Be safe, stay where mediocrity pays.
$40,000 GOOD:you're good, but we are flooded with good and how can you become great is the burning economic question.
$60,000 Photographer and model: You're-almost-a-monster-now-Award.  Also: Model GWC camera model full-time. Photographer: The studio rental is eating you alive. Everything is eating you alive. You're almost very good. If you don't become great the sheriff is going to kick you out of the house. The foreclosure notice is in the mail.  If you're a model, and you get this rating, you're probably working with a lot of GWC camera models and you have to do better than this.

$100,000 Shark alert! Oh my God, you could eat anyone alive it seems but still you're not elite. You're making the cash but for how long? You're not quite a flavour, but you're eating well for now.

$250,000 Baby, you're-a-star-award. Photographer: There are sharks all around you. They want what you have got, that luminous glow, that spark, and they want to steal your gear and have you teach them for free how to use it. Model: Bank, baby, bank. You're talented, extraordinary. And in two years it could be over.

I'm going out to shoot a location for research. When I get back I'll give out these wonderful loving awards. Welcome to the Jungle.

i'd love to know opinion of snakes and lizards

Kenzphotos 2 wrote:

I've got on my bullit proof undies.  This will be good...

I don't think you've really posted  your best work because it's done under contract. The calendar cover on your profile page tells us that your calendar work is different from here. A lot of these photos look blah, but professional photographers have blah moments, and you have done Playboy events, and they don't hire Digital Blah Photography Incorporated. Your other profile has lots of nudes and there appears to be either a processing decision or you had trouble with lights in a lot of the shots, the large highlights on flesh, and they look like they were done by your professional-suppressed other personality-Tacky-Photographer. He did the plaster art stuff too. He's taken over.

In the other profile you're fascination with water is evident and there are some potential great shots but the lighting . . .isn't pulled off well.

You have great rapport with models. They are comfortable with you and thus they happily will stand in the midst of big wave and it's hard to do those kind of shots because you're risking your gear if you really do it right. Did you really do it right?

You're other self looked at the market, and why move to Thailand?Americans like to retire there if possible or you could have been from there, but people in the U.S. photographically-speaking rarely make it their base.  It's possible you've started your own calendar operation aimed at the Asian market. However, it looks like you haven't shot since 2011. You have lots of photos so you posted one recently from the same woman you uploaded in around June of 2011.

So, I can't really see you, the CALENDER YOU, because Gemini owns the rights and they have made money from your work.  It does appear that you've retired.

What would happen if you came to Los Angeles?

Less than Zero. You're-too-Smart-to-Come-to-L.A. Award. You wakeup, but not at your Thailand Beach place. People are moving around you. It's a bit of a blur until you put on your glasses. You're in beach shorts and sandals. You're at an airport. You must be dreaming. You're at LAX.

Some big guys are coming towards, looking too official for your taste. You reach inside your shorts, the only pockets you've got and there's nothing in there. It's a not a dream and you're at LAX. Well, there is something in there, you're own rolled dope cigarette. You're surrounded by uniformed guys. One says something bizarre. "We've received reports that you were trying to sell drugs."

You can be funny when you're in L.A. "I was just trying to start a party. I need to go home, back to Bangkok, please. I can't find my wallet."

They are too interested in federal statues, to really listen to you and now you're on your way to jail. You don't have your phone. No.   

It takes a week to untangle yourself from all the crimes you've committed. They realise that they can't quite get you for trafficking. They tried but your story rings true. You were at really good party in Bangkok that had gone for 27 hours. You had paid $500 total for ten women and so how you just got disorientated.

You've got coke in your system and, truly, you have no idea how that happened. Coke? Well, it was a great party.

You got your wallet. It was on the plane and went all around the world. What stories it could tell.

They decided to drop the charges and thus, you could slide back to Bangkok, looking clean but still ready to party.

Merry Jane wrote:
Very interesting. I'm curious.

Sometimes, there is the sense of unexpected discovery in viewing a nude model's work. On tattoos you should bring makeup. It's a lot of work to edit things out. Some photographers are not processing masters. They rely on their actual shot of you, ever so much. It will get you more work with GWCs.

You are magnificent. I looked at your facebook and saw great potential. You seem inspired when your shoot and you come alive.  Delete from you profile, "I'm a housekeeper." You can explain your availability later.

We have here in L.A. some very good photographers who would want to work with you. You would be in galleries, here,  in some epic nude shot, and your work would cause the photographer to be collected, and then people would start to realise that when your image hits a photographer's lens you can actually change the photographer for the better, because often they become better when they are with you. They become inspired.

You would use L.A. as a base and start a circuit. And in year-or-two, if you keep it up, and just keep expanding the way a star expands when it's born in its gas cloud, you will shine here, a light that will be seen.

$60,000 Photographer and model: You're-almost-a-monster-now-Award.

Norman Ding wrote:
This is so much fun! Hit me!

You did film and you can see that. Every now and then when a film guy starts to roll in digital you see a rich saturation, different so much from a processing saturation, because the eye has developed differently. There are hues,  a sense of the potential of colour that comes from playing like a dolphin in the world of film as  a hobbyist. You have that.

You can't compose. And top models often can tell that. They are your critics and you'll have to pay them because you've yet to figure out to how to make them the star of the photo.

You haven't put a lot of time into developing. To become a force you would have to train yourself with a dedication that may be frightening to you. You may scared to have to go out on weekends and to do hours of street photography, shooting people and making it look more than a candid. You may ask them to pose, telling them you're doing a project for flickr, (this will help you develop your rapport skills) and to become a master of composition you need to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours reviewing masters of composition.

$500 Homeless-stop-begging award. It means that your work would have a tough time doing well here and you might become homeless. Come on, you're homeless, admit it.

LA StarShooter wrote:

Do you want to know if that's true or is it just a dream or can you really do something in L.A.

Well... I should have phrased that differently. "I expect to be told I'm a homeless bum, but please, by all means, give me your thoughts!"

At least if modeling isn't my calling, I have several other creative outlets to fall back on. :S

John Barone wrote:
Interesting....Go for it.

You're avatar is intriguing but a man who wants to break out and become a top fashion photographer needs to pump from the start, if he's not well-known.

Your website: You're the victim of a not very sharp critical eye. Some people can hurt themselves by being so hard on themselves, that they internally bleed as they review themselves, but some are like great plastic surgeons, and they work with a critical laser that reshapes themselves into something gorgeous and they are determined and unstoppable.

I started in fashion on your website and it's good that you have a website but remember this, you can't fool top models. It's not just their look that makes them sharp. They develop a critical eye because they get to shoot a lot and they know their angles. Yes. They do care.

You have moments of beauty and brilliance but it's destroyed by your lack of a sharp critical eye.

9 on the fashion row struck me as the edge of your sword. I had a lot of takeouts, and it wasn't good Chinese food: 3,5,6,7,8, 11, 12,13, 16,17, 18. I hope I put the right numbers down!

I think it was a beauty shot that the model not only looked weird, a bad expression but had a chipped incisor vampire tooth. If you can't fix that in post, take that out.

You really need to see stuff like that because you present yourself as a something, not a beginner, so the tolerance is lower. You're not developing and your top model will see that lack of a critical eye.


https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/p … 6#23670436 18+ shows your potential and how you can't figure out how to become great.

You have a plane of light she's on it but you're too far to the right. Did you ever do film? A Hollywood cinematographer would have gone:." Okay, we're going for VOGUE. They don't know me. Now, compositon axis, I might try on that slender plane of light, getting down. Settings: first we got light coming from the right, lets augment that a bit, and I'll save time in post. Should I angle straight on a bit from the side, Forty-five.  Mark, set up the strobe up there, and no modifier, I'm going for a big spread, a particle burst. You understand? Barry, gobo from the left.' She needs to be shot so I can convey a sense of power, of beautiful power, advancing towards us or towards something.  The cops will be coming soon. I have got digitally 15 shots. I better do this, right."

He gets more than Maxim. He was joking about Vogue. But he gets it. He kills you for the chance because he can see the possibilities of light and shade. He lives in the Noire Capital of the world. 

You verge on fashion tacky at times with your bouffant moments, but not always.

Your pitch that it will only take two hours to get to you reads like this: "The Captain is surrendering the fort."

Your credits? People in L.A. know what a credit is. On your website, you list nothing meaningful and a top model would figure out that the captain has surrendered the fort, and he doesn't have any great credits and she's not getting on the train. She's not driving on the car. She won't get on the bus.

She might go for a beginner who she determines has an interesting eye and has potential. She might be in the mood to experiment but she's judging you by more elite standards.

How can you destroy the possibility of achieving greatness, of brilliance, of haunting posterity with the wraiths and ghosts of beautiful photography by refusing to develop your critical eye to the proper intensity? How can you get close and then stumble so badly?

How can you run so briefly with the angels and then let them leave you in the darkness of disaster, of being unknown, of not making it?  How can you be Judas to your dreams? Did you already spend the 30 pierces of silver?

I'll rewrite your profile: "Model portfolios? Magazines (if they are bird magazines, you don't want to mention those). Art Books. FASHION. London. New York. Alpha Centuri. Wherever there is a star."

Time to cull that MM and the website and have an SM session with yourself in which no orgasm occurs.

$60,000 per annum. You're-almost-a-monster-now-Award.  The studio rental is eating you alive. Everything is eating you alive. You're almost very good. If you don't become great the sheriff is going to kick you out of the house. The foreclosure notice is in the mail. And you just realised after you dropped the LSD tab that you need to junk all the Barbi Dolls, with bouffant hairdos that you have collected.

Rhian_S wrote:
What about me?

You're in a pageant contest, which is different from modelling for photographers and you link to a not very good shot of you to encourage sponsorship for you in the Galaxy Pageant. You can't even click on other photographs of you there.

I don't know how that competition works but I looked it up and it doesn't have the glow of Miss World or Miss Universe associated pageants.

You're modelling MM portfolio has only one shot that makes me think pageant. Your mission statement where you'll consider anything didn't show me passion and ambition.

You MM portfolio shows that you don't know your angles and you don't know what a good shot of you is. You don't inspire photographers. You're not their muse. You're a dead-end street that has a sign that says: You'll never go past here.

You're retouching profile sold me on the idea that you could make some money retouching. You blow it here and there but you're much more disciplined, much more serious. You want other people's jobs.

In that profile I saw a shot of before-and-after-a man and a woman. You did nice work on the skin but it appeared that you did the same tonality for the whole photo and stop that now. You're a retoucher, so the woman's dress was good, good colour, the man on the left, you should have made his ugly crinkles edgy.

You have a future in retouching. Thank the Heavens.

I'm rating you as a model for still photography: $500 Homeless-stop-begging award. It means that your work would have a tough time doing well here and you might become homeless. Come on, you're homeless, admit it.
$1000 Stop doing crack and meth. It means that you may have one really good shot in that portfolio, but, baby, you're in trouble.  Your car is about to get repossessed. See, sleeping in your car is not fun when they are towing you away. Put the pipe down!

I often have songs pop into my head when I critique. Here's what went full blast in mine: "We don't like you, we just want to try you
I'm tired of runnin', the feeling ain't comin'
This all could be different, it all could be different
But all this is sickness, the feeling ain't in this."

That was BRMC. I like BRMC. They aren't the most original band in the world but their "Stop" song is from the soul. I'm not telling you to stop. I'm telling you to stop being a poor photography model. Get your game together, now.

Meghan Devlin wrote:
Well... I should have phrased that differently. "I expect to be told I'm a homeless bum, but please, by all means, give me your thoughts!"

At least if modeling isn't my calling, I have several other creative outlets to fall back on. :S

So, you don't know if modelling is your calling? Work on expressions, particularly so you can sell a full-length pose. I mean being to summon the demon of expressions, any time you want.

You have a future in glamour and that means, at times clothes will be coming off. You could do Art nudes and do very well. Currently, you're really a GWC model, which is not a bad thing. You just haven't quite leapt out enough to contend for mag work, and your build: fashion? No, I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

$60,000. Glamour/Art Nude model. As they say here: "It's a start." You'll make much more than this in circuiting around the world.

Migdalia B wrote:
i'd love to know opinion of snakes and lizards

You put a website link to your poetry. Bad move. A photographer may think you're declaring that your photograph so that it is like experiencing poetry. But you link to your poetry.

This is your llama profile, right so the poety has to be in the photos. You might get some calendar work here and there, and might be able to circuit but you need to develop your critical eye. You need to see when a photograph has made a shot of you look out-of-focus. And when it is so kitsch it make be really bad.

Fashion? It's like a Clydesdale draught horse declaring an interest in the Kentucky Derby. I'm not saying that you're not very attractive. I'm just not seeing how you could do fashion based on what you present.

If you go into glamour and do nudes and really learn how to pose and express, yeah you'll rock for a while. As is:

$20,000 old pro but come here and you would starve if you went full-time. Be safe, stay where mediocrity pays.

LA StarShooter wrote:

You did film and you can see that. Every now and then when a film guy starts to roll in digital you see a rich saturation, different so much from a processing saturation, because the eye has developed differently. There are hues,  a sense of the potential of colour that comes from playing like a dolphin in the world of film as  a hobbyist. You have that.

You can't compose. And top models often can tell that. They are your critics and you'll have to pay them because you've yet to figure out to how to make them the star of the photo.

You haven't put a lot of time into developing. To become a force you would have to train yourself with a dedication that may be frightening to you. You may scared to have to go out on weekends and to do hours of street photography, shooting people and making it look more than a candid. You may ask them to pose, telling them you're doing a project for flickr, (this will help you develop your rapport skills) and to become a master of composition you need to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours reviewing masters of composition.

$500 Homeless-stop-begging award. It means that your work would have a tough time doing well here and you might become homeless. Come on, you're homeless, admit it.

So sharp and precise! I love your comment. It tells exactly the truth! And I love it that you show me a way to improve. Thank you! Sincerely!

Jay Dee-Foto wrote:
So shall the assessment begin? Thanks in advance.

Oh yes, it begins. I am cooking it now.

LA StarShooter wrote:

Oh yes, it begins. I am cooking it now.

I'd like to know your opinion.  Thank you.

Jay Dee-Foto wrote:
So shall the assessment begin? Thanks in advance.

Like Hendrix went to the British Isles so you ventured to London.  You shoot mostly in naturally light and the results are often astonishingly beautiful. 

Full-length portraits are your weakness. You're strong closeup, beauty, heads and shoulders, all the way down to the thigh. But after that because you're mostly a natural light shooter you have trouble controlling the light and darkness swallows legs like a huge python devouring your future.

Your blog about whether to pay a top shooter is not what a top shooter should write. You need make no argument for your absurdly low rates.

When did you last see a Dolce & Gabbana special? At Wal-mart? 

You need to work on wardrobe for full-length so the physique of the model is the million-dollar revelation and you need to reliably produce the awe-and-shock. Some of the angles on full-length, were foreshortening abysmal and didn't sell the model to the agency or to a magazine. 

Your processing skills are superb, producing what you might call "Beautiful Lies," but you're too in love with the reflection, or ghost etc. There's one of guy that smokes although the forearm is way too bright like a beacon of distraction warning us not to look but if we do, the guy looks great, but he really doesn't need himself in  a duplicate head profile, like the unhappy ghost of his modelling future telling him hell lies ahead.

You have one mag credit on your blog but it wouldn't link so I became angry and burned down a city.

On female models too much billowing blouses for full-length and it makes you wonder if she's pregnant or auditioning for fat models.com. On one male model his shirt was hanging out and it just looked sloppy, and not sloppy cool but sloppy like a St. Bernard dog who drank all the brandy and didn't rescue you from yourself.

What you do well: Some excellent promotion. You posted a blog here asking the critical question about models paying photographer and bringing attention to your rates and yourself. Very sly. You draw attention to models on your blog, praising them.

Your casting calls are excellent, promoting you, as one shoot was for a magazine. One would be published. You wrote a casting call for building a team and it seemed to have got an excellent response.

You reveal a real passion for shooting. You really do have passion. You can see it on the website, in the blog. And if one where looking in the nebulae of emerging stars, there's more than a twinkle there, there's some real solar flare.

You will not become a full blown star unless you conquer full-length. You may have to consider a mix of gentle artificial and natural light.  You will not become big-time in the model portfolio business and the mag business unless you conquer this.  Darkness is not always your friend. Beauty is not always found in the shadows, sometimes it is too hidden to be discovered.

What would happen if you came to L.A.?

You're-going-somewhere-but-where-are-you-going award?  You start like many. You make no real big money, just some crumbs here and there, and you can't stop the financial bleeding.

You do find some marijuana in your car. You're actually in the L.A. river. It's night and it's not supposed to rain. You can't afford to pay rent. You thought the natural light of L.A. with it's longer magic hour time which is over 2 hours in Summer would be your ticket.

You don't have any food and your cell phone bill is past due.  It's start raining. You wake up and realise that you could be swept away down the concrete floor of the river. You just make it out and are ready to cry. You can't figure out this ferocious animal of a city that seems out to get you.

You manage to line up a model portfolio shoot. You even manage to get roof top access downtown. You have to beg a wardrobe stylist and it's horrible. They snap at you, telling you that they can't afford to gamble. They have rent too and they are tired of TF. You can't pay here because you need the $350 like the heroin addict needs the juiced needle. Money is your pain killer.

You actually have a few little Nikon compatible lights. At times you  put them behind the model and you have an assistant who you pay $50 to hold a reflector and do other annoying things. The model is happy and looks agency. She came from Germany and is doing the acting thing. She gets the CD later and you give a lot of cool images. She has a good eye. She actually did some campaigns in Europe but hasn't done anything for a year. She doesn't say much. "Gut" is it.

She books an agency and you tell everybody on the web, etc. She books a big shoot straight for a cosmetic company, and you tell everybody.

You finally blow up. You get a studio before you get an apartment. You get campaigns as you finally have learned to pitch great fashion ideas.

You make $35,000 in your first year here, and it feels like $5. But your second year is big, and you hit the hundred thou. 

And so it's like Hendrix's story. Nothing was guaranteed after he left being in the backing band for Little Richard. Nothing. He went to London and his stages were small at first. No one cared, really. But he could play guitar and so he was heard and heard, and then really heard, and he become big in Britain before he was even one word in America. And so Jimi sometimes could only hear his own voice, because his voice had become so big, it was it's own universe, and it resonated with his own twisted desires, and so he was heard and heard and he heard himself, and swallowed his own vomit and died, because success wasn't enough, hallucination of divinity was required, and so he disconnected and may have even vomited on a model on his way out.

I think you'll do better than that. You fly with the angels but you're very grounded.