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How many times is too many times to work with the same model
There are a few models I have worked with twice or three times. Some that I really want to work with more than two times, BUT, how do I keep my portfolio from looking like too many shots of the same girl. How many times do you work with your favorite models, and do you have trouble deciding what should and should not go in your portfolio? Jul 06 05 04:03 pm Link The question really becomes - how many different looks does the same model have? Some models are very flexible and can come up with lots of different looks/expressions/etc. Hair, makeup and clothing can also make a huge difference in how different the same model looks. If you can create many unique images of the same model - why not use the pictures? Aside from that... shooting with the same people breeds confidence and you should get better images each time you work with someone. Keep adding the new pictures to your portfolio and take out the old ones of the same model. If the old ones are just as strong, then keep em in there. Jul 06 05 04:20 pm Link Posted by StevenNoreyko: Excellent advice. I couldn't put it any better, so I won't try. Jul 06 05 04:26 pm Link Posted by Star: I would say that you can work with them as many times as you want. It doesn't mean that you have to use images from every shoot. So, for me, I have worked with several models over and over again. Jul 06 05 04:26 pm Link Posted by StevenNoreyko: Now just to get them back to work with you-Thats the key!! Jul 06 05 04:31 pm Link Posted by Star: Answer: Depends on the model. I've worked w/ one particular model 4 or 5 times & each one of our shoots look nothing like the other. & I've also worked w/ a few models on more than one occasion where I didn't like what I got. They just seemed kinda stale. Nothing against them. The rapport just wasn't there. Jul 06 05 06:04 pm Link I am new at this but I think every photographer should have a handful of models that they use repeatedly. As long as they are on the same page of what you want to accomplish. I already have a couple that I will work with as many times as we can stomach working with each other. They are into multiple styles and like to stretch themselves artistically. I have one that never wanted to do nudes but we have done one extremely sexy lingerie shoot and she said that after one or two more lingerie shoots she would want to go ahead and do a nude shoot. So I think it's great to have a few models that you work with enough that they are willing to do what they thought they never would. Jul 06 05 06:38 pm Link Posted by Christopher Wright: Shhhhh!!! Jul 06 05 06:39 pm Link When I shoot photographs the last thing in my mind is the idea or the concept of a portfolio. I shoot commercial work to pay the rent. I shoot models for art and for experimentation. The first session with a model is much like a skirmish before a battle. While I will be able to get good shots, the best will come in the second and third sessions. But in the end what is the most wonderful thing that can happen is to find a model with which one can develop a "photographic" relationship. Ideas go back and forth, sometimes with minimum talk. If some of you have the time read this essay I wrote for a Montreal web arts magazine. It is about such a relationship. http://www.artsandopinion.com/2003_v2_n4/hayward.htm Jul 06 05 07:12 pm Link Posted by alexwh: I know Jul 06 05 07:20 pm Link Depends on the model, depends on the energy. As long as you still have the desire to work with someone, go for it. With some, once is enough. With others, it could go on seemingly forever. I have several favorites who I've photographed a bunch of times, one of them off and on since 1998, half a dozen shoots in three states. It's been fun to watch her grow as a person, and we'll keep shooting whenever our paths cross... since we're currently 2000 miles apart, that's less often than we'd both like. Jul 06 05 07:21 pm Link Posted by alexwh: Nice article!! Jul 06 05 07:31 pm Link Star, that is an excellent question. How many times? would depend on several factors. In your sessions, are you concentrating on one "theme" (one session = nothing but swimsuit shots) or are you doing several looks in the same session? If you do one "theme" per session, I guess you can continue sessions until you run out of "themes". However, if you do a lot of looks in a single session, you are probably less likely to use the same model multiple times. I also think it is great if you can develop a relationship with a local model that will work with you frequently. Some call this an in-house model. This works well since you have developed a good working relationship that will allow both of you to experiment in some photo sessions with things that you may not want to try with someone that you are working wiht for the first time. Charlie Jul 06 05 07:36 pm Link Last nite i did a shoot with Dreampretty may favorite model and Girlfriend.. We experimented with the new generation LED light sources.. Got some trippy stuff.. also did some light painting(:--- And to finish that off we did some shots For Xtreme Artist "HERB" For his B-day Present from us.. Happy Birthday Herb!! Oh yea that was shoot 664 for Dream and i Jul 06 05 08:04 pm Link Hugh on TFP with a pinhole camera? Consider that the exposure for the pinhole camera shots with one studio light consisted of multiple pops of the flash for 1 minute and 15 seconds. The pinhole camera was an RB with a brass shim hole in the body cap. If only for a while you don't think commercially or about filling your portfolio you can find models for nothing. I have never ever paid a model. But I am generous with prints and scans. I feel that it always a fair trade. Jul 06 05 08:25 pm Link Another exciting possibility (when you have been in one city for 30 years[me]) is to photograph a model every few years. If you look at the fishnet bum shot in my port I can tell you that the model of the photo is 50. I first started taking her picture when she was 23. The picture was taken by placing my Mamiya RB and a 90mm lens quite crooked inside a Profoto ring flash. The lens then "reads" the edge of the flash. Jul 06 05 08:33 pm Link And one more thing. In my relationship with the Japanese/Canadian model (the URL is above) it was there that the accident of the crooked lens in the ringflash resulted in the interesting photo and the subseqent bum shot in my port. Within months I was shooting commercially using that technique. Here you see the technique being used (and I was paid very well) on the Canadian mezzo soprano Jean Stillwell.  Jul 06 05 08:45 pm Link Posted by StevenNoreyko: Personally, I don't like having more than 2 shots of the same model in a printed portfolio. Jul 06 05 08:49 pm Link Keeping your portfolio hot and working with the same model are not mutually exclusive. There are a few models that I work with that whenever she gets an idea or I get an idea we do it and it works. I then use some of those ideas with other models. Anytime I want to experiment I would rather a model that I know and trust and she knows and trusts me. Jul 06 05 09:02 pm Link Posted by Star: I suppose you're talking commercial book here and not a fine arts one? Jul 06 05 09:02 pm Link There's a great book called The Model Wife that goes through several photographers' (such as Weston and Stiegletz) photos of their wives. You can't fill a commercial portfolio with one person, but there's not reason not to shoot someone who inspires you again and again. But if it came down to putting 3 photos of the same model in a portfolio or cutting one of those photos and replacing it with an inferior photo of another model, I'd stick with the first. Then I'd immediately click the Browse button at the top of this page. Side note--my current problem is that I'm inspired by a dress. I want to put every model I see in the red dress in my avatar. But that's worse than sever of the same model, isn't it? Jul 06 05 09:05 pm Link call it the red dress. Make each style radically different. Than take it to galleries and call it art. Sell the dress in the gallery, with all the photographs behind pinned up wily nilly, even overlapping each other. Than sell it for $1500-$6000 dollars as an "instillation," Star Jul 06 05 09:14 pm Link The girl in all of my photos here is not a model. I'm sure that to many people here I'm not a real photographer. I guess that puts her and me in sort of the same category. I make my living doing photography. It's not great art, and I may never be famous at all, but I love doing it. My "model" in these shots is just a customer who became a very good friend. She allows me to photograph her now, and it is something that we both enjoy. She has had an unexpected effect on me, though; she made me realize how far I have to go to become even a good photographer, and she made me see how badly I want to get there. She inspires me and makes me believe. This probably didn't answer any questions, but I guess that's what the scroll bar is for. Jul 06 05 09:41 pm Link Posted by Star: Star, I like your posts. Jul 06 05 10:13 pm Link Posted by alexwh: I couldn't agree more. It's the few models that you can find that get on the same wave length as you. Over the course of the times you work together you develop ideas together and then execute those ideas together. It's a beautiful relationship when you can find it and develop it. The two of you both working with the express purpose of creating art. Jul 06 05 10:38 pm Link Christopher, Marvin and Rick, Marvin, The beauty of using an RB as a pinhole camera is as follows: When you used the body cap method and have the bellows all the way out the focal lenght of my pinhole RB is almost exactly the same as that of my 140mm. This means I can use the 140 to frame my shot. The fact that I can use a Polaroid back means that I was able to shoot Ektachrome (1 minute 15 seconds, full power, dynalite 800, one light, multiple flashes) and get the correct exposure. The idea of making a model not move but breathe for that length of time adds something. I like to use the 3200 in my Mamiya when I treat the camera as if it were a 35mm. And I love it. I use Rodinal to make the grain look sharper. Rick your relationship with your model is a genuine one and it will bring you much joy, experience and good photographs. And Chris, it's nice to know you appreciate all this and that you perhaps do not consider the perfect portfolio to be on par with simultaneous orgasm. Jul 06 05 11:33 pm Link Posted by Star: A highly skilled make up artist. Jul 07 05 01:37 am Link Posted by Star: 3 Jul 07 05 07:54 am Link If you run a mix of different styles with the same model, it can still look fresh, you can rotate images out of the portfolio also. I find if you work with a model a number of times you can be more experimental with them and push the boundaries of your photography style without as much risk working with someone new and things not coming out how you expected. Jul 07 05 07:57 am Link I'm not exactly sure what you mean here but I don't think you can ever get the perfect portfolio. If you ever did then what's the point of continuing. You got the best photos you are ever going to get, so what more could you accomplish. I personally hope I never get to that point. Jul 07 05 09:42 am Link Posted by Star: So....? Jul 07 05 11:11 am Link Posted by John Paul: Posted by Star: So....? Amen John Paul! I also find that when working with models multiple times, I am personally more at ease and have an easier time posting them and trying new ideas. I obviously pick and choose my shots for adding to the portfolio and always strive to do completely different looks. Jul 07 05 11:23 am Link I know a photographer who's worked with the same model 17 times in less than a year. She still gets great pictures of the model.  I've never worked with the same model twice (other than my wife) but I intend to start doing so now that I'm more confident in my ability to recognize talent in models. Remember, you can get away with having a lot less talent if you surround yourself with people who've got lots. M Jul 07 05 11:42 am Link Posted by John Paul: Posted by Star: So....? I personally, have never had a session that didn't yield at least 5 images I like, and two that I love, so yeah I guess I know everything :-) Jul 07 05 12:07 pm Link Posted by RickTaylor: Call me girly, but that was beautiful, Rick! One should be so lucky to have the inspiration that you have. Jul 07 05 10:57 pm Link if you're shooting the same thing in the same place over and over again, even with differnt models, when it gets totally Redundant then It's to much. If things aren't changing it's to much of a good thing. Jul 07 05 11:00 pm Link Too much... When the check bounces. Jul 07 05 11:09 pm Link When I was in school, I had a friend that was going to school for fashion design. She always had something new to wear and I always needed a new reason to shoot. By the time we were done with school, she had a full fashion portfolio of herself. People were confused because she was showing off her designs but she had posed in it. Was she selling herself as a model or a designer? When I showed my portfolio, it looked like I was showing a single model's portfolio. The very few shots I had of other models looked out of place. In short, you must diversify your portfolio. Jul 09 05 12:30 pm Link When your shots could be used as the models diary then you have shot too much. Jul 10 05 12:03 am Link And had all those model/fashion shots been displayed at a gallery as a year in the life of a model/fashionartist/photographer it would have made a compelling show. Jul 10 05 12:06 am Link |
