Art Silva Photography wrote:
Hit me. I hope I at least make lunch money for a month 

I think you show a forte for art nudes but there's hint of the monster you could be in a shot featuring fabric streaming behind the model. You're a master of natural light and processing. 

Some of the models are not quite right for you. You did your best.  Tighten up the standards on working with models and,  while doing art nudes and, hopefully you can get a good gallery showing, move into fashion. You've got anatomy down. Now it's time to show your editorial flair, your fashion ability. You understand the importance of movement, of flow, of breeze-blown hair. You have a flair for getting models posing and you bring out in some of the nude portfolios the kind of posing that makes one think that the model could do fashion.

This is rare.

If you came down to L.A. and could avoid having your car stolen, your gear jacked, and if you pitched to galleries here, you might get a show but you're the kind of guy who could break into fashion magazines. Pitch Treats. A Maxim Photographer, British guy, started it in L.A.  He'll pay you if you have good idea, even though he's bleeding money. Become familiar with dolce

Jakub Kusmierz wrote:
Just the critique for a retoucher would be nice Since i m not the photographer but am still curious!

I'll try this later, as it will probably take me a little more time, and really the focus is on models and photographers, so I will do them first.

Milena Georgieva wrote:
I'm curious

Maybe you could do glamour/nudes but I couldn't tell from your portfolio. I went to your blog first, and was pleased that when I clicked on a day's set I was able to scroll down.

The positives. On the blog shots I saw some production values, the bed had lovely sheets, satin if I recall correctly.  Here and there, a headshot that works, if the photographer does the right angles.

THE NEGATIVES: Posing primarily and, of course expressions. Some of the photographers may have challenges with lighting. It can be difficult for some photographers to expose right and some find processing tough. Not a single photo sold me on the idea of you as a glamour model.
There's a wealth of internet info on glamour poses. Master them. And bring you own powerful interpretations and think up new ones, particularly interactive, in that you may be pointing at a painting or looking at it, not just lying or standing or sitting there, like a fashion duck waiting to be critically slaughtered.

Conclusion: I think you have a pretty face. I'm not sure about the body. For glamour that S-Curve is quite important.

Your primary market is going to be guys-with-camera. You could be their muse. Here's how and this will take a little while of reading time, for which I apologize. Reading can hurt the brain. There are many studies proving that reading can kill your mind on the Internet. Go read them now.

Your goal is if taking a shot in a bedroom to arrange yourself so that without going into pornoland that room itself may burst into flames. Heat. There are different ways to deliver heat. You're comfortable nude but makeup and accessories are your friends. Bracelets, necklaces break up the stretch of skin.

Your first task if you accept this mission is to master posing in a doorway. If you have  a camcorder video your posing. Build a routine of power poses in that doorway. You can look up on the Internet models posing on the doorway. Research it before you start.

When you're equal after a week of practice to professional models posing in a doorway and you can effortlessly repeat the poses and expressions, it's time to practice posing on and with a chair. Research models with a chair on the Internet. Turn on that camcorder. You'll review and get better and better. That will take about three days, about 15 minutes a day. Next, on the floor. Yes, look up models and floor, models and bed. Master the poses. If you can do a great pose while seminude, you're start to become a photographer's muse. You'll start to invent poses.

$1000 per annum.  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!

You got that due to the current state of your portfolio. Attend to this matter quickly mademoiselle and you'll earn much more as a glamour/art nude model.

John Ashton Hawthorne wrote:
please go on gut feel in potential, I would really appreciate knowing your views.

Kind regards,

Ash

https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/p … 0#28904120

shows a poet’s sensitivity in the face. The pectorals work well here.

https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/p … 6#28088226

shows the strength and weakness of you. The poet’s sensitivity in the face, the eyes, triumphing over lighting, over just-okay-photographic technique. However, the chest lacks the relatively large pectoral shield of muscle displayed by so many of your rivals and this means: fitness: difficult.

You lack V torso shots. Head to waist. It made me think Photographers had cropped your images because it didn’t work. If you do have a good V shape display it. Try not to suck in the pectorals with dynamic tension. It doesn’t work well for you.

I saw the track shot style photo. No, I said. No.

You have a beautiful sensitive look. You’re more of a fashion model and that face of yours when photographed with really good lighting, and with a proper adoringly directed lens, will just rock print and video.

It’s a tough world for male models, but if you do this: study fashion and fitness posing, doing 15 minutes a day in a full-length mirror, and camrecord and if you can the horizon of success will loom before you.  Roll through the first week, posing in a door and do research on male model doorway and the following week move into male model chair poses.  And then on the floor for the third week. During this training period try and hit pose and expression rolling different expressions. Observe your angles. Review the video afterwards, intently training your body, your face, to obey your posing and expressive directives. You will come up with your own stunning poses. Work with a hat, a cap. Understand the power of interacting with. . . props.

Wardrobe: You have to dress like you always wear top designers clothes.  Groom well before you leave the abode.  If a woman sees you if should feel to hear like she’s about to break her neck if she turns her gaze from you.. Sometimes  a hush should occur when you enter a room and this why you must dress like a model about to step into a fashion shoot and it’s twenty seconds before you start taking great shots. Sometimes women will want to take a snapshot of you if you do right, because you got that face, baby, baby, babe.

Sometimes you will slow down your entry into a room, allowing people to see you because you’re young, beautiful, hungry to break out, and what is your rating?

$10,000 Maybe you've-got-steam award. Still part-time but starting to occasionally dazzle. But can you afford new tires? The roads are tough on cars here.

There is work to be done before you go for it. You could walk into agency and maybe they will just like your look but it would best to have a good book, and a dazzling comp card.

Good luck.

Darin B wrote:
Involved thread! I'd love an opinion. Thanks!

https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/p … 7#25164509 is interesting.  Your website doesn’t help a model. You want to easily find images of. .  . models.

Your website has too much crammed into it: you’re an engineer, you’re a videographer, your this, your that.

For models, whether it is art nudes you presented or editorials, or beauty, it should be under a website that announces you as photographer. 

You don’t clearly state your interests as pertaining to shooting models. One doesn’t feel the passion for it, that comes across in other photographers’ profiles.

You’ll do commercial to fund your art, you have to find you niche. That will nuke with a lot of great models. And professional models don’t need 3-4 photos of your. . . face.

The shoot is about featuring them in a photo. Featuring them. Starring in a stilled moment.

You might be able to do fashion. You might be able to commercial. It’s a big might. Some images are very interesting from a fashion perspective, but, oh, how you have so far sinned. 

Will the rating crucify you?

$750 per annum: I –don’t-care-it-about-I’m an-artist-award: Or the Poor-Me-Narcissist-Award. You get that for rambling, for showing your photo so much and not kicking off with great images of fabulous models and talking like shooting commercial models is secondary to making art, but you’ll do it for the money. Also known as the “Nobel-Mercenary-Award.

To make it here, you have to know what you love, and know it so well, and  here I’ll help you: “I bring an artist’s perspective to commercial and fashion. Imagination is my god. Creativity is my guiding star. We can do great things together.”

Elizabeth Michellle wrote:
I'd love to hear your opinion

I clicked on your website link and went nowhere. Facebook?

No, no, no. You want to charge guys with cameras? Make that website pro.

First image, on the left MONEY zing. Guy with camera will book you. Oh right, that’s it show the gigantic tattoo on the hip. YES, drop it.

After opening what my mouth with its killer fangs, I found myself doing something strange for a big cat: I started to purr. I'm a big kitty, so the building shook as I purred and I think someone fell down the stairs but hey, I just had to purr.

The portfolio has moments that should be excised. The flag, the snake? Burn the flag, nuke the snake. There are some others, but back to purring, what an accomplishment, what a llama, what a master of expression, of posing.

You take this seriously.  You're accomplished.  Some suggestions. 

When people enter the profile they should be able to click on a good website. It's so cheap now! And easy!  Now for MM on your home page select three images that get across your achievements, print and runway. Two print and one runway. Runway in the middle. Then run credits, take out looking for representation. Take out that you want to photo nature professionally. If you put in a running giff of credits all the better. Now finish with a link to either your MM portfolio or YOUR MARVELLOUS website.

You're rating: $60,000 per annum. You're-almost-a-monster-now-Award.

You do rock.

Kristal Ruckstuhl wrote:
Would love to hear my assessment if you have time. Thanks!

Not one image worked for me and I sense that you could be photographed in an extremely beautiful way.

I was a little surprised. What is that you want to do? Fashion, commercial, or art?  Find a focus. 

If you came here, you wouldn't get far up the ladder of success with what you show on MM.

I'm sad now.

Your award? $850 per annum. You-really-need-meth-but-we-only-have-marijuana-Award.

I think you need to really revamp the port, but really think about what it is that you're going after.

Jennifer Jurca wrote:
Please, I am dying to know

Your website is functional but the higher end professional work you seek is betrayed by its layout. Never have categories like parties and miscellanous. Unless the shoot is called party and features carefully crafted party and after party images, you're lowering the value of the display in the attempt to attract a great model, which is counter-productive.

What work are you going after? To score retouching work, have that as separate section if you can't afford another website. Show before and after samples of other photographer's work, so that a photographer will see that you have worked on other photographer's work. Some photographers will permit you to show before-and-afters.


The Portfolio of MM made me ask the same questions. What are you trying to do? Do you know? I'm not saying it's garbage, I'm saying where is your sense of creating dramatic images that really pop?. Where's the sizzle? The answer: there's no bacon frying.

I would suggest studying websites and also other commercial photographers and then do the really big thing, think about what is it that you're trying to do: what are you trying to do? What is the theme, the message, and how do you make photographic magic?

$1000 per annum.  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!

Felipe Jimenez wrote:
How broke would I be?

I love the moment when your MM page loaded and the first image descended upon my screen. My raptor eyes (yes, I metamorphosed) noticed the bubble bokeh thing done in post and I didn't like that but I didn't transform into a big cat baring its fangs. 

I still felt I was floating because the male model looked great and you like the human figure, and you like clothes,  and so I as floated down past the images of that page, I concluded he's telling us he'll do couple shoots, weddings maybe as well as ad shots for clothing companies, and what a brilliant selection. I clicked on the website and the images were a carousel of convincing and distracting, but more convincing than distracting from the idea that you would do graduation shoots, weddings, etc. Very smart. Not a word. Just images convincing you.

You're MM statement could be trimmed. The part about a student, working for the summer.... . You work in an ad agency, roll into the whole thing about photography being your passion. I so believed that Felipe. The MM portfolio could be trimmed of its dead wood. I think you're so good you can just put fifteen outstanding shots in and models will really be asking to shoot with you.

It wasn't perfect, but it had lovely moments. Is that enough for L.A.?

$30,000 per annum. Rising star award. The portfolio needs more focus but I believe in you, Felipe. And models who see the opening MM page will too. Organise the MM photos into folders.

LA StarShooter wrote:

We will start with the bad because this is not a flattery review. I don't like how your breasts look in a lot of shots and when they might look good some dumbo out to ruin your life puts a line through them. I don't like them and I wouldn't do that, even though I'm nasty and I live in a nasty city. I find the breasts to be odd when you reveal them in some of the revealing shots.

But a model isn't all tits. When you pose on a magazine cover in a bikini you rock. You just rock like you're a hurricane with a guitar. Every body can hear you roar.

You nail commercials like you're the Roman centurion who is really going to nail Yeshua to his cross, after he finishes collecting his winnings of the gambling for the robe. You're Evil. And someone in the Los Angeles County region just might appreciate your kind-of-evil.

What's wrong with devil worship? Satan likes you. He just said so.

Physically, you're remarkable. Tall with legs that are like a pair of sexy anacondas squeezing and popping and popping the male eye and threatening hemmorraghe on the male brain because it's not designed to absorb such wonders, Grace. Evil one.

You know how to express and your artist of expressions.  Your a photographer's dream and commercial director's rescuing angel.

Here's your rating: $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.

Thank you so very much for that detailed critique. I guess everyone has different taste in breasts... Although, you did manage to flatter me. Overwhelmingly so.

I applaud your exceptional verbal expression! It's an art all it's own.

G

Paige Morgan wrote:
I've never been much of an LA sort of girl....hit me

Your opening statement is directed towards guy-with-cameras. A suggestion. How about credits without dates?

I didn't see any 2012 so I went promotional, fashion, commercial have gone dead? 

I thought the website was solid but not exciting. Photographically, I don't think you've really had the full treatment yet by a photographer. I sense you could blow people away, really scorch but the processing doesn't ramp up your beauty, and the poses too, at times, downgrade your power. In full body shots, do you know your angles? At times you thighs look a bit wide. I am not critiquing your body but rather how it has been shot and how you have presented it.

You declare that you're a Swiss-Army-Knife of models. You haven't cut anything in Fashion & commercial for over a year?

I like that you put your Tears in. Important. On your website you categorize well, and in commercial at times, I thought some images were. . . fashion.

Since you do a lot of GWC shoot these days, you could come to L.A. and do what you're doing in New York, continuing your circuit.

You have a lot of experience. You come across as nice. In headshots you look good but not killer great.

L.A. is brutal?  How brutal will the rating be?

$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. You would make more than that with your circuit around the country, but here in a hobbled economy with in excess of twelve percent unemployment, we have talent to burn like Europe use to have heretics to torch.

Tonia Cascio wrote:
Me =]]

Your selection of six images on your MM profile page sold me. SOLD!  Very smart. I don't know why it is important for someone represented by Willow Management to offer references if needed? I don't care if you trash the hotel room, it's okay. I'll just make sure you pay for it.

Your facebook has more photos. I found one. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Your MM portfolio doesn't need thirty images because of  those six you have on the profiile page so rock. I think you could bust it down to 15 and move the rest into categories onto a website. 

You're having a tough time nailing a lot of commercial and fashion work. But L.A. is brutal. You're 5 foot 7 so Runway may not happen a lot, and really you're a campaign model, commercial/fashion. You work great. I watched that Vimeo video. Yes. You put it there for a reason. That too sold me and I wouldn't really care about your MM portfolio after seeing that. In the real world if it was looking to book you, the profile page already did the job.

I am going to tell you what you know, so forgive me. You already have a great look, real modelling power. Is Willow good?  Maybe a different agency?  I hope you get to work the world and you're like a warning shot to anyone who comes down here to work the GMCs. Really, really, because, because, you are very, very good. L.A. good.

So, what is your rating? 

$60,000 Photographer and model: You're-almost-a-monster-now-Award.  I think you can do better than this but maybe with a different agency?

Robert Sleeper wrote:
I'll Play!

I went to your facebook page and got one image and maybe it's because I'm not on facebook. Your website is cheap looking for a veteran and you do have some beautiful shots which are hidden by some not-so-beautiful shots. Your mission statement is designed to convince a model that everyone else is beautiful too? Everyone is beautiful. The elephant man has booked Vogue. See, how vicious I am. My incisors have descended.

On the fashion section I became convinced that sometimes about 1/3rd of the time you accidentally capture a fashion image and some are goooooooood, but you have absurdities in fashion, chunk-a-lunk thighs and some shots are just blaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Vogue wants that. They just called me to tell me off. "We only want fat chicks who don't read Vogue," they told me.

Whatever happened to Vogue?

Your rate session for model sessions is just awful. At this point I leapt up and said: "Forward legions! Advance. Carthago delenda est."  I'm not talking about a variety of tango, although destruction can be a LaTiN Dance.

How dare you charge $100 dollars and give the model 10 images that are watermarked?

Here's a male model's comp card: http://robertianevans.com/images/compca … d_2007.jpg

They don't need watermarked images: that's TF minor league stuff. Making them pay for something useless is taking advantage of young people. "Forward Legions!!!"

I did the glamour, where I found the glamour sometimes. It was much nicer in your MM portfolio, and I recommend that you put them in folders, when you go above 100 images to go through, it's tough for models to look at that much. Some lovely shots in there, by the way.


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

Thommy Panic wrote:
I'm gunning for the $40- $75 range, where I live off of PEZ and rain water.

You quote $200 for building a portfolio. I couldn't figure out where on your website it showed your portfolio building skills for models. See? 

Let's say the model has an online model portfolio site, and this is a template, what kind of images are you're going to give her?

http://www.shauncolclough.com/photo_sho … mp-models/

is not good but can you do better than that, much better so she can take the book to New York and book?

What sizzle and pop? You're artistic, imaginative, but portfolio building, I didn't see anything that a model could consider for her comp card or book or portfolio, if she was seeking commerical or fashion.

You're have editorial flair. You could do fashion, maybe. But you have to learn the field.

See if you had just put in: "Artist with a camera," I would have bought that. Your work is intriguing.

Also you need to take the online mag links and screen capture and put them on a website and link: some of the links do not work.

$27,500 per annum. I-was-just-about-to-bank-when-the-Acid-hit-me-Award.  You need to take LSD while shooting so the world becomes more real. You wakeup and the trip to the bathroom looks like you're tripping through the Grand Canyon only it's an Escher and you can't find the bathroom, but you can find the acid. Yeah.

LA StarShooter wrote:
https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/p … 7#25164509 is interesting.  Your website doesn’t help a model. You want to easily find images of. .  . models.

Your website has too much crammed into it: you’re an engineer, you’re a videographer, your this, your that.

For models, whether it is art nudes you presented or editorials, or beauty, it should be under a website that announces you as photographer. 

You don’t clearly state your interests as pertaining to shooting models. One doesn’t feel the passion for it, that comes across in other photographers’ profiles.

You’ll do commercial to fund your art, you have to find you niche. That will nuke with a lot of great models. And professional models don’t need 3-4 photos of your. . . face.

The shoot is about featuring them in a photo. Featuring them. Starring in a stilled moment.

You might be able to do fashion. You might be able to commercial. It’s a big might. Some images are very interesting from a fashion perspective, but, oh, how you have so far sinned. 

Will the rating crucify you?

$750 per annum: I –don’t-care-it-about-I’m an-artist-award: Or the Poor-Me-Narcissist-Award. You get that for rambling, for showing your photo so much and not kicking off with great images of fabulous models and talking like shooting commercial models is secondary to making art, but you’ll do it for the money. Also known as the “Nobel-Mercenary-Award.

To make it here, you have to know what you love, and know it so well, and  here I’ll help you: “I bring an artist’s perspective to commercial and fashion. Imagination is my god. Creativity is my guiding star. We can do great things together.”

Thanks for the interesting critique! Do you think it would help if I listed my equipment?
D

Darin B wrote:

Thanks for the interesting critique! Do you think it would help if I listed my equipment?
D

Not necessary. You have some interesting images. Some models and photographers, cleverly load the profile page with six images. Some models put six images on one sheet and wow, they can sell you straight away. So after the statement run six images.  She really doesn't care about: the camera. I've never personally experienced a model asking about a camera before a shoot. They really assume that the images they like were shot by a photographer with style and flair and who knows who to use a camera. She is the show.

Jean-Claude Photo wrote:
Go for it! Looks like you've got a hit on your hands with this thread

On this site, you should consider organising your portfolio into Beauty, Fashion, etc. 

I went to your website first. Who are you? I couldn't tell from your photos. This is not a rejection of  the quality of your work. I didn't see a client list. I visited the tumblr, the flickr. Who are you? What do you do?  Headshots? I did look at them. In several the eyes are so over-processed that the poor women may not get work.

I realise that you may point out that your headshots are for models. Okay, I've been properly scolded so they need their eyes over-processed, right?

http://www.stunningheadshots.com/testimonials.html is a guy who shoots headshots for actors and then they get work.  That's his obvious pitch from his great and powerful testimonials.  The best headshot photographers in the world as a group are, here, in Los Angeles. They make an art of taking nervous colts and relaxing them, of making them feel so comfortable that the soul of them glides into the lens and they need very little processing. Because the soul is there.

All portrait photographers can learn so much from the better Los Angeles headshot photographers. The guy above charges before hair and makep, 399 for a full session. That's reasonable. 

There's an intimacy in great actor headshots where you feel you can sit right down next to them. 

I didn't feel intimacy. I didn't feel connection. When I started off on the outside section on the website I concluded that you were bored. On the inside connection you seemed to be a different photographer. You have more control over ambient light. Maybe you are more relaxed and maybe it was easier to talk and here and there an element of greatness. I went through the sections and I concluded that you do model portfolios for a lot of women and a lot who are not agency.  You have one major credit, the Goods, and I learned that from your tumblr.

Who are you?

What is your passion?

Your studio space is incredible. So maybe you have done work in other countries and have started anew here. Maybe.

I checked out "THE GOODS" Mag. Not sure that you really have a great credit there.

I know, Detective Columbo is on the case.  I like your camera, the D700.

You can shoot, you can compose, you can process. This is a tough market. This town will Rodney King you to a bloody pulp and video it at the same time. This is not just Sunny time in the hot city. This is Noire Ville.

You deserve your own special rating.

There are tones to "Who Are You?" There's the fan who thinks he recognizes someone and really wants to know; there's the joyful reaction to work, or the experience of encountering someone's observations that can sometimes border on euphoria, such is the thrill of discovery.  Then, there's the reaction to how to categorize someone, inside and outside who you just don't know.

$42,000 per annum. "The-Who-Are-You" Award is for the guy who doesn't really project a brand, who is good but in competition with other shooters will get pushed aside. It doesn't matter if he can make a living doing model portfolios for women who will never open an agency door, because a big studio kills the wallet. If he goes for ad work, an agency booking it will slide their eyes to someone who is really excited, who knows who they are and maybe are shouting it through every shot.

In a year you could hit hard times if you can't connect. I didn't see any agency connections, campaigns, and I didn't feel a connection to you through your work. You can say I am wrong because look at all the agencies you shoot for, the campaigns you have done, the people you know.

Who are you?

PADDY DAS ORIGINAL wrote:
I wanna be famous !!!!111

Most here, would like to be famous. Do you want a critique? You didn't say so.  In parts of this metropolitan mess, when you speak urbanely at night, you can hear the echo of gun shots, sometimes an automatic burst, particularly around July 4th. I only looked at your facebook Avatar. That's all. So far, intrigued. I won't go further until I know that you want a critique.

LA StarShooter wrote:

Most here, would like to be famous. Do you want a critique? You didn't say so.  In parts of this metropolitan mess, when you speak urbanely at night, you can hear the echo of gun shots, sometimes an automatic burst, particularly around July 4th. I only looked at your facebook Avatar. That's all. So far, intrigued. I won't go further until I know that you want a critique.

sorry ... yeah, critique would be cool. I'm really interested

Kristal Ruckstuhl wrote:

I think you're gorgeous and unique. I will come back to you and look again. It's just I didn't see spectacular full-body shots, and sometimes that comes down to wardrobe. Do you have a book, a comp card. I think that might help you. I don't think your bad. I just think Los Angeles is really tough and here you would be competing for work against a lot of good, a lot of very good models.

gina marie  wrote:
Im down, I'd like to hear what you have to say.... ?

What magazines would you like to be in? I couldn't tell from the portfolio on your website. Its smart to have a website. I saw some curves but you don't know how to present yourself yet and the photographers who shot you, didn't really bring their A-game.

I believe photographers have a responsibility to present a vision to the model, a plan for the shoot that gives her the confidence to explore.

What genre intrigues you, fires you up? For example, if you said swimsuit? Where is it? If you said fashion? Where is it? If Fitness, where is it. The nude? Okay, but not dazzling. Glamour?  Where is the glamour? Where did you hide it? Is it under the bed?

Did you lose it at nightclub? Come on. You were born sexy? But modelling is a skill.

Posing practice. Expression practice. Learn your angles. Put together looks and wardrobe for glamour, for fitness. Start there. I think when I saw your first image on your website it was very casual and I felt I could sit right down next to you and asked you if the tattoo parlor across the road had any good drugs.

Your rating: $1250 per annum-Skid-Row-Nude-model. You're thinking about stripping. Modelling sucks. The last GWC offered you a joint instead of paying you the $50 for 2 hours. You agreed to do nude and you spread and he offered $75 for that and you almost asked if you could sleep at this place. So, at the end you sucked on the joint, and he really didn't give you the money. He smashed your phone so you couldn't report him to MM and it's the only computer you've got. It's not your fault. You're a guppy in shark-infested waters, and, unfortunately you're a big guppy. And now, you're wandering around Skid Row around drug dealers who deal to other drug dealers and sometimes the general public and you're getting the kind of offers you never dreamed of getting. Your car got jacked.

Learn the biz. Be it. Don't take this casually if you really want to make a living posing.