{Baltimore}

I thought I might desire compensation but feel like I lack my modeling instinct and before I ask for money, I need to get that back. However, I do not mind being viewed as a charity case and would love money if you feel inclined to show your appreciation of my skills in that manner.

...Anyway... hello! My name is Darlene, and I enjoy modeling quite a bit. I think that everyone ought to model sometime in their life, just for the sheer sensation of it. To model in a photo shoot is very different than happening to be in a common picture, such as one that a friend would snap and then post on Facebook. I suppose that a friend's photo could be considered the more genuine, for it captured a moment in life and time: a real person's life, and not one that's imaginary, and in that way, a simple photo on Facebook is much more meaningful then one shot in a photo shoot. However, the fraud of a photo shoot then would be that it attempts to display a scene that does not take place in reality- one rarely finds girls causally sitting on train tracks. These sort of photographs either depict moments of ideality (which, apparently, was not a word 'til I decided it should be), or it creates something imaginary and creative. From beautiful women smiling voluptuously merely because their bra is so fine to glittery fairies slipping down a rainbow as if it's a giant sliding-board in the sky, modeling always involves stepping outside of the casual role that you play on a day to day basis.

To quote Dictionary.com, a model is "a person or thing that serves as a subject for an artist, sculptor, writer, etc.," but I beg to differ... Yes, the model serves as the subject, but the model is just as much of an artist as the person who is using him or her for their work. The model is no longer the person that existence has determined for them to be; instead, they take upon a separate character, personality, and background; perhaps, even, a different system of truth: "consumerism does bring joy to the soul and you must buy these shoes or you will not live a fun life", "space aliens DO live among us," "this is the 1800's," "there is no such thing as gravity," or "makeup hides all of your flaws." (It does not hide flaws, it merely gives them a similar coloring to match the rest of the face, thus making it easier to photoshop them out.) Anyway, the model becomes part of a story; a piece of fictional existence captured by a camera. It is not faking, however... it is becoming. No longer am I Darlene, but Cinderella. There is no past of Darlene's, but only that of Cinderella's...



Let's shoot, shall we?

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