What is a Freelance Model?

Another post for Photographer to Model blog series. But this time it is posted on my website's blog. Here's an excerpt...

Entrepreneurial Spirit
Being a very successful freelance model requires not just entrepreneurial spirit, but using that spirit to learn to work hard and smart to grow into a well oiled machine. It will not be easy, heck running the business side may or will hurt your mindset of being a model for some as keeping in shape, learning poses, learning to master your body will be a day to day task, so adding on another million business tasks will not be easy to take on.

If you truly want to be a freelance model, study the possibilities of what you can or cannot do with your look, and then once you know this you can try each of those see which you may enjoy most and which can earn you most revenue/cash flow. If you can I highly recommend taking some business college courses or reading a whole lot of business articles and books on running a freelance/sole proprietor business. You may already assumed if you’re not 5’9 and “super skinny” you cannot be a model, its okay, its a very commons misconception as this is obviously to people in the industry incorrect. Many full time and part time models start at any age, size, ethnicity, background etc… yes some will pay more than the other and yes some areas will have a lot more work available and yes you may or may not have much competition in certain areas in the industry because your look isn’t extremely popular like glamour, high fashion, bikini, etc.

More on the website. Originally posted on my website here.

This post will be added to the Photographer to Model blog series. Check out more on this series here.

Reveal 01: Heather Elaine - Lancaster, PA - Portrait & Fashion Shots

- "Reveal" is now a new series to help teach or inform those wondering how I shot a specific shot that they either asked or I thought it very much worth sharing. What I would normally share would be pretty much everything, as to why I choose the image, how I shot it, the location, etc. most of the day detail leading up to how and why the shot was created. As well some how and why I edited it in a certain way to the image(s) being revealed. 

Model: Heather Elaine MM#: 2963534

Assistant: Eric S.

Location: The Lancaster Central Market

The shot was not intended to be more of a portrait. The primary goal of the whole shoot was fashion and maybe a bit of lifestyle shots. As I got home looked over the images I noticed this shot. While it did not give neither an obvious fashion feel, or lifestyle shot I still had to select it and choose to edit this for my portfolio. It could easily be used as a great editorial portrait for my commercial website or solo portrait for my non-commercial side of my business. But I do have other shots within the same environment, model, wardrobe and lighting... just different pose and facial expression that makes it more obvious it is a fashion or lifestyle shot.

This shot (below) became the selected shot best represented fashion for this shoot. The shot does have more obvious post processing done but that is part of the trend of fashion photography I've learned. Even though I really wanted to do more photography with models with a lot less photoshoping than what the trends had, I could not simply not follow the trends if I wanted to succeed. I've learned in fashion photography you give what the market demands and what the fashion photography's demanding more intensely edited images even if they look fake or not, its not about that as long as the product(s) standout and the products clearly is the hero in the shots. Since this shot was my first shot I've intentionally spent more time in editing to intentionally want the super clean fashion look and feel I spent about 3-5 hours on editing it in the span of 3 days (1-2 hours a night). It did take longer than anyone would as I was using a few different new techniques, such as removed a lot of the skin texture then re-created it. 

Videos I used as point of reference was regarding techniques of both Frequency Separation and creating skin texture both shown by PHLEARN.

The Tech...
EXIF:
1st Shot: f/2.8
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/180th
Focal: 200mm

2nd Shot: f/2.8
ISO: 640
Shutter: 1/125th
Focal: 200mm

Time of Day: Between 730pm and 830pm EST 
Lighting: Lastolite 30x30 Large Softbox w/ YN600 on ETTL zoom 24mm, triggered with a YN622C. Light was held by an assistant, angled left of frame above model's head pointing down to create shadows underneath model's chin.
Camera+Lens: Canon 6D w/ Tamron 70-200 2.8 (non-VC)
Memory: Lexar Professional 400x 8GB



Ask any questions in the comments!

Sample Photos of Lastolite EZY Box Large Softbox (30x30)

*The following sample photos are Straight out of Camera, totally untouched/edited, these are purely sample photos to show how the softbox looks with and without. LEFT is without flash, the RIGHT is with the flash on.

Shutter: 1/160th
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 200
Lens: Canon 24-70 2.8L
Camera Body: Canon 6D

Lastolite Hot Shoe EZYBOX Softbox Kit-30 x 30"

Side note of my experience with using hotshoe softboxes in the field, its ok, as long as you got someone holding the lightstand(s) or good weights to hold them down. I don't have weights right now other than normal sandbags I may start using since assitants are so hard to come by in my area. Other than that I would have loved more power but the only option for more power is studio strobe or investing into a $500+ speedlight (600EX) as I was using YN560 here at 90% power. I may invest into more studio strobes and battery packs to shoot more environmentals instead of speedlights, primarily cost savings is a big difference. Once I could afford into more speedlights then I'll go into a heavy speedlight setups for obvious reasons.