The perfect model?

Today a very short blog post, but maybe one of the most useful for the model shooters among us.

During our trip to the UK Nadine and I were talking about what I look for in a model, the reason this conversation often comes up is because I strongly like my models a bit different than what you would expect. I don’t mean that my models are ugly or not normal, because I’m fortunate to work with a selection of absolutely stunning models, however just being stunning doesn’t cut it for me.

During the conversation I tried to explain to Nadine what I was looking for and I think this quote says it all.

“A good model you can put in a location and she becomes that location, a not so good model you put in a location and she/he will be a model in a location. This is one of the reasons I guess why I also love to shoot with actresses and actors, they just know what a location needs. Let’s take for example a shoot we did in a graveyard a few years ago, the “normal” model would worry if her hair would be ok, if her makeup was ok while Stephanie (the model in that shoot) was thinking about the expression and poses that were needed to “blend” in with the location and make it believable”

Now I understand that for some of our readers this might sound a bit “out there” but bare with me. When we start looking for models at the start of our shooting career it’s very tempting to choose the models that look drop dead gorgeous, are Miss this or that and turn heads when they walk by…however very soon you probably experience that working with models who are only “that” are actually very 2 dimensional to work with, or in other words can become very boring. Or maybe it’s just me, I just want to make images that tell a story and not the images that people look at and say “wow hot girl”, actually I’m always a little bit disappointed when someone tells me “wow hot girl” because for me it actually means that probably the rest of the image was not interesting enough. Of course when I shoot an image that is aimed at “wow hot girl” that’s ok, but most of my work (I think) have much more to tell.

I found this out the hard way.
I was stuck in my progress, I had pretty good lighting control, I knew how to coach my models, I had pretty good Photoshop skills etc. but somehow something was missing, the ideas I had were a bit different from what I actually could pull off with my models so my ideas were actually shelved for the images that were more in the range of “wow nice light” or “wow nice model”….. up until I got mails from a model I did not particularly like, now don’t get me wrong she was attractive but different from what I was looking for at the moment (the perfect drop dead gorgous model), so somehow she was not “model material” the way I looked at it at that time, but she pushed through driving me nuts to a point where I just broke down and said “you know what… come over and prove that you can model”…. To make a long story short she very quickly became one of my most favorite models to work with and even today we work together on projects and photo shoots and she ALWAYS delivers, the images I’ve created with her are however always “off beat” “interesting” “story telling” or just plain “WOW”. The strong point of our collaborations was always expression and being able to “absorb” the scene, or if you like this expression better “OWN the scene”.

Part of the Light III DVD

In my personal opinion (which has developed over the years) I strongly think you are much better off with a great model that knows how to act and throw herself towards the total look and is willing to mess up her hair and makeup and sometimes literally will look like “trailer thrash” than the perfect bodied model with blond hair and blue eyes that is constantly asking if “she looks good”……

Maybe it works great for you, but for me I love a model that disappears in the scenes and becomes one with the story I want to tell instead of a model that doesn’t fit in the scene because she wants to be the scene…..

Feel free to give me your opinion.