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‹ Photo Notes · 13 května, 2012
In a Japanese article I found several simple instructions for models on how to survive a first shoot with a new, unknown photographer safely and in good health.
Here you have them in a more sensible translation, though not as funny as the one an unnamed automatic translator gave me (thanks for it anyway).
Dear models, if you are about to go to a first shoot with an unknown photographer and care about your safety, try to keep to the following rules.
Come with a companion
- Most photographers reject a third person at the shoot, but someone can always accompany you and pick you up at an agreed time. If the photographer objects even to that, something may be wrong.
Prefer a studio to a hotel room
- If you are to shoot indoors somewhere, try to avoid hotel rooms or home studios and rather prefer a photographic studio. If possible, insist on a companion there too.
A public place is always safer
- Avoid abandoned factories, warehouses, ruins or woods at a first shoot with an unknown person. You can shoot in the city too.
Don’t get into a stranger’s car
- If possible, rather travel with an unknown photographer by public transport or use a taxi
Tell friends where and with whom you are
- Inform someone close to you of the exact place where the shoot will take place, and also give them the photographer’s name and contacts. If anything changes, write or phone someone again.
So much for the safety instructions according to the Japanese. In essence one can agree with all of it, and a first shoot can certainly be a kind of „getting acquainted“, where there is a chance to apply all 5 of the described points. I’ll add one rule that I think is more reliable and more comfortable than this Japanese guide:
Shoot only with someone you know or whom somebody knows
People in the photographer-model community know each other, and these acquaintances often cross the borders of states and continents. If you don’t know the photographer, someone among your acquaintances surely does. If not even that, it isn’t hard these days to find on the internet models and photographers from around this person. Ask them for references. Then you can calmly ride off in his car to his home studio and create undisturbed.
And if you find nobody who knows him, it perhaps makes no great sense to shoot with him at all. If you still want to try it, you have the Japanese rules 1 – 5 here. They will work well in our conditions too.