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‹ Photo Notes · 16 dubna, 2012
Allow me to quote anonymously one of the latest messages I received:
„Good day, Mr Růžek, I like your photos very much, I shoot too, although somewhat edgier photos, I shoot medium format and only analogue, no digital 🙂 but I still struggle with the fundamental problem of where to find women or girls, I’d be very interested in how you started, for me it is simply the biggest problem to find someone who will stand in front of the camera, I’d really be interested in what you write to me and how it changed over the course of your career …“
Because I keep getting the same or a similar question over and over, I decided to write a short article on this topic as an answer and hopefully a small help.
The writer more or less let me know that he probably shoots excellently, yet he can’t find a model. So where is the mistake?
Unfortunately he didn’t send me any portfolio and I didn’t manage to google his work either, so I can’t comment on the quality and interest of his photographs.
Finding a model is basically simple: you must have something to offer her, and that something must be interesting for her. Either it will be your photographs, or it can be your money. Both work.
My first experiences with a model
In 1995 I photographed friends in pubs, music bands and all sorts of things. I wanted to try working with a model and I knew a girl who already had some experience with photo modelling.
Her name was Martina Cyrkvová and she willingly nodded to my request to go out with me for an hour to one of the prettiest parts of old Litoměřice and help me in my learning to photograph people, or rather beautiful women. All the photos were of course clothed and, through my fault, as expected worth nothing. Nevertheless she went shooting with me several more times and the photographs gradually improved.
When word got around among acquaintances and when I occasionally showed our photographs, it was easier and easier to arrange a shoot with a new girl, and occasionally one would even apply herself.
The internet practically didn’t exist in our country at that time, so I made my small portfolio from an ordinary photo album filled with photographs in the 9×13 cm format. I kept it with me all the time and showed it when I wanted to approach someone.
The Fotopátračka phenomenon
In 2003 I accidentally discovered the then only one-year-old server Fotopátračka. At that time it had fewer than 2000 users, a few months later over 3000, and today it is by far the largest Czech website in its category. It inspired many others, which despite all effort remain far behind their model even after years.
From its beginning the Fotopátračka server has been primarily aimed at 3 groups of people – photographers, models and visagistes. I won’t describe how what is arranged, this article isn’t about that.
On Fotopátračka I made a small portfolio from my old photographs, because I had no new ones and wasn’t shooting at that time. In April 2004 I photographed my first „Fotopátračka“ model, put up a few photos I thought were the best and approached others. The advantage is that girls who register here as models (even if they may have no experience, just like many photographers) signal that they are interested in being photographed. Not by everybody, though, only by someone whose photographs or offered money interest them. I didn’t want to spend money, and on the contrary I wanted to make the best possible photos. I certainly didn’t succeed with everyone, but during the first 5 months I shot with so many models from all over the country that I had to start putting the brakes on and began picking the most interesting ones myself.
The mass arrival of Facebook has in its way shown on Fotopátračka too, but as I wrote, it is easier to approach a girl who registers as a model and about whom you can read up or ask for references from fellow photographers.
For a beginner, Fotopátračka is the best choice and in Bohemia it has no real competition. Even in the world there are not many such good photo servers. I know of just one worth mentioning, and that is ModelMayhem.com – it is aimed worldwide and on that global scale does as well as Fotopátračka does here.
When you want something, you have to offer something.
Pay for a model
I haven’t gone this way myself, but it is a possible solution.
Recently I suggested to a colleague, who is an excellent photographer in his own, different genre and who was starting with nudes, that he pay for a professional. After a while he wrote to me absolutely delighted that he had approached a professional and she asked 350 euros for 2 hours of shooting. I laughed that I hadn’t meant a professional prostitute but a model. I meant a model with professional experience but at the same time with an interest in the result. There really are plenty of girls who are interested only in the price for the shoot and don’t care at all how you shoot. An Italian colleague and friend once confided in me that a Czech model had sent him her price list – 200 euros for a shoot, 500 euros full service – an explanation is probably unnecessary. He asked me whether that’s how all models work here; I said fortunately not.
A girl who has no interest in photographs and is interested only in the price isn’t a model, she is rather a stripper, and she mostly won’t bring you a good photograph. For a good photograph it isn’t enough that the model is beautiful and naked, you won’t squeeze anything above average out of that.
So why do I talk about paying? Because you can save time that way. You choose an experienced yet enthusiastic girl, explain the situation to her (I highly recommend that; these models have shot a lot with many good photographers and can tell when you’re pulling their leg from the first glance at your photos) and offer some compensation. If financial, I recommend for example 500 CZK per hour of shooting. That is really just an example; models are often students and 1000 or 1500 for an afternoon is a pleasure. If your photos are very bad, though, and as I said these girls can tell, it may happen that she won’t shoot with you for all the money in the world, or at least asks a higher sum, because – understand – she has no reason to waste her time with you and then look at the pitiful results of your cooperation on Facebook and elsewhere.
Build a quality portfolio
My recommendation is therefore really to build a quality portfolio, publish only quality, not quantity, and not be afraid to delete old bad photos once you move on and see your older work in a different light.
I would start with portraits. It is a very difficult photographic discipline that will teach you a lot. Learn to perceive the eyes, work with the face at various angles and in various light, use the asymmetry of the face as an advantage and not a defect. Work with the body too, but at the beginning I wouldn’t rush into nudity; working with body proportions can be learned on clothed photos as well. A bad nude does you a worse reference and service than no nude.
This way is slower, but it costs you less, and if the result is to come, it will come, and those excellent models will then shoot with you gladly and for free, because they will want photographs from you or, even better, they will really enjoy sharing in your work with you.
The snowball effect
If your photographic work is interesting, it will in time turn into respect and models‘ interest in working with you. Beware of one more thing – try not to build a reputation as a complete idiot with whom, for some reason, nobody wants to shoot. You wouldn’t believe how fast the bush telegraph works in the photographer-model community. A label like „pathetic sexual sponger“, „arrogant moron“, „never gave me the photos“ and the like can stick to you for many years and will certainly not add much to models‘ interest in you.
But when you do manage to arouse models‘ interest, try to choose ever better and better ones. I don’t mean prettier, simply better. In time you will be able to tell the difference.
The snowball effect consists in that, besides your active searching, models begin to get in touch on their own. They will be schoolmates and colleagues of girls you have photographed, completely unknown girls who see your photographs, recommended friends and girlfriends of your friends, etc. Success brings success.
From my own repeated experience I allow myself to warn against something that can be called „I’ll bring a girlfriend„, in the worse case „I brought a girlfriend„. Realize that you carefully chose a very interesting model and her girlfriend mostly doesn’t interest you at all. Still she will fight for her place in front of the camera and after the shoot will want you to make beautiful photos of her. Beautiful photos of someone you didn’t choose and who really only robbed you of time you wanted to devote to the chosen model, and of her attention and concentration.
When a model does suggest she has an interesting friend, I recommend first asking for photographs, and even if she seems interesting to you, arranging her for the next shoot and doing this first one only with the one you originally chose.
Czech girls don’t shoot?
Today I have around me a circle of regular models with whom I work repeatedly. Now and then a new one appears, sometimes it stays with one shoot, at other times she joins the circle of regulars. Another, conversely, gradually leaves it for various reasons, for example she stops shooting, or we simply take a break when we feel we’ve shot each other to death and nothing new occurs to us.
It is true that at present I am surrounded mostly by foreign models. Some fly in, others live in Prague. It is also true that most of them are from Russia and other states of the former USSR. There’s nothing deliberate in it; it’s the snowball effect again, and at the moment there are more of those foreigners. I don’t object to working with Czech models at all, I just rarely search actively, and those who get in touch on their own are mostly from elsewhere.
That could be enough; I think it’s an exhaustive answer.
I wish you much luck in finding models, and good night.
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