Aaah, so an overly discussed topic in the makeup/modelling/photography world, is going to be just an even more so overly discussed topic on my blog, but hey, its my blog, I can say what I please. I'm speaking from my experiences in the industry with the numerous amount of people that I've worked with in my short career in this field.
I read on a forum the other day, something along the lines of - "models have feelings too..." and the model went to discuss how it hurts to be rejected time and time again after attending every casting that becomes known to them, only to be rejected for another girl with the same dreams as said rejected model. Sad fact of reality, no matter how in shape, and well groomed the 'models' keep themselves, unless they are that small percent that manage to get a big break, the rest of them can enjoy modelling for ammateur photographers, and have pretty photos for facebook as payment, the good old TFCD, unless if they start doing promotions, but at the end of the day, the promotion lifestyle is not going to be glamourous as everyone thinks the modelling world is.
A lot of the models that I've either photographed or made up, have literally been doing the photo session as a means of a confidence builder in their lives, not many had admitted it but when I think about these girls, their confidence and self esteem was low at the point before the shoot where makeup and discussions of the shoot expections were being spoken about, but once that shoot is finished, they have a run of confidence and finally start feeling better about themselves and then their "professional photographs" are then plastered over Facebook and all their friends will comment and tell them how fabulous, amazing, draw-droppingly-sexy that they are.
I can't speak as though I know why all these girls and boys model, but that is the impression I get based on the experiences with many of the people that I've worked with. What grills with the generalised persons that I've mentioned above is that they do not actually take into account how much work goes into preparing for that shoot on the photographers part, as well as the makeup artists part sometimes. Yes, neither photography nor makeup artistry is rocket science, in fact its quite the opposite it is an art, and so is modelling, I am not taking that away from the models. Photography = light + time, and getting that right all the time is not easy, and what is makeup when it comes to photography shoots? Understanding the concept and vision that both the model and photographer have in mind and being able to bridge the gap, contour, highlight and emphasize as well as paint and create something that is not so everyday normal than what the model looks at in the mirror.
Its not only the models and makeup artists that suffer the rejection that the models deal with from not getting work from castings. Photographers and makeup artists are in some instances represented by agencies. Agencies that if you get into the correct and right one that they can make killer livings, however, they stil suffer the same rejection, humiliation, and constant being told that their work is not good enough... The problem, may be just that, the work is crap or the problem may be that the market for that particular area of talent may be saturated and monopolised by individuals with completely different ideas than the person looking to be represented, to make a living, ad that there may be NO WORK in that particular field that the individual is looking for work in.
Another problem, in South Africa is that our industry is actually rather small and that in fact, everyone in this business knows everyone, maybe not personally, but everyone knows of each others work and opinions on certain matters, thanks to modelbase and all those lovely networking tools that photographers exploit to market to the general public masses, such as facebook, twitter, myspace, etc etc. I think all photographers, makeup artists and models have the most friends possible on facebook, because they want to market their talent to the general public, who in fact couldn't give two hoots about whether I photographed a model with the correct lighting and contoured her face correctly in right spots to make her look even more beautiful. I fear that this industry may actually be pushing themselves onto everyone on the social networks in the hope that they get a paying customer, so they can get paid for the talents that they have instilled in themselves and the artistic eyes that they were born with in order to make a living.
Thats my little bitch and moan for today on my wonderful blog.
xo
flea
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