How I Went From Having Zero Photoshoots To Over 20 Potential Ones

They say don’t ever celebrate before all your chickens have hatched. But I can’t wait to break news that I will be working with a model who has worked with Emilio Pucci. Another model reached out to me for a collaboration — she was in Cosmopolitan and walked with GUESS.

This is all really new stuff for me and I can’t say that I’m not excited, because I truly am! But I’m nervous and anxious to be working with people with such high credentials under their belt.

I’m assuming they’re expecting a stylist, a MUA, a PA, and the like. I emailed back and forth explaining to one of the models that it would only be me (I’m definitely going to have to recruit a PA somehow) for her shoot. She sounded like she was fine, but for her to ask if there was going to be a stylist really got me wondering if I needed them. (I’ll write something about my journey to find a MUA, stylist, and PA when I actually do find them…) And considering I’d love to start getting into editorials and commercial while moving away from Instagram-focused shoots, I should start working with MUAs and stylists, right? Right.

But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about how I got here.

And the answer is absolutely, positively simple.

Put yourself out there.

That’s all there is to it.

Did you think I had some wise thing to say?

I don’t.

All I did was create a profile on Model Mayhem, fill out the necessary forms and wait until I was approved by a moderator.

Then I placed a casting call.

It also helped that people liked the photos I uploaded in my portfolio.

That surprised me (and still surprises me that these models are asking me to shoot their photos)!

I’ve also been getting DMs on Instagram, with Instagram models asking me if I’d be interested in a collaboration with them.

I’d love to do all of these, (but I’d also love to be getting paid) but time is an issue. I’m only free on the weekends and maybe after 5:30PM on weekdays.

I need more time!

Right now, I’m building a portfolio, a robust one, as quickly and methodically as possible, while making tweaks to further hone my style.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a craft — which has been proven to be only the case in very controlled structures.

I don’t think photography is as controlled as people think. I think it’s just a matter of continuously fine-tuning your style and coming up with concepts that fit your aesthetic. (I guarantee you I will revisit this sentence later in the year and say something about it.)

At the time of writing, I have roughly 18 people from Model Mayhem interested in working with me. If I include the number of people in my Instagram DM, it’s well over 25. Kind of insane (and exciting) to think about!

Of course, this is ignoring the fact that I have concepts in mind and mood boards ready to be emailed and the models need to fit into that.

But concepting is fun. It always is.

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MY GEAR:

 

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