This is my sleepless/lonely at 2:30 am insomnia rant...
The other day I was chatting with a photographer about collaborating on a shoot and he quoted me his rates. I understand when photographers who are established charge reasonable test rates, but this person was not exactly Mario Testino, and the rates he quoted me were astronomical. It kind of annoyed me a lot. I'm not sure what kind of aspiring models have $500 to pay for a test shoot..maybe ones who are very spoiled by their parents but certainly not me. I mean that's like 6 months worth of groceries, and I explained to him that unless I plan on giving up eating in order to have the honor of working with him it was not happening.
Lately in my bored internet browsing I've noticed that sooo many models and photographers are dead against shooting TFCD/P. I think this is absolutely ridiculous and I really don't get it. Personally, modeling is a passion for me and I love to be in front of a camera. I usually do 3-4 TF shoots per week on top of paid work/going to castings/auditions/sleeping. If you're truly passionate about something you should want do it as much as possible regardless of whether you're getting paid. Perhaps this is just the artist in me. Testing is a great opportunity to network/improve/have fun/get amazing new pictures and I would do it 8 hours a day 7 days a week if I could. Also I think models and photographers are kind of equal in the fashion world... clients pay models and photographers we shouldn't be paying each other.
A problem I see here in SA is that many photographers make part of their living by charging models... the money just isn't here in a lot of other ways so they grab what they can.
ReplyDeleteSo when a photographer like me does a lot of TF/whatver in the area I'm actually irritating the guys who only charge... maybe if I had bad work compared to the other photographers they wouldn't care
I have your viewpoint as well, I'd shoot every day with creative people if I could.
That's my way too...I'd much rather shoot TFP every weekend. I'm not looking to make money, I'm looking to produce great images - capture that beauty and feeling. If you do all that work and put in all that energy and don't charge for it, that means you definitely have a passion and aren't just counting your time and $$. But I have no problem with people doing this for their livelihood charging - it's just 2 different avenues.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should tfp sometime.
http://www.modelmayhem.com/255558