Modeling: Exposure, Pictures, Possible Paid Future Work, Sound Familiar Anyone?

After reading another girl’s blog about getting into an agency, it really put things into perspective. She was explaining that she got into an A level agency and that even after she was accepted, they wanted her to take walking classes because she was an inch away from the minimum requirement for runway. These classes, of course, needed to paid for and the whole process was suppose to take 10 weeks. In addition, she described a not-so-good situation whereby she had to visit a very sketchy studio to create a comp card. There were many girls there too rushed to take pictures in about 5 minute intervals in their “safe” poses. All this from an A level agency. I believe it. Even though I never worked for an agency, I did see enough in the 3 or 4 years I did freelance modeling to believe that getting into a good agency isn’t all that it seems.

When I did freelance modeling, I worked many kinds of jobs. I did fashion shows, hair shows, photo shoots, in store modeling, news segments, and some marketing work at locations for some designers. Out of many of those opportunities, I only got paid maybe 3 times. At first I was very eager to meet people, “network” they like to call it, and I would do so many fashion shows thinking I would meet someone eventually who would give me an opportunity to work for them. Or maybe I would meet a photographer who would give me their card and introduce me to their connections. I did meet one photographer who really did help me but ultimately it didn’t work out because the agency I applied to through him had someone else that looked like me.

I honestly think I didn’t market myself well enough in the pictures I took with him (my hair wasn’t its natural color) but he was willing to shoot me anyway because I paid him. I took some amazing “free” pictures with another photographer shortly after where my hair was natural and an agency in L.A. wanted to work with me right away but I was enrolled in college and couldn’t make that commitment to move there. It sucks how in this industry, your opportunity can just pass you by in a blink if you make the wrong move.

All these shows, shoots, and events, they make you hopeful that you will “gain exposure” and get pictures from the event and some possible paid work for them in the future… but trust me, you really won’t get any of that unless you are meeting the right people and if you are superwoman. The exposure they so greatly use on you is pretty much up to you. YOU need to talk to people, market yourself out there. But the thing is a lot of these girls who do these gigs are beginners, and they don’t know that. I would come and spend hours figuring out wardrobe, doing make-up and hair, and waiting around for the show to start, only to realize that I’m tired after the show. I don’t feel like waiting around afterwards and going up to people and trying to get jobs from them.

And maybe you could take care of that before the show ends right? Well you do end up talking to people, but some people don’t like it when you try to bother them for information. Or they don’t know any more than you do. I would network with the models, make-up artists, etc. but I soon realized we are all in the same boat.

What about the pictures? Event pictures from a fashion show won’t do anything for you except get you more friends on myspace. Pictures from a photo shoot will only benefit you if you have the right photographer and if you are really good at organizing everything. But then everyone wants to do their own idea. The hair stylist wants to do something crazy and big with your hair, the make-up artist wants to give you dramatic eyes and unnatural colors on your face, and the photographer doesn’t always know what to do about lighting and poses. A small percentage of the time you will meet people who know what they are all doing, but you will be competing with others to get that spot, so prepare yourself. Oh, and that possibility of future paid work…forget about it. Unless you constantly keep in contact with them, a lot of companies will find plenty of other girls who will do it for free.

Nudity as an Art or a Selling Point?

Ahhhhh the controversial word…nudity. Some people love it and some people don’t. Some people are okay with it and some people don’t care. But in the modeling world, it seems to be a big dilemma. I am representing, of course, the group of people out there who are just plain uncomfortable being completely or partially nude in front of the world. A little nipple here, a crack over there, what’s the big deal? Well for some of us, it is!

I was contacted by a company who wanted to schedule a very well paid photo shoot with me with some European designers. I spoke to them briefly on the phone and they explained the process and I was to meet with them in a few weeks to take some photos and to submit them to the designers for them to choose their favorite models. I saw a good amount of the company’s photos online and overall they were decent but a few contained some frontal top nudity.  I am okay with implied where I could cover myself with my arms or hair, etc. but no nipple showing for me.

So then the time came for me to contact them about coming in to meet with them, and the dreaded question…Would I be okay with shooting a shoot like the ones I’d seen? Right away I said no and that implied would be okay as long as I discussed everything right away. And again, they asked me, wanted to make sure that what I was saying was my final answer. Of course it was! If I’m uncomfortable the first time, why would I suddenly change the second time you ask me? This particular person I was speaking to told me that they had modeled before and that they do not disrespect my opinion about nudity, only that we had different views about it. Then they went off saying that every successful model ever has posed nude at some point in their life. Their work honestly was just decent and I don’t think any kind of nudity would have made it any better. Also, they wouldn’t be able to control what the designer’s needs would be. If they wanted me to show some nipple, I would have to do it. Are nipples such big deals?

Well maybe for others they are comfortable with it, but I said no. I said NO to $1500 for the photo shoot. I said NO to giving up my morals. I said NO to a decision that I soon realized was a much bigger decision than I thought.

I am completely not undermining some artist’s work of fine arts or a photographer’s artistic portrayal of a female’s body. I am simply saying that some people use it for the wrong reasons. Everyone’s heard of the term “sex sells” but can’t we figure out more innovative ways to sell a product? Why take the easy way out? Why not challenge your audience?

A Guide to Being Healthy in the Modeling World

I was finally at a point just a few months ago where I felt I was really ready to take modeling seriously. I mentally thought I was all there but during my little break, for which I will identify as my “carne asada fries detour”, I gained a good amount of weight. All of a sudden over the course of a few months, I gained about 13 pounds.

After all these unsuccessful diets, quick-fix solutions, and even getting a trainer, I realized it was a lot simpler than I thought. I actually learned quite a lot from my trainer over 5 weeks. But what she didn’t advocate to me was to count my calories. I began counting calories and restricting myself to about 1000 per day. I almost always broke it though, especially on the weekends but I ended up losing about 10 pounds over 6 weeks.

It wasn’t easy. I realized right away that nutrition and eating healthy was much more important than just counting whatever calories I consume. Over those five weeks, I started losing a lot of body fat. It was a bittersweet feeling though. I loved the fact that I was being healthy and working out 4-5 days per week but I hated this 1000 calorie a day diet. It just affected all parts of my life. I LOVE to eat. Cooking, experimenting, and just plain ‘ole eating good, healthy and sometimes unhealthy food. As a result, I became envious, frustrated, and cranky. Remember that I was trying to lose weight as fast as possible; normally I wouldn’t need to restrict myself so much. Especially on the weekends, I loved having some drinks with friends and since those are always calorie filled, I needed to eat much less throughout the day to save up for drinks.

Also, I was constantly measuring and weighing myself and it would stress me out when I didn’t lose enough weight or if I gained some weight back. It was such an overwhelming and exhausting experience filled with such good and bad lessons. And after I lost some weight, I realized I didn’t want to lose all the required weight I was told to for modeling. I didn’t want to be a size 2 or 0, I was happy being a size 4 and why wouldn’t I? But like I said, for those who really want to pursue this, and if you are faced with this challenge, I would highly recommend the following lessons I learned. Not only are they good for you if you want to lose some weight but also if you want to maintain the weight.

So here are some of those lessons I learned:

1.) Buy groceries and learn to cook. Even if you don’t end up modeling, at least you learned how to cook and be healthy. This is the best way to avoid cravings and fast food.

2.) Go to the gym because you want to be healthy and fit, not because you feel guilty.

3.) Buy inexpensive whitening strips and good exfoliating pads to avoid spending a lot of money on teeth whitening at the dentist or facials at the spa.

4.) Get a trainer if you want and just sign up for a few sessions, learn the basics and develop your own work-out routine.

5.) Work out early in the day if you can and mix up your routine at the gym so you don’t get bored and so your body will keep progressing.

6.) Try calorie counting. I have it on my phone and try to be accurate with everything I eat. It’s the most effective method I’ve tried to monitor my nutrition.

Forget about all these quick solutions they try to sell you and focus on the long-run.

Questioning your motives to model?

The other day I began searching through blogs on various websites and I found several posts from girls struggling with anorexia, bulimia, and other body image issues. I couldn’t help but ask myself, do they really want help? A lot of them were complaining about how fat they think they are and the guilt they feel when they overindulge themselves. But then, I saw that many of them were trying to offer each other advice on how to lose the weight and many others asked questions on how to lose a significant amount of weight fast.

I’ve had thoughts in the past where I found myself consistently thinking about my weight and for a while I tried to figure out ways where I could outsmart the system. I would eat very little and then eat a big unhealthy meal when I couldn’t take it anymore. I wouldn’t exercise on a regular basis and I wouldn’t call my lifestyle healthy, obviously.

At one point in my life, about two and a half years ago…I was approached by a very talented photographer. Following my last blog, it was at some point after I felt I reached the “beginning” of my modeling career. He wanted to meet with me to possibly do a “test shoot”. At this meeting, he told me everything I needed to fix myself. My hair needed to be all one color and longer, my teeth whiter, my skin needed regular facials, and I needed to lose about 10 to 15 pounds in which he suggested I get a trainer.

Of course, even today, I still feel that most of these things were very legit. I mean to be a model, you need to be close to “perfect”, that is your job. When I  say “perfect”, of course there are “imperfections” that make a model a super model, but there are certain criteria necessary to the job. As for the weight, I knew that would be a difficult issue for me. At that point in my life, I didn’t know how to lose weight properly. I weighed around 135 pounds at that point but lied and said I was 125 pounds. But still girls who were my height (5’7″) needed to be ideally 115 pounds or so.

It’s a huge deal when someone tells you that you need to be at least 15 pounds lighter when you already think that it’s tough enough as it is to stay at your current weight. Being that he was “high up” on the ladder, I took him very seriously and vowed to contact him again when I felt I was ready. I had no clue how to do this properly. I mean what I was doing obviously wasn’t working and so I started eating a lot less but only lost like 5 pounds over a long period of inconsistent dieting and exercising.

Over the course of a couple of years, I could not make up my mind if I really wanted to pursue this. At some point I did contact him back but he kept reminding me to call him when I was completely ready. I just wanted to get into the industry already. Maybe I could fool them? But, deep down there was always something holding me back.

Eventually, I met up with him, did the shoot that cost me $600. Over the last year or so, he became quite popular so it was hard to schedule something with him but I knew that he was the perfect connection and was almost certain this would lead me to my goal. I applied to an agency with the photos I took with him but apparently they already had someone who looked like me. Ha. I became obsessed with trying to “make it”  and at one point, I went to L.A. and an agency wanted to work with me but I didn’t want to move or commute to L.A. I kept the agent’s business card in my wallet for quite some time. I thought maybe I would be willing to move there after I graduated from college. A year or so went by again but I never felt ready to model.

So my question to myself at that point was why am I really doing this? Over the last several years, I met plenty of girls who seemed unsure of themselves or who just wanted to be in this industry for the wrong reasons. Others thought they eventually would make it. But, I found that most of the girls I met reached some peak and then their five minutes of fame died out. Some girls made it big. They went to L.A. and New York and are now doing what they really wanted to do. But in my opinion, the majority of us are just confused and following a life that media and society have convinced us to do. I feel that many people realize that this is getting out of hand…but am I being unrealistic to hope for others to expand their minds like me? Is it getting better or worse? When will we move past this?

An insider’s look into mainstream “modeling”

*Mainstream “modeling” is a term I created to express this emergence of people wanting to model in the fashion industry which has gained extreme popularity over the last several years.

When did society become so media-obsessed? All over TV, everyone is obsessed with fashion, fame, attention; being a part of this group has become such a normal occurrence.

For many years when I was around the ages of 12 to 16, I was approached countless times by modeling scouts, people who thought I should be a model. It flattered me but most of the time I just snubbed them away. Maybe I didn’t take them seriously, I was young and at the time life wasn’t like how it is today.

Then I started growing up and the attention died down. I started craving it, I needed it, I thought modeling was my calling. I began pursuing it, but the only ones I pursued turned out to be disappointments, false promises. But I still had hope, and for years I chased that illusion of the “promised land”. Even if it meant sacrificing time and dignity, I did it. But why? That is a question I didn’t ask myself in depth at the time but for the moment it made me feel better… temporary “happiness”.

I would spend hours trying to get gigs on my own, doing many fashion shows, shoots, hair shows, live modeling, anything that kept me busy and on the spotlight. Everyday I sat at the computer trying to find ways to become heavily involved. I scoured through websites like myspace, craigslist, and modelmayhem. It was amazing how many people out there needed me. And of course, most of the time, I wasn’t getting paid. I thought of it as my right of passage. I had to get experience right?? How else would I get the good jobs. I needed the exposure right? How else would I meet the connections?

But somehow I got lost in the midst of the excitement. It became a rush to do fashion shows and shoots and I loved having all of these pictures of myself. It’s quite sick when I think of it now. But it was the reality of it. And there were many more just like me. I did, however, make the progress I wanted. I eventually shot with an amazing group of people and had a small spread in a local magazine. I was so excited, I gave copies out to friends and family. I thought…this is only the beginning. And it was, but not the kind I was imagining.

When did modeling become so mainstream? Why are there so many girls out there who want to be models and call themselves “models”? Yes, of course, the attention and power. But whatever happened to doing something you really believe in? When did the media cross the line and attract so many fans?