This week was my first photo shoot with a French model. It's always difficult to build a new team and network when you're in a new area. Most teams consist of six basic categories: make-up artist (MUA), hairstylist, stylist, retoucher, model, and photographer. Yes, you can get away with a model and photographer, but everything runs more smoothly and the quality is usually better with a full team.
For any new photographers out there or photographers getting into any kind of photography involving people, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, portraiture, etc., I highly recommend building a team. The best thing that I've found for building a team is to find people building their portfolios. This is mainly due to the fact that they most likely won't require money as payment and will do time for product (TFP). Essentially that means the payment will be the photos themselves.
In the beginning you can fulfill multiple roles, for example, I also retouch and do the hairstyling since I've been a hairstylist for Toni&Guy for seven years and have been heavily working with Photoshop for several years. This is fine for the beginning, but after a while, you will want to have different people for each role so you can focus on the photography or whichever your talent is. For instance, you'll be shooting and the hairstylist and MUA will be looking at their specific areas to let you know if either is off and needs adjusting.
You simply can't compare the technical ability to somebody who has trained in that specific field to somebody who does it on occasion. Take photography for example, ok anybody can click a shutter button, but what makes you better? It's the hundreds of hours that you have spent on honing your craft to allow you to focus on every little aspect. Knowing how to light the subject, using the light to achieve the desired result and to know exactly what equipment you will need to achieve that. Realizing the limitations of your equipment, like I knew the flash I was using had a fast enough flash duration the freeze the hair in motion. Having in depth knowledge of angles and focal length to know which will be more flattering and how to use them to your advantage. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you can see how your average person taking snapshots just doesn't think about these things. This is why a team is important.
A good resource, for me at least, has been using Model Mayhem to find team members. Feel free to add me there, URL will be at the bottom. You can browse for specific categories based on location and several other filters. This is where I found Diane for my photo shoot this week. It was a tad hard to find a model in Paris that spoke French, but with time I found Diane. Not only was she a model, but also a MUA and had clothes from a stylist from a previous photo shoot. Which meant we could fulfill all the roles for a proper team.
Go on out there, find a team, and set a shoot up! I would love to see some of you work, so feel free to e-mail me or tag me on IG or FB.
modelmayhem.com/justin-proctor
justinscottproctor@gmail.com
@justinproctor_
Diane Martin:
kaprice.book.fr/
@diane_martin_