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My two cents
Lately quite a few people have been asking my opinion about glamour-photography so I thought I might just group my answers here.
About starting out as a glamour photographer :
I imagine, when you want to get into the business of glamour photography, you already have the necessary technical skills as a good photographer. Be sure that you are able to take a good picture in any kind of circumstance without having to fiddle with the technical part. Nothing gets more on a models nerves than having to wait for the photographer to get his camera and lights set up !
Once you’re OK with that, THE most important thing in glamour photography is TRUST !
Having a great portfolio to start off with, facilitates things of course, but that’s a “chicken or the egg” type premise. But, luckily, your portfolio, or lack thereof is not so much of a hurdle as you would think.
The way you communicate with models is by far the most important. You’d be surprised how little they care about what you’ve already done and how much they care about what you’re going to do, together with them, as a team.
Once you’ve gotten a model interested in working with you, I would say that - just as in any other style - honesty and professionalism will ultimately pay off. If a model, be it professional or not, feels that you, the photographer, is just that, a photographer (and therefor not a “horny” man), you will already have achieved their trust which is of course THE most important element in your relationship.
If then the model also realises that you have the desire AND the capabilities of making her look her absolute best, then you have the ingredients to achieve great succes.
So if there’s one thing I would suggest you add to your technical skill, it would have to be : the techniques of making women (and men) look their very best. These techniques would be : make-up, hairstyle, styling, photoshop and a good knowledge of the human physique (so you know which poses make a body look at its best).
About having your own “style” :
Well, that’s a bit of a question mark for me too. I still haven’t decided whether the fact that I don’t have a solid style is a pro or a con from a commercial point of view.
Personally, I love changing styles in function of the project and the model(s) but I don’t know if potential customers have enough of an open mind. I know from the days when I owned a modelling agency, that fashion-customers hardly have any imagination. If a bridal-dress company wants to book a model, they want to see that model in a bridal dress. They’d rather refuse the very best model if they only see her in, for example, Jeans and accept a lesser model which does have those pictures.
To me, being able to adopt different styles is proof of your talent, but that’s only me.
I’ll let you know if I ever decide if the pro’s outway the cons or not.
About marketing
The marketing of it all … well, as usual, word of mouth is by far the best way to go and that might well be achieved by finding a couple of young people who are interested in tfp-shoots to extend both your portfolio’s. If you then post these pictures (and be assured, so will they, so “brand” the pictures you give them) to the social networks, I’m pretty sure you’ll soon “take off”.
However, if you don’t, do not despair and most importantly, do not change your habits or opinions to better suit what you think the market wants.
In my early days I found that much of the business of glamour photography is run by people who are mainly interested in cheating on their wives with pretty young girls. The fact that that disgusted me, got me banned from a lot of potential customers since they did not trust me (they were afraid that I would judge them or worse still: tell on them to their wives !). The fact that I did not “change my ways” to better adapt to what they wanted (because I couldn’t AND wouldn’t if I could) eventually paid off. It took a lot more time, but at least I could always look in the mirror (and my wife’s eyes) and be proud of that what made me different !
And now for some shameless self-promotion :
If you’re interested in the “Glamour” and/or “men’s magazine” style, we do give workshops every now and then in our Valley in Portugal (combined with a great holiday in our glamping : glamphotography holiday) !
Best of luck to all aspiring glamour photographers !
Grtz,
Patrick
My photography blog on http://patrick-desomer.tumblr.com
Our “glamping” website on http://www.glampelo.com
Our Portugal-blog on http://glampeloblog.tumblr.com
our new facebook-page on http://www.facebook.com/pages/Glampelo/170184576380625
Busy busy busy
The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray !(to quote Ken Burns).
I only just decided to start a blog and to keep it up to date as well as possible and already i have skipped no less than 3 days without a squeak (pun about the mice intended).
I had about 2000 pictures to sort since I promised two people I would have their pictures ready asap. And in a way it was a road less traveled for me. I usually don’t take pictures of Holy Communions or of marriages but every now and then I make an exception.
The Holy Communion was of the school where my daughter attends. And since my ex-wife does all she can to be the popular parent by attending everything I hardly ever can, I decided this would be an ideal opportunity for me to show my good will. And surprise, surprise, I had fun doing it too!
The marriage pictures were done for a really REALLY nice couple with whom it really “clicked” (once again … pun intended). You see, normally I’m a bit of a controlfreak and marriages are not really a controlled environment. But these young lovers really saw things the same way I did. So I did the wedding-day-pictures and … the “trash-the-dress-shoot” a week later (and that is a lot more my cup of tea!). I’ll ask them if I can upload a few of these pictures soon, I think you’ll love ‘em too (I hope they don’t mind me posting the one below).
And today, well today was a great day. Belgium was bathing in sunshine and my wife, my daughter and myself enjoyed a great day with the in-laws and my youngest sister in law.
Tomorrow, things should be back to normal, so expect a new - less a-typical - update then.
Bye !
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