Wanted: Models

Like many other photographers when I first got my camera I was eager to shoot any and everything. My dream was to shoot the most attractive females and make a decent living from shooting. The only problem was that nobody really knew who I was or what I was trying to do. Here’s how I was able to get models…

SOCIAL MEDIA: There are tons of social media sites out there today. The more popular ones are Twitter and Facebook and in my eyes the best app out right now is instagram. Use whatever site to your advantage and begin to market yourself.

Instagram just came out when I first got my camera and it was one of the first apps to be entirely photo based. Concept is simple; Take a photo, add a description and some tags, then post. Some of your followers let you know that they “like” your photo by literally double tapping the screen until a heart appeared. This is perfect for photographers to post work and reach a broader audience. My goal was to reach the urban community and shoot eye candy but had no real work to show for it and no real model would give me the time of day. My solution; appeal to the ratchets.

Now when I say appeal to the ratchets I don’t mean it in a disrespectful way. What I mean is to find someone with a social media presence and has a decent following. That person also has to love taking photos of themselves and just about every weekend they’re in a club. Those are the ones who will be more than willing to shoot with you and will flood their Timeline with your work. They are strictly there to get your name out there.

(Unless you want to be a club photographer Please DO NOT heavily post and advertise those photos. You do not want to be labeled as that type of photographer if those are not your intentions.) I shot about 4 ratchets before finally being able to get some decent talent. I was attracting rappers and tattoo artists and in case you didn’t know, they hang with plenty of attractive females. I made sure to stay in contact with the artists and the girls they hung with and eventually I got my shot to shoot with one of them.

The timing couldn’t of been more perfect. It was summer, it was hot, and the pool was open. After the shoot I made sure to edit every photo to the best of my abilities and put my watermark on each image because I knew these were a home-run and she was going to advertise heavy. That one shoot not only got my name of there but I was now being looked at as not only a photographer, but as a professional.