When I first started shooting I learned a valuable lesson. Just because a photographer sends you great inspiration images, doesn’t mean he has the ability to pull them off. I know this should seem obvious but his port was pretty decent, and you sometimes figure that if they are inspired by great sources they must have some artistic vision and facility.
This shoot was one of only four times I’ve done trade. On the whole I don’t like trade. It always turns out badly. The photographer generally doesn’t give a shit about you anymore at that point. If they’re paying money, they seem more invested in good images coming out of the whole thing. That’s just been my experience though. I’m wary of it. I don’t like it. I know a lot of people trade, but I almost never do. If I need images for my port I have a few trusted friends that I have come to rely on to collaborate with, with generally good results.
This guy wanted to shoot me as a sexy nun. He sent me some cool inspiration images, and I was like “Why not? He’s not asking me to get naked for free and I haven’t made many friends in NYC yet.”
He referred to a makeup artist and a stylist in his emails with me. His port wasn’t GREAT, but it wasn’t TERRIBLE, either. I was willing to gamble. Then I talked to him on the phone. He had a Russian, Ukrainian accent. I was kind of in at that point. I have a thing for Russian immigrants. They’re coming (most of the time) from a pretty bleak situation to the United States in the hopes of making something more out of there lives. I’ve been an ESL tutor since highschool and so I have a really soft spot for people that want to make something better of themselves from places like Mexico, Laos, the Ukraine etc. It’s a soft spot that gets me in trouble at times too.
So I agree to the shoot and end up meeting him at the Cemetery where we’re supposed to shoot. I already had a bad feeling. I was pretty sure he didn’t have permits or permission to shoot there, and cemeteries get pretty upset about that kind of thing.
The makeup artist turned out to be his neighbor who was a real estate agent who liked to do makeup (though not very well), and the stylist, his wife, who had ordered me a cheesy costume off of ebay and some costume jewelry. The outfit looked cheap, the makeup bad, and whether or not they knew it, I’d been on enough shoots to know that we weren’t going to be allowed to hang out there for long before shit went pear shaped. Also I have a thing about shooting in cemeteries. People go there to mourn, I think it’s distracting to watch people turning their loved ones final resting places into a photo opportunity.
It just, well, it just didn’t really turn out, and we were kicked out of the place within a few minutes.
It was just a case of vision exceeding grasp. The photos were silly to be frank, and he retouched them far too much. I couldn’t really use them. Though now, they’re great for my Instamatic app on my iPhone and make funny ironic avatars for my twitter.
Indeed, the first try to live out an intimate fantasy was bad. But there are better ways. I could tell you by email.