It was September 2008 and I was headed to Toronto for my much awaited weekend where I was attending Virgin Music Festival with headliners like Foo Fighters and Oasis, who were two of my favorite bands at the time. That wasn’t all that was on my agenda though, as mentioned in Photo Bio #10 I also planned on doing my first artistic nude shoot. I was only 18 years old, so all of these were pretty big deals for me.
I had booked a hotel for the weekend in the big city. I had been wanting to try shooting nudes for a while, so I figured a hotel would be a good place to start since it was private and had furniture to pose on. I had a couple generic poses planned, but aside from that I didn’t really know how I wanted to shoot. Since I basically had no experience shooting I looked online for models who would be willing to pose for paid sessions. I knew the likelyhood of me getting something good was slim, so shooting as a trade was out of the question.
I reached out to one model and tried to set things up. Nervous with the quickly approaching festival weekend, I reached out to a second model just in case the first one didn’t work out. I ended up getting 2 models who were willing to pose. Rather than cancelling I went through with 2 separate shoots, in one morning before heading to the music festival. First I shot with Dani who shot with me for 1 hour for $75.
Quickly I realized that I really didn’t know what I was doing, nor did I know how to pose nude models. Very quickly it began looking like an amateur-shot erotic shoot. It wasn’t tasteful, though I really didn’t know any better at the time. I was young, stupid, and hadn’t really been around naked women before. I kind of just hid behind my camera and held on for dear life.
To my surprise the model actually had pentagrams tattooed on her breasts, which gave the entire shoot a somewhat quirky vibe.
The second shoot was kind of the same, I tried my best to come up with interesting poses, but ultimately didn’t learn much after shooting the first one just an hour earlier. This shoot was with Deanna and cost $100 for one hour. The shoot again consisted of a striptease, was more reminiscent of the not so artistic stuff you see on popups.
There were a few ones that stood out to me at the time, like this one.
In hindsight I think that these shoots had to happen. They gave me the chance to get comfortable around nudity, and learn about making models comfortable. The awkwardness of not knowing what to shoot made me avoid going into shoots without having a real plan. I also dreaded the idea of the models borderline exploiting themselves and only getting a little cash in return. I figured that from that point on I would rather collaborate with models who feel like they can get something out of the shoot, and mutually benefit from it. With the exception of helping models pay gas I haven’t really had to pay a model since these first two shoots.
The next model I photographed nudes with is Mellie, she went to the same college with me, and loved shooting nudes. She liked that we were both new to it, and wanted to grow together. There will be more on our shoots soon, as they began just a few weeks later and spanned several years.
Thanks for reading my latest Photo Bio! Here is a list of all the Photo Bio’s to date:
Photo Bio #12 - Ceramic Art, Anniversary, And A Drone
Photo Bio #11 - Hobbit Hole Love Story & 5yr Anniversary
Photo Bio #10 - Concert Photographer Evolution
Photo Bio #9 - Out With The Old And In With The New
Photo Bio #8 - First Glam Shoot With Tina...and Friends?
Photo Bio #7 - An Alien Utopia to Photograph In Your Own Backyard!
Photo Bio #6 - How To Create A Twin In Photoshop
Photo Bio #5 - Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas Study
Photo Bio #4 - I Almost Became A Pilot!
Photo Bio #3 - Everyone Found Out I Was Different, But...Being Different Is Good!
Photo Bio #2 - Fresh Perspective
Photo Bio #1 - ...My Parents, Construction Machinery, and Dinosaurs...
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