Photographer Pains

Working with photographers is half my job, and for the most part, I love it. Great photographers know what they want and how to make it work, and it’s a joy to collaborate with them. But, as always, I do have a few pet peeves. A lot of them have to do with getting the best possible shot of the model’s face, which is of course the part I care most about.

• Asking me to contour due to lighting. I hate when a photographer asks me to cake on the blush because their lighting washes out the model. Hey, should you maybe dim your lighting then? Or wanting a portion of their forehead bronzed because of the reflector, then making me wait around to remove it when the model moves. Do you know what a pain that is? Go paint part of a white wall brown, then tell me how simple it is to get it white again. It is the photographer’s job to get the lighting right for the shot - painting on shadows should not be part of job, at least not for print work.

• Contorting the model to get the shot. I’ll grant that good models are willing to do whatever it takes to get the shot, but that doesn’t mean they should have to. I’ve seen photographers coax models into awkward, uncomfortable, and even dangerous positions when they couldn’t frame the shot just right. And the kicker is that those shots rarely end up being used anyway, because newsflash: discomfort isn’t pretty. Work with the space you have or reconfigure your setup. Don’t twist the poor girl into a pretzel.

• Pointing the camera up a models' nose. Get on a step stool or ladder, for cripes’ sake. What, are you too vain to admit you aren’t as tall as a six foot model in four inch heels? Or just afraid of heights? Pull yourself together, man. This is your job.

• Not communicating with the model. Even great models can’t visualize exactly what you see through your lense, and they certainly have no way of knowing what you are envisioning for the shot unless you tell them. You should have a near constant dialogue with your model while you are shooting, even if they’re doing exactly what you want - you should say that.