Strange experience at my first modelshot meeting and why this kind of photography is nothing for me
Hey,
last Sunday I attended with a friend of mine a model shot meeting with some other local hobby photographers and hobby models. This was the first meeting of that sort I ever was and I only got into it, cause my friend asked me, if I wanted to come with him. I never made photos of any models, or much photos of people in general, so I went with him, seeing the opportunity to learn something new.
At the meeting I was with my Pentax 645 analog camera and the tiny Pentax Q the absolute exotic. Most of the other photographers came with brand new Sony cameras and the newest, most expensive lenses. Also most of the time the topic number one was, what are the newest camera models and lenses, how much they cost and how they will improve the own pictures.
The models where mostly very young girls, between 20-25 years old and with my 35 years I was one of the younger half of the photographers. Also I found the way, many of the photographers talked to the models, wasn't very political correct, sometimes even sexist. Not the way I would ever talk to a woman, especially to a stranger woman.
I decided not to ask a girl right at the beginning for a shooting, but first watch the others, how they shot and what kind of pictures they were taking. But after a short time I saw that most of the pictures where the same, just a girl, in a random location, making the same poses all the time. This is not the kind of picture I wanted to shot, or even find pleasing to look at.
So I separated a little bit from the group to take some pictures of some autumn flowers with my 645 and the 120mm macro. Something I found much more pleasing, than some random girl posing some random moves. In the end, I took absolute no picture of one of the girls. I also can't think of reason why, what would I do with the pictures? They will tell now interesting story.
I spent the rest of the evening talking to another photographer who was also for the first time at such meeting and didn't feel at the right place, too. In the end he took some pictures of me with a very interesting vintage Carl Zeiss wide lens. I will post them here as soon I get them myself. He also has a webpage: http://www.m-artpics.de
After all, I didn't feel very comfortable most of the time at the meeting, also I think, this would be the last one I will go do.
So, am I strange?
Okay, this is really interesting. I've always thought the whole idea of amateur photographers shooting models just for fun and not with a specific professional goal was a bit strange. I suppose it's like myself as an amateur photographer traveling to take photos of landscape of animals just for fun. I guess because taking pictures of people, outside my own family, has never really interested me? Maybe if it did I would be looking for more opportunities. I do like the street portraits some photographers do, where they'll ask for permission to shoot a subject them give them the photo.
In any case, I would have felt uncomfortable like you did with some sexist comments and maybe just the vibe of a bunch of guys shooting a bunch of young ladies. Maybe I'm old fashioned that way 😄 But good for you for stretching yourself and trying something new. Hope you got good pictures of those flowers 😂
Dude, I am so with you. There is (still) a big gross factor in photography, I come across it even though I try to avoid it. Packing your portfolio with pictures of young women, often in sensual poses, may have some kind of conventional normalcy to it, but I think increasingly, people are looking at it more objectively, all except for these entrenched photographers. Sites like Fstoppers and a lot of photo-media and "quick buck for the teacher" photography courses reinforce this.
Photographers seem to forget what a portrait is. Portraiture is meant to be personal, and show the character of the person, and 99 times out of 100 portraits of beautiful young women are fashion, not portraiture. Which is a genre that I really don't see why people want to be involved in, I certainly don't, not with the way modern fashion is. Which is to say, divorced from all reality.
I'm with @agentlossing here. There's like a weird holdover from artistic conventions from fashion, fine art, or even classical artistic practices which give this sort of thing the air of "conventional normalcy", but is actually pretty creepy in a lot of situations. Not that it can' t be artfully, meaningfully, or tastefully done, it just often isn't, and that sounds like the experience that you had.
Shoot what you want you want to shoot, but don't shoot what you don't want to shoot!
