New Model Megan – Portfolio Shoot and Video
December 18, 2009 by Joe Edelman
Filed under Modeling Portfolio, Recent Articles
The models name: Megan Fleming
Megan is a 5’5′ adorable 20 year old brunette from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who works as a hair stylist.
Megan is just beginning her modeling career and came to me to get her started.
What you are seeing here is the result of about three weeks worth of planning. Several face-to-face meetings, two – two hour practice sessions, and three full days (8 hours each) of shooting in early December.
Her goal: To get signed by as many agencies as possible in the Philadelphia market and work part-time as a model.
In addition to being beautiful and in great shape, Megan’s greatest strength as a potential model is her range. She can easily look 15 or 25 or anywhere in between. She also has a tremendous amount of personality and is very comfortable in front of the camera.
The game plan: I knew from the time that I first met Megan that I would want to shoot some creative beauty shots with her. I also knew that I would want to work with my favorite creative artist from NYC – Natalia Egorova.
Given that Megan is a hair stylist, she is also very good at doing her own makeup for simple commercial looks (something EVERY model should be able to do and do well). This gave me a little extra flexibility by allowing me to skip some of the pre-requisite shots for the commercial presentation (College Co-Ed, Athletics, Business, Medical, etc) and focus on the more creative looks while I had Natalia available to me. I will bring Megan back into the studio after the holidays to shoot the commercial basics and a few real clean headshots.
Execution: Planning, planning and more planning! My shoots are very aggressive. My philosophy is that if I have a pretty girl and a talented makeup artist – I want to shoot. I don’t want to stand around and look at a bunch of outfits and hope that something inspires a great idea and worse yet I don’t want to take chances that the model will not bring the appropriate outfits. Megan made three trips to my studio before we shot with Natalia. We discussed her goals as a new model. We created a marketing plan, reviewed outfits and did two 2 hour long practice sessions so that Megan would be comfortable and know exactly what I expected from her during the shoots.
When the shoot days arrived, we began at 9:30a.m. (There is a reason you don’t see sunrise photos in my portfolio) and worked until about 4:40p.m each day. We were able to shoot an average of 12 completely different shots each day, changing the hair, makeup and sets for each one.
4,000 plus frames later, here are some of the results.
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Check back in a few days and I will post some behind the scenes lighting diagrams and check back over the next few months – I will share the rest of Megan’s portfolio and keep you updated on her progress.
Beautiful woman. My question, since a lot of woman I shoot, being from a small market, how many agencies hire 5’5″ 20 year old models? I’d like to be able to point some in the right direction. Megan has a nice glamour look, bikini, lingerie. A great face and hair. Do you have any suggestions on what agencies hire those type of models?
Thanks,
James
Hi James, thank you for the kind words regarding Megan – she is indeed a beautiful young woman.
To answer your question: Most agencies outside of New York accept 5’5″ models.
Let me clarify a few points first.
Agencies do NOT hire models. Agencies never pay models; in fact legally the model pays the agency. The actual business relationship is that a model hires an agency to help her procure work. The model then pays the agency anywhere from 15 – 25% of what she earns from the client in exchange for that service.
That said, most of the models that you see on my web site are under 5’6″ and they are or have worked through agencies. They do not however work in NYC. See the article: Location, Location, Location You model where you live on my web site.
You mentioned the categories of glamour, bikini and lingerie. Very little of this work is booked through traditional modeling agencies. The primary reason is that modeling agencies are dealing with commercial clients. Most women who do glamour model of the type that you have mentioned do it on a freelance basis.
If you are looking for a listing of agencies in your area: Click Here to view the Modeling Agency directory on my web site.
I promise to write more about this in future blog posts.
Keep shooting!
Joe