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Fashion Photography Business Crash Course

This segment is all about it's, not a fashion photography crest course, but the fashion business or putting together shoots or getting paid or making money because every single thing that I learned about how to be successful in commercial and portrait and fashion photography I made up along the way, but I mean, I looked there wasn't any guides on how to get into fashion photography once in a while, there would be, like, across the country, some guy was giving, like an hour talk somewhere in l a like I just couldn't find anything, so I've kept mental know along the way, all of the things I wish someone would have told me, the terminology, the ways to reach clients and things like that. So this presentation is more definitely more word heavy then aa lot of I love showing images, but this is a lot more definitions and things like that because there's things I just wish I would have known, so please feel free to stop me, but I'll be covering everything from, like, what's a call sheet. How ...

do you get closing? How do you put together a creative team? How did you get to where you are s o I'm going to tell you that story really quick because it is relevant. Everybody has a different story uh I know that the standard way that people get established in fashion photography usually is that what they would do is you moved to new york or miami l a maybe san francisco but really it's moved to new york and you go and you work for a fashion photographer you go ahead and you work as an assistant and in the past you would work or you would basically be their apprentice for two years or three years and along the way you would learn their lighting techniques and you would learn how they interact with clients and how you decide what to charge and I put together shoot and maybe you would do a couple of these apprenticeships you're building up your contacts your shooting on the side and then eventually you venture out into the world on your own and there's a lot of famous photographers really successful ones and that's exactly what they did however when I chose to enter the field of fashion photography things have been turned upside down because of the barrier to entry is much lower if you have a digital camera and a website you can go ahead and pitch yourself is a lot different in the past so I didn't do any of that so this is my story real quick to give you context for the rest of everything else um I discovered fashion photography the fact that I liked it my the end of my junior year in college. So for me, the most valuable thing of college wasn't that I was learning like stops no stuff honestly, I had a business long before I went to college and knew that stuff. It was that I tried everything unlike brooke what we talked about the last segment she knew who she was, what she wanted to do right away. That was not the case for me. I did nature photography I did high school, senior portrait I did photojournalism I tried everything. So near the end of my college career I tried this thing called fashion photography took a class and really all the class was was just learning about the greats like who were the masters and then couple shooting assignments and it was just one of those ah ha moments weren't fit like oh that's what I was supposed to be doing out this is much easier okay, this is where I'm going to go. Umm and so after college I moved to london and I was going to excite studied abroad and I loved it and I figured well, now is the time right now is the time to go live in a random country and have fun and is building my business and so I was shooting and making contacts and I was building slowly just by finding people in model mayhem I was reaching out to hair stylist on model mayhem, wardrobes, dallas and model mayhem and putting together little shoots here and there. And honestly, most of my work in london was it was like, ok, nothing, nothing serious, nothing that was like none of it's in my portfolio anymore. I was just trying to figure things out, and I was really lost because I didn't know anybody. I didn't know any terminology, I didn't know I didn't have any mentors or anything like that, so I shot stuff, but nothing that really helped me all that much what it did help me do is get more creative because people there's a lot of creativity there. Alright, well, fast forward to the part that's more relevant, I moved back to the united states, and I did not have the money to move to new york city. The place is crazy. Expensive, eh? So what I did is I was running a portrait studio in upstate new york, and I was doing weddings and high school, senior portrait's and photos of babies and newborns and maternity sessions and all of that and it's the filling myself by doing personal projects on the side and then also trying to add a little bit that fashion field to those chutes, what I would do so is I started connecting with people in new york and I live three and a half hours outside of the city through in half hour bus ride, and what I would do is reach out to people on model mayhem and model mayhem, in case you don't know is the social network for photographers, marcellus makeup, artist models and wardrobe stylists basically, everyone you need for a photo shoot, and so I'd send out e mails and try to work with people here and there and put together shoots and slowly but surely I was able to build up my portfolio, so what I would do is I would start off by photographing friends, family or for example, I was in high school senior portrait, a lot of young girls if you're just doing tight beauty shots and I do not know how to pose and we need to be six foot tall, so I just did some beauty shots or I would shoot shots where the girl's hair was in their face they're spinning around so doesn't matter if you see their face, they don't need to look like a model on that. I would take clothes that I would borrow from vintage shops or h and m who is really good return policy, so I was like, I was working on those things and trying to build my book that way, and so slowly what I did is I contacted some of the hair stylist and makeup artist in my area so actually where my photo studio was a block and a half away was hair color cafe does the name of it and they had you know, a lot of young women there that had gotten to cosmetology school love doing hair and makeup and really wanted to do stuff that was more creative so I went over and I had a conversation said, hey, I've got this high school senior she's really beautiful I'm going to do some fun shoots do you wantto do shoots with me? And so then they agreed to do the hair and makeup and so it kept my costs down so I was able to get some like pretty shots to that instead of having to photograph my friends I could go ahead and pitched model agencies and I want to tell you like, oh my cheeky does not lies they're just like not exactly giving all the details so like for the model agencies there are no model agencies where I was in upstate new york none like I was in binghamton, new york nothing there so what I did is they started to reach out to model agencies in new york and I had built up some nice photos just to feel the high school senior girls and I said, you know, on the fashion photographer I've got this amazing location and upstate new york I love you know, I'm I've got this, uh, this family to agree to let me shoot there to my family and I love to have some of the girls come up so we could do is shoot, I'll pay for their bus and so some agency started sending me girls three and a half hours of state so I could do some tests there and I could shoot for things there. Um and as I started tio shoot with more models, I start to reach out some hair and makeup in new york and convince them to come up, and then I would go down to new york once in a while and I would take my gear, and at the time I had white lightning, you know, just very basic and expensive gear right now I have, you know, my my brown color gear and things like that. Well, I started with what a lot of us have in our studios, and I'd bring it down and then I rent out, um it was like basically ballet halls that you could rent to teach, and I would just do a shoot there because that's the space that I could afford for thirty, forty dollars an hour or would chew on location down in the city, so I did that began shooting and then I met a wardrobe stylist on dh her name's lisa smith craig forces in style management and we didn't shoot together and it's all about the people in fashion photography it's all about that yes it's about your vision, your creativity and whatnot but she was my into that world because she worked with me we did a shoot together she thought it was professional she thought that I was timely I got the images back if something didn't look right to her, I was willing to have a conversation. Maybe I would re touch those clothing or maybe that wasn't a great shot and she was styling for big bands and for red carpet and for magazines, and since she felt comfortable liked my work and felt that it was someone she could rely on, she started offering me jobs. No, that doesn't mean she was hiring me per se. She was saying, oh, this person just said they wanted to a shooting I need a photographer here's their contact go talk to them so she was my end introducing you to people because she felt a connection and thought she could rely on me so eventually threw her on and the context photographing professional athletes and models and things like that it begins to know enough people that I had enough income to feel comfortable to move to new york and so once you're in new york then it's hair and makeup everywhere models everywhere and I mean there's everything is readily available but it was kind of making that step so it's not fake it till you make it in some sense it's be confident right away and if your profession like you are in the rest of your business that's opens up the doors it's not who you know as and like oh yes my uncle is this rich zone so it's who you make yourself known to I made myself known to her I went out I made connections with other people that could introduce me because you never know which individual opens up huge doors thie niche that I fell into for example was for professional women's basketball players that was my niche I photographed one I believe I did a very good job I'll show you the kind of the first shoot that I did and so she loved it and then her teammates see that and then the people on the other team see that and then this is their promotion materials so very quickly you can find a niche that helps support you if you talk to most fashion photographers to be honest, most fashion photographers don't have thirty clients they're working nonstop most fashion photographers have a few really important client it's that pay majority of their bills because if you get a couple of big commercial shoots that's kind of what you rely on, so we'll have those few really good big ones that they cater to, and then they have the rest of their paying the bills. A majority of fashion photographers aren't making one hundred thousand shoot, but that does exist. There is the very bottom of everybody trying to at least get established, then there's the working fashion photographer and then there's like fifteen people here. Yeah, that's, that's the reality of it. I'm not one of those fifteen people yet. Hey, we're working on it, so that is more or less my story today I live in new york city live on the upper west side. Um, I have my core team that I work with pretty much the same people, almost every single shoot because I can rely on them and we understand each other creatively have a studio in chelsea and I shoot for a variety of international fashion magazines and direct music videos I shoot look books, I shoot advertising campaigns issue a lot for magazine and portrait's and all of that so that's my back story, I'm going to jump into the crash course and let me know if anything doesn't make sense and I don't feel like you have tio noah, write down every word on that screen if you do purchase, of course I have all of the definitions I mentioned here in that pdf, so it just summarizes it for you so you can have quick reference. So let's, take a look and then this is my website. So if you were like, oh, fashion photography, what does she do? You can figure out what I do there. I so life as a fashion photographer sounds awesome. Okay, you get to be creative, you get to be published, you get teo travel like I've been a whole bunch of really cool places this year. You get to party, get to make good money. Well, maybe like that's like that that's what you're hoping for is the parties in the travel and all that stuff. But in reality, the majority of what you do is like your networking with people you're cold calling or cold emailing, trying to figure out what trends air in so you can show your relevant. You're getting rejected non stop, and you've got to be okay with it, because sometimes you don't sit what they're looking for, and people don't say it that nicely, it would not be that gentle, um, you're constantly updating your portfolio and really you're managing people. That's what I feel like on most of my shoots, I'm doing, and so in the previous segment, we're talking with brooke, and she said, I don't don't do it now, everything with hair, makeup, wardrobe, on my sense, I have hair and makeup and model and wardrobe, and I don't mean this in a mean way, but we're all creatives, and I'm sure you know that creatives austin are sensitive or have egos or both, and so you have to be really careful, because in order for the final product to be what you want, you got to make everyone happy, and so I'm often just checking, ok? She have, you know she needs these this candy and knows her favorite cause that'll cheer her up, she just needs event. Let's go out in the hallway, I'll let her complain like sometimes you're just managing people s o this is like the reality of it cold calling, doing my research, constant email is a lot of rejection, but then you get the few successes and acceptances that make it all worth it in the fashion and commercial world. It's also more valuable, let's few successes, those few acceptance worth a lot more money, eh, so when you finally get those, it feels fantastic uh the part that I like is that in all the other types of photography that I did I'm not saying that portrait photography is not creative I do create a portrait photography but in fashion it was the closest to what I felt was fine art and for me I couldn't do fine art where it was just all about like me and my vision of all time I liked when I could listen to what you need take my creativity unlike his massive problem solver I loved that I think it's because I was a nerd in school you know like I like doing math problems and I liked like dissecting things like that was cool on dso that's my photographic equivalent is that I have to be creative but I can't just think about me I've gotto take all these other elements and make it work so for example you having a jewelry designer telling you the mood that they're going for and what they're trying to achieve in an advertisement oh and then you got a photograph the keys so how do you meet like their mood their demographic the publication is going to be in and photographing their peace on one it's definitely kind of a puzzle that you put together so the a variety of different things when you think of fashion photography it's not photographing like girls and dresses it's tons of different things and I make my money doing a lot of different things so maybe it's a hare campaign which could be everything from someone selling hair extensions to a hair salon to shampoo I mean it's anything that kind of beauty fashion realm eso makeup andi I got hired recently for a shoot for fake lashes like the old that's included or maybe it's a shoot for a makeup artists portfolio or wardrobe where is actually about the closing and there's a lot of considerations that go into that or portray and this is what I was talking about I do porch it's that feel like fashion photography so this is the first professional women's basketball player that I photograph in this shoot is what basically sustained me for my first year that I lived in new york because the one shoe snowball into all the rest on dso that is actually a lot of what pays me it's not even truly fashion but it is it's just not models it's real people with their clothing style for a particular publication on dh then editorial so editorials the stuff that you see in fashion magazines you flip to the back of a magazine there's you know eight to ten pages all on a theme I'm going to talk about those in depth that is the fun stuff where nobody's your boss you do whatever you want creatively you get to see it in a publication but f y I it pays you nothing so the fun stuff usually doesn't pay you much, but what I've come to find his in some roundabout ways, the things that originally pay me nothing sometimes end to the jobs that pay me the most because it catches people's attention and it's funny because sometimes a job that pays the most and really just want a girl standing there are no great background with her hand on her head, but you caught their attention with something else. So this is the type of stuff that I love to dio, but again, it won't pay the bills if you meet somebody that says that they're an editorial photographer for fashion this unless they make the money and then at its world portrait, which is like the cross in between. So the picture on the left is actually a fashion editorial that I did, and the picture on the right is a portrait, but the person saw the picture on the left and said, I want that one doesn't pay, and one does, but that's kind of how I'm working. All right? So I'm going to get started with planning issue kind of the bare bones of it and everything that you need to come sit and all the terminology and things like that and granted, I want to let you know that although I live in new york so I'm talking from my new york perspective, you don't have to be I mean, these things stay true, whether in miami or chicago, if you're in a rural area, you can do fashion shoots, it just maybe wouldn't be your living. Some people, I would say what's more common if you're living in a rural area is that you do much more portrait's infused with a fashion style, but the terminology will still remain the same. So let's, talk about the first thing. This is a question that you asked, um, how do you get everybody kind of on the same page? So whenever I do a shoot, I figure out what's what's the main point, so what's the point of it, is it going to be showing clothing? Isn't an editorial a creative shoot? Is that your fashion portrait and what I'll do is based on what the end goal czar is, I create something called mood board, and so a mood board is basically a collection of images that ideally, everyone on your team should be able to look at and no where you're going, what kind of roughly with that and image is going to look like so mood board, you'd have pictures of kind of what you're looking like looking for in hair and makeup. And maybe if you have a picture of the location or if you have a picture of lighting and usually what I do is I have like hair and I included words like soft and victorian I stuck a hair and I'm like even worse that make up, but I can kind of say like soft victorian like this is the mood we're going for and I used to include one picture that's closest to what I could find online toe what I'm trying to achieve even if it's not they get the feel ok she's going to do this the color thing in high contrast like to get that on dh then if I have the location and then if I have the model are you doing virtual boards or are you actually printing things out? And so that it you're constantly looking at a really good question so most the time I do a virtual board on guy send it out to them and it might just even be images that I just labeled hair makeup wardrobe if need be if it's time wise but with being client shoots when there's more money on the line, I print them out so that people have it next to them and I actually think that it often makes the client feel better because they can see where you're going and that's another discussion for personal editorial shoots for a magazine usually you can you pitch your mood board so they can say that fits us, you're hired you can shoot something and for a client they want to see that mood boards they know we're on the same page usually I have a couple I've had that I have around them the studio that have him as well, but great question because that recently happened where I come over to the hair and makeup she's amazing she's talented I go, what are you doing she's doing like the third look in and like like I needed to have it right there with times so it's a little more helpful for that? One of the things that you might consider is a program called base camp and base camp is used for project management so you can post photos and documents and things like that they have like a nine, ninety nine version or like an inexpensive monthly version so you could have like a project for your team and post the start times the location, the mood board, the hair makeup they can post their ideas and usually what I do is I send out a base mood board like this is what I'm thinking and then I asked my team, what do you think? Because maybe you know yourself, for example, for hair and makeup, maybe she's seen cooler makeup, but I just you know somebody from my time researching or maybe you know, lisa sees that goes that's not in this season we can't do those clothing and show some and so it's kind of a discussion back and forth so base camp I love it because I lose e mails and it goes all over the place so base camp you can sign in and you'll have a project name and look the top start times there the mood boards there instead of trying to search through email fishes creatives generally are that organized and usually pulling your hair out trying to manage them and then I've also created mood boards on pinterest on pinterest, pictures of social network with hundreds and thousands and about millions but lots and lots of images that are key worded and you can create your own mood board so basically it's like you tear out a photo and you pin it up on a wall well, you can do that on pinterest and so I'll make private mood boards that I can share with my team we can look because sometimes you were planning something, we're still flushing it out I want to keep it private so everyone doesn't know exactly what we're working on in that moment, but those would be the main ways so mood, board, digital or physical all right, so talk about budgets and whenever I'm not being paid like I'm not hired to do a shoot it's personal it's editorial it's creative we're building our portfolios together, which is basically every shoe I did for the first two years of being a fashion photographer um if I'm not being paid, no one else is being paid that's just the rule of thumb I mean, if if I'm not, I'm not coming out of my pocket to pay hair and makeup and wardrobe if I'm not getting paid, what you want to do is ideally find people on the same level is he looking to grow your creative? You're passionate, but maybe you don't have those big jobs and I promise there a lot of people like that and you grow together, so whenever I do an editorial shoot, it doesn't cost them anything. The only thing it cost me in general is I always make sure there's lots of food because hungry people are angry people s o I learned that early on and that's why I like, I know all the favorite drinks and all the favorite snacks of everyone on my creative team could assumes they get movie, I go into the covered and pull out like here's your swedish fish because I know that makes them happy, but for everything that I'm doing, I'm bartering, I'm treating my images and we'll talk about this the models for editorial should still get paid they're working for images so my ships literally cost me nothing except for food I keep the cost down if you look at my portfolio if you go to the fashion section the beauty section right now none of that cost me money but food so it's not like oh god you have this big budget these big connections I started same places everyone else I started shooting my fashion portfolio in syracuse, new york where I went to school by shooting friends and family and so it's definitely it's a building people always ask what was your big break? How did there's no big break it's a lot of hard work and a lot of hours and a lot of rejection so um so but just okay, so test you common terminology is for example, this sunday I am going to do a test shoot when you takes a test shoot that is code to everyone knows that it is free no one's getting paid and the intentions are you test with a model maybe like you want to see if you like working with that model or ok, you know, I'm looking to build who I work with for hair and makeup and what not gonna test you out as a makeup artist to see if we get along there's really nothing at stake in a test shoot what people do is they work in exchange for images we'll talk about that well so other terms you might have heard is working for trade so it's read for images or something you might hear like I model mayhem they say tf cd trade for cd that working in exchange for images nobody use the cds my computer does not have a cd drive so that doesn't happen anymore what I use is things like high tail which was you send it or drop box or something like that now there's copy which a lot of people advocate for and we exchange images so here's what they expected pay this we need to issue it is generally expected that you deliver to retouched images per look so that might mean if the hair and makeup changes too for that hair makeup change the clothing changes too for that clothing change usually on a shoot somebody took the effort to come out and shoot with me I deliver a minimum of five just like it feels like it was worth our effort so you should deliver five rule of thumb to per look but something really important is I do not ever give out everything from a shoe no one pushes me on that because I will not budge that's not how it works and I don't let my entire team look at the proofs I picked the images because what happens is I did this early on naively I let everyone take their pictures you picked two you picked a different to you picked a different too and you picked a different too. So all the sun I'm retouching forty five images from a shoe instead of like six or seven uh and so you pick it out and you're the expert and if somebody's like all men, you really couldn't see the makeup in the shot it's the makeup artist you let them know you're doing them a favor? You know what? I understand? I will do you favor, I'll get you one more image thank you let them know that but they don't rule the shoot because you get crushed very quickly by a lot of personalities. So yeah, those were the kind of common terms there, so I said two to three retouch images for look, what I would say is you want the pictures delivered within a month because here's, what happens may first to do the shoot two weeks later they're not worried about it really likes it a month later is like a month with hecker my pictures, you know, june first like why it does not take a month to get my pictures back and that's quickest way to get your you know a bad word about your business going around is if you don't deliver pictures which is basically not paying your bill but that's what it's considered and a question I get often is about the resolution quality of these pictures you're delivering how high rez and the answer is high rise that's what they're working for now technically, they could go ahead and maybe rip you off, maybe sell your picture and put it on a stock photo agency site. There are releases are basically documents you can have people sign to say that they understand this is only for their portfolio. Use its non commercial use it's only for promotions, but to be honest that's not standard basically, it's. You know, I trust you. I still own this copyright. I'll come after you if you use it for something that's not uses, cooperate and you pay them with higher ed it's really got to be a minimum of eight by twelve, but that's really? Because most models there their books, their portfolios air like nine by twelve, sometimes eleven by fourteen. So your size eleven but fourteen, you're probably safe, but I just give you virus and then, uh, avoids the issue of people coming back and asking me for files later on, and then I have to find them and it's a hassle. So there's the expectations from you on the shoot. All right, so fashion editorial. A fashion editorial is issue in the back of a fashion magazine usually six to ten pages of you can vary all based on a theme and a fashion editorial can be united by a couple different things it could be united by the fact that it's the same model with the same hair makeup, but her clothing changes each time or it could be multiple models but it's the same location and the same, like kind of clothing it's trying to keep some things consistent, and my recommendation is if you're first starting off trying to shoot editorials, do not try to shoot multiple models and make it feel unified. Itt's easier to pick one model if you have left your clothing at your disposal, keep the hair and makeup mostly the same, we just change the clothing six times, or if you don't have a lot of clothing to a beauty shoot and just change the eye color and the lip six times and that's what I start off, thanks, I didn't have clothes, and I didn't have big budgets or anything like that, so those editorials that go in the back of fashion magazines, they do not pay you. So I was I came across this article that I thought it was just me, just the magazines that were working for what paying like o r maybe they were not paying me on, but I looked, and so this supermodel she sued um her agency because your agency hadn't paid some bills and so with this they released everything that was owed to her and so it showed that on the cover the cover of vogue magazine for one of these issues she got paid one hundred twenty five dollars because it's considered an honor it is an advertisement for yourself and so that's actually what it's considered in magazines and fashion photography what it's meant to be is when you shoot an editorial it's an advertising for yourself you have creative freedom so you show the capabilities of your team, your creative vision, what you'd like to be hired to shoot things of that sort and ideally you get hired and paid down the line best case scenario would be this would lead to a job every single time it doesn't doesn't work like that more or less I use it like as a justification for why I have to do creative shoots all the time. Uh but I have absolutely had high paying jobs come from an editorial, so to give you an example, one of the designers that I work with all the time and you saw one of her pieces the girl in the gold corner I'm just wearing gold chains, okay, so the designer's name is laurel locks and laura lux I mean, if if you watch a lot of pop culture, you've seen her pieces on like well, I am and they came in on that but I mean everybody will wear these ten pieces and so I really liked your stuff I thought was really creative and so for one of these editorials had my wardrobe stylist reach out to her so we could use it in a shoot so we did and then later on I sent her said listen we just use some of your pieces in a shoot here's what we did to showcase your work if you ever need somebody for a look book for an advertisement for anything you need I would love to do it and she's hired me and I can't even count how many times since many, many times since on dh there's others examples but that's kind of what you're hoping to do you try to showcase like a style that you want to be hired for a photograph of peace you want to be hired for were basically photograph work you'd like to be hired for and use it as a platform to show that you have these capabilities what's the idea behind it uh for these shoots nobody gets paid a majority of the time I also know that it depends on the magazine but often like to deal with vogue for example is will pay a photographer maybe six, eight hundred dollars to do a twelve page spread in the back of vogue magazine but it's all expenses paid and it's promo for themselves most people working in exchange for tear sheets and so you think of tear sheets it's literally worn out of a magazine it's your sample of here's where I've been published, and I've used tear sheets to open the doors, you know, for example, uh, this upcoming issue of noise magazine noises is well known, kind of the fashion and beauty in our community, and so I'm published two editorials in the next issue of noise, and so I will send out a little message, and I'll say, hey, you know, I'm interested in working with you if you'd like to see samples of my work. If you pick up this issue of noise, you confined to editorials by me like it's kind of giving a little bit of prestige and that's what you're hoping to do that way, or you have a section in your web site that shows where you've been published later on. I'm going to talk about agents a lot of times if you wanted an agent, they want to know that people want you before they want you, which means they want to know that you have clients and that you've been published in magazines. Before they want to take you on because they want youto proven how viable you are, how people in the industry are interested in what you have to offer so it's a lot of things like oh how do you get models until you have good photos of girls? And so I'll talk about that in a second. All right? So I talked about that editorials call she a term that I wish I knew and I'd like totally embarrassed myself if somebody asks for a call she it's basically a breakdown of the schedule and details of the day so it's going to list all the creative team including their e mails, other contacts going t list the location, the start time, the end time because I remember I had a like this high end wardrobes us that agreed to work for me in the shoot, and she asked me to send a call she had no idea what she's looking for I was looking up online, I couldn't find anything, so I was like, um, what information would you like on this seat? And then she like robert downey, ok, so that would be a culture in the rap time is the projected time when you would like to finish the shoot and always overestimate like always, say, an hour and a half two hours beyond because it always translate something always happens um, by the way, I have a couple of random things turn in here, but I want to make sure you touched on them. Something to be aware of if you are doing editorials and shoots is you do want to have insurance. I'm not just talking about for your gear, but liability insurance there's a lot of times you can get permission to shoot places, but they want to know that you're covered in case something happens on their property. So before you go, do editorials were trying to shoot, for example, like in a beautiful hotel, I've had plenty of hotels, what me shoot at their location and bars and parks and all these different things, but the first thing they say is ok, you can shoot for free, but I need to see your liability insurance, and it only cost a couple hundred dollars a year, and then you just get the locations name written and covers you, but something just to be prepared for and people membership. If you remember you get fifteen thousand dollars a year insurance included with your membership, you just have to opt in it's, not a bragging thing. I have a lot more than that to cover, so I have it as like an add on to my general insurance is how I handle that, ok, so let's talk about one part that I get asked a lot of questions about is how do you get models like how did so for example, this girl's actually supermodel who named cecil e lopez she's been everything she's kind of one of the most famous latina super models out there and I photographed her last season and so we talked about how did you get to that like how do you get there? So first I started with friends and like I said, I just like if they weren't model where the thie I would just shoot a little looser or like a little bit of hair in the face which super important before forgets the nose is not in the notes when I look at model agencies packages they send you samples inflate the girls available there are three things that I look for as giveaways that that girl is not as good as she looks number one if almost all her shots are part of her hair's in her face it is a dead giveaway and I can almost guarantee you because they always have like the hair in the face and spent to be like sexy and you think it's sexy and then she pulls back her hair and she's completely uneven so it like maybe decides hugh here in the face and most shots is a dead giveaway don't squash them of the other thing that I watched for frequently is if their face is always at the same angle that means they have one angle you've got to shoot and I didn't used to think about this is that and like I'm talking to say that the model was but how did this model for shoot beautiful? And I realized later when she showed up it was not what I thought every single shot in her portfolio was straight on when she turned her head to the side, she just didn't really have a defined jaw line and it's kind of weird knows that you didn't see when she's facing you straight on so watch for the one angle on lee in the portfolio like that's a dead giveaway that they don't have the flexibility and you don't want to be stuck to straight on in every pose that you do it's like it's a pain. So watch for that and the other thing is watch for lack of movement because usually that means that they think they can't bring more to the table themselves. Usually when you can see if it's just usually like hand in hair you know we're like leaned up against the wall like look for something where there's a little bit of motion which it looks like they initiated or they contributed to first is among a photographer just like place them against the wall so the things that look at what I'm looking at models portfolios so I started with friends model mayhem putting outcast they're like this girl is from model mayhem and she was an excellent model I shot her several times she was too short for agency standards. She's still beautiful still great to photograph casino agency standards in new york is pretty much of the absolute shortest you khun b and get signed despite eight absolutely shortest I hardly ever see that in those girls don't usually work that much five, nine, five, nine and a half five ten is when it's like ok that's more model height and you could actually be too tall as well because it will go fi go like six one you're too tall um okay, now I have to I have to for the sake of the fashion industry, just explain something real quick so people are always very upset about well, why did models will have to be this size and why did they have to look like this? And okay, um, part of the logic behind it is that when a designer creates a collection, it is insanely expensive. I mean, I know designers that when they launched a new collection they have to raise between fifteen, one hundred thousand to be able to put that collection out, but I'm talking about their runway show basically so to produce one of these pieces hand stitched and it's one not cost more than ten grand for example so you need to know that if it's whatever model you're going tohave so if this person wants to put it in a magazine it's going to fit their sample size model if you need a model for your runway show it can fit whatever models air there so basically they picked a model size it's a model height, a model's hips waist bust everything like that I'm not arguing that it needs to be that small but I'm explaining whether is one size because they can't make a size two is six and an eight and they just happened act two hey that's a that's a whole different discussion but that's why there's only kind of one model size same thing pants if they're too tall pants are going to look too short they make it for around one size in fact in new york I can tell you who the models are looking at the back of their heads by their body type honestly no matter what their faces look like at the time who is there on a runway show they have, you know, intense makeup on and intense hair it's just about the body type so I mean I easily comptel from behind who's the models and they also always were neutral colors because when they come to a shoot they're supposed to be a blank canvas I'm a clean slate we're not supposed to put their own personal style, which would be neutral so the photographer can appreciate them when they walk into the room. So interesting facts, okay? Craigslist have got models in the agencies, so, um craigslist a half found people the harder one of the downsides of model mayhem, for example, or craigslist is and I'm sure plenty of people out there can say, oh yeah, I understand that is that people showing up your models actually showing up I've had models where it was a paid shoot like three hundred dollars for like two hours for something no show and it's paid on dso it's like, well, what if I'm free it's a free shit? What guarantees they show and answer is like there's, nothing but what I always would dio is I would always have some kind of meeting beforehand, even if it's ten minutes at a coffee shop and that achieved two things first walls they show up it's showing that they have dedication like there showing up to your chute there showing up to have coffee, then they'll probably show up to the shoot, but the other thing is sometimes models people had bad experiences, you know who they're meeting and sometimes people will get a bad vibe back out last minute cause they're listening to their gut if they meet you then they can understand expectations and see what you're like and feel more comfortable so I recommend a short meeting and I always plan something to do immediately thereafter so I'm not their endlessly like I'm like oh I only have twenty minutes for this starbucks will buy you starbucks will have a conversation okay I got to go to my meeting and then everybody can be calm um but there really are is an just two agencies and I'm gonna explain how you could get agency models but the misconception is that there expensive in the secret is their free so fuck by the way a couple terms you might hear I told you the sample size the standard size that's what that means and then a comp card is basically the models business card but has pictures of them on it of in big agencies there polaroid's there literally no hair no makeup done standing against the wall because they want you to see that blank canvas whereas other agencies I would say honestly the ones that are less established will show that like the hair makeup shots there showing the range of the girl's whereas bigger agencies like this is your campus and they're usually five and a half eight and a half piece you're curious all right so here's the deal model agencies have variety of categories for their models so they have fashion models they'll also have their commercial lineup with the two the most important thing you need to know is those those terms right there, new faces and development those terms mean models that need new photos a k they will work for free in exchange for photographs, so new faces usually or development usually means these girls are either new models, they don't have experience or they recent got the haircut and any new photos to show that they got their hair cut and people are doing that all the time. They're like, oh, you know, the work slow down for this girl I short haircuts like maybe the miley cyrus haircuts in right now we're gonna cut her hair like that. We need new photos to show what it looks like, so it does not mean that they're bad. It just means they need new photographs. So that is your kind of your into free shoots. So this is the conversation that I have with model agencies, and I would recommend that you tryto commit this memory or this process of how you get models. Model agencies do not care if you are experienced high end fashion photographer at all. They they don't care. In fact, they don't want to see pictures of girls like I had one in the beginning with the girl was painted in black pain like crazy that would totally be a turnoff to an agency because that's not what the girl looks like if they're shooting for free they want it's actually look like that girl so what they want are basically pretty girls leave me against the wall with plane, hair and makeup and that's what it takes for you to get models they want this natural looking shots that could be used for the girls portfolio so every single shoot that ideo no matter how crazy and artistic it ends up being, the first thing I do when the girls walk into the room is I have my makeup artist cover ups and blemishes maybe still in space a little bit and then I put them smack in front of a mirror of window and I photographed them with window light with their hand in their hair because an agent is always happy that at least got that kind of based portfolio or polaroid shot for them and then I retouch it nicely and then they're always happy. So the conversation that I have is I call it the model agency you never want email their info at or whatever they have it is a black abyss that no one ever answers you have to make the phone calls, so I called color and go hello my name is lindsay I'm a fashion photographer here in new york or wherever you may be and I'm interested in testing with some of your new faces could you send me a package of who's available? Okay ready here's the kurt the terms okay testing free new faces or development free package sample of groups like a selection of the girls that are available and sets of the conversation goes like and usually what they will then do is if the small agency you're talking to the person in charge right there if it's bigger no go okay, let me put you in contact with the booker by the way, if the agency has men and women specifying which one you're which when your interest in testing with so they'll pass me over to david for example okay hi, david my name's lindsay fashion photographer here in new york I'm interested in testing with some of your new faces. Could you possibly send me a package of girls available and basically is this just you have to do this because then they say sure my email is david atm use anyway si dot com send me a sample of your work and what you're going to be shooting you have to go through all that just to get an email basically but that's the email you need you need the booker the actual person that you need to talk to um and so I'll have david and by the way that's not the real email address I mean music my c is actually one of the muses agency that I love in new york and work with them all the time but david is not the booker I work with um and so what you do is you then send them an email and it says hi, my name is one of the other and fashion photographer I'm interested to ask you what do you think it's the same thing all over again? Um but what you'd including there is basically what you plan on shooting this roughly on dh you would say I understand that the girls need some clean shot, so I'll make sure I do something that's more natural you see right away regardless of my ideal get the natural shots for them something there they feel comfortable, their bases are covered, you know how it works and if you do not have a fashion portfolio, don't send them a link to your wedding work don't send them a link to your children's work attacks three or four pictures of a pretty girl and window light, not smiling and that's all they want and most the time big agencies like the their big agencies in new york that that won't get you anywhere you know, for example, that probably won't get you anywhere with like dna models or I m g or something like that like those are huge agencies but it will definitely help you out with a kind of smaller agencies that I worked with on guy I don't think it's published on my block, but this is an upcoming blawg coast, so please be where watch out for this if anyone's in new york or travels to new york, I'm putting a list of all the new york model agencies as well as all of the web sites and phone numbers so that you could just look at the phone number and call andi I don't think I'll separate them but just like for your guy, this knowledge I'll probably put the easier ones up tom okay, you know that, but I don't want them to know that I'm categorizing them um so so then you send them that and then they'll send you a package or not usually if you don't hear back from them in the next twenty four hours, you need to send a follow up or they're just plain not interested. You don't usually respond nicely like the decision just ignore you or they respond positively uh then you get your package of girls to select from one of the benefits is the models do show up on time I have had a couple situations where they have shown up late but it's been very, very rare and if a girl is late or let's say like I had this said that a girl that fell off a horse and like got hurt badly the day before a shoot and it was weird agency called up high you know? Bianca thought for horse got really hurt but lucy looks really, really similar would that be okay? Because agencies have people to choose from they send back up because it was very strange, but I mean, it makes sense and they're covering your bases if you had a brunette who is this tall in this science will give you a burnett who is that tall in that size and they both look eastern european for example um package that's the email so let's leave it up on the screen for anyone to take a look. I also will say if I do have a model, I'm sorry if I do have a makeup artist or do have a hair stylist on my set. I will say that just as they know in the email but you don't have to you really don't for what they're looking for, you could just do totally natural window lit pictures of a girl to get started and help you kind of move up that line all right? So this is one of the few times that blatantly pointing out the physical features and race of a person is not racist um if like I want a girl who is asian in this tall you say it like that sometimes it just happens to be the concept you're going for it doesn't mean anything or I will say I would like an african american model with very dark skin for me I love dramatic so like you saw some of the shots I want like I love pale pale pale white skin or dark dark dark black sand like social two looks that I love is the same thing like on model may have if you're posting and you do not want caucasian models say what you're looking for don't waste people's time and just get to the point on so nobody takes it personally. So working with models just a couple of terms that you might want to know it's talk going to classes here in creative live some of them I've talked a little bit about directing models imposing and things like that this is more about like hiring models kind of expectations that way so one terminology when one term you might need to know it's clean clean if you tell a model to show a clean clean it means no makeup and no product in their hair versus sometimes and I have definitely done this if it's let's say I'm teaching a class and I want the model the show parent makeup ready you would say joe pera makeup ready and that means they know do your hair and makeup so you're presentable for a photo shoot um jin just in case in the you should talk to your hair cells make up ours if you have one for clean clean they're not actually supposed to wash the hair the morning of the shoot who's actually makes it harder to style if they watched it the night before that's better but ideally one day old hair is easier to style than freshly cleaned hair random newt I like my hair like one day later too so must mean something that's why like I had I have a very carefully planned but I'm with creative will have two point two, three days middle timing doesn't work, so one day I have to have better this's it we're, um model releases so from amada releases I usually use one on the s and p website um or I do have a bunch of I've had absolutely views in the past a benefit of that is you could have the girl or guy hold their license in front of their face so that if they were underage and lied, you have proof of the presented an idea that do something to help protect you if you're worried about that kind of thing um but know that if you work with a model agency that the models are not allowed to sign your moderately because they know that we photographers present them releases that give us all rights for anything we want ever and so the models are not allowed to do it there's an agreement a contractual agreement between the agency and the model which means the agency signs on their behalf so just know that they're not being rude they're not allowed to um if you can get away with convincing them decided that's on you I mean, sometimes I do so you've sent that contract the agency actually signed your model contract then yes. So what all the independent agency? Sometimes the agency will provide you with a release that they do standard for tests usually I submit mine and they'll be like a little back and forth we don't like just we'll cross it off yeah, they usually get up get rid of the part that says like, I want all rights to use this forever for any purpose saying yeah so usually has two modified all right, so the next part beyond models is how to gather a creative teams I'm talking about the hair, the makeup, the wardrobe and whatever um you don't need to be in a big city to do this like I said, I started off with finding people from the local hair and make up salon around the corner and finding people on model mayhem. And I lived in a rural area there still people on model mayhem, interested in testing and having fun. Um, but, uh, misconception that people have is that you can't get good hair and makeup off of model mayhem and it's totally not true, because most people start their my creative team, the people that I used most commonly, which is gristle, johnny so here make up for both of them and lisa wardrobe. I connected with all three of those people on model mayhem. Originally that's where it started, they just weren't developed in their career enough to not still wanna connected people on model. They have there's nothing wrong with that. Another place that you could look for hair cells make up artist is local cosmetology schools. If you had one reaching out there asking for recommendations of students that might be interested or who they think the strongest students are. Um, I have also looked at local publications, maybe there's a local lifestyle magazine or something. We're usually the hair makeup done, it's been credited, and you can reach out to those people as well. What I usually do in new york is when there's a publication where I love the hair and makeup. They list the name and I e mailed them like it's logical, but a lot of people don't do that so you can definitely reach out and my recommendation is when you're reaching out to hair and makeup and wardrobe, all these people in your creative team is e mails that say, hey, I like your work let's work together doesn't usually do you any good because it's too general there's no call to action, which is the same thing as an advertising you want to call the action do this now this is what you'll get if you work with me. So when I sent an email to somebody that I'm interested in working with one of the first things I do is I bump up their ego right? In the beginning I said I saw this shoot you just did with someone so and I love this because they're creatives and I'm not going to lie when someone sends me a message and the first thing they do is look, we know that they've actually seen my work. I pay a lot closer attention because I don't think it's a spam or mass email and then the next thing in that email is to say something like, I have this particular style and I see you overlap here I would love to do this or discuss other ideas like something more the call to action versus like forgetting is a makeup artist it's animal is his hair like your work would love to working with you some time they look at it and go full that's it the same thing like I get I can't make a partisan send me messages if they have one it's not a call to action there's a folder in my email called creatives they say thank you and then I put them there so giving them something to dio tio actually consider you for the near future an actual event it gives you a lot better chances of connected with them I said these are some of the people on the creative team um you can work with any all or not it depends I mean their fashion photographers who shoot models with no makeup and that's the like not really be hair when she come uncle ian messi girl in the corner I don't know um I don't I don't get I can appreciate all or most all photography that doesn't mean I like it ok, I can understand like for example, there's there's a style that the flash on camera not retouched um you know, no hair and makeup and I get what you're trying to do trying to make you feel like you're there and that like these people that look this fabulous you really could run into at a party and that you know and it makes it believable but no, I think no, I think so here a couple places you could find these people hair makeup at a local salon or cosmic holiday school um wardrobe fashion students is another good one I'll talk about showrooms in a few minutes designers there's a website called who is testing that that's like very limited but if you live in new york or london, that wouldn't help you confined both on model mayhem, creative agencies, publication research and social networking I find a lot of people through social networking researching on twitter, facebook and then the creative agency is depending on if you live in doesn't have to be a big city but even like a medium or small size city that's a medium there are creative agencies like people that represent hair and makeup or people that represent you know for commercials and what not and you can look there and sometimes find hair, makeup and wardrobe on those sites kitty term you may have heard is a movie hairstylist says ok, you know I'm available to test with you on that day, but I require a kissy a kit fee basically means they want a small amount of money to cover their costs for that shoot, whether it's travel or whether it's they have to buy some hair something um and I think like very commonly it's like twenty five to seventy five dollars that's like a very common kitty I don't do kit fees I give them a list of all the things that cost me to do a shoot like my gear and my hard drives and my laptop and my insurance and all that stuff because I guarantee it's costing me more money in the long run it try not to do it in a mean way, but I tried to explain nicely we're testing were trading and I'm not paying cassie and I don't I don't have any problem with it usually the only time I would recommend doing it is if you were really starting off, you really can't get anybody tested you and you're really trying to build your book, okay, so maybe it will help you jump up a little bit, get someone to work with you or there's no one available last minute and you had a shoot plan and someone cancelled I mean, there are exceptions, but if you can avoid it, you don't need to pay ok a couple other terms on set that is wish that I had known production assistant something that just helps make sure the day run smoothly with the calling p a's um, craft services means a person in charge of getting the food so I often have like an intern and like you're in charge of craft services for today and then it sounds a lot better than it is feathering shooting connected to the computer on any of my personal shoots I don't like like an editorial I don't shoot tether because quite honestly I don't want hear of one's opinions because I'm bringing the whole thing together just cause the hair don't look good in that shot this I mean and the next like you should be looking if the hair doesn't look good there, fix it. You know I don't want people looking over my shoulder when it's, a client usually do have to shoot tethered on behind the scenes this is just a business note shoot behind the scenes of every shoot you d'oh always have behind the scenes stills or video or something, because now a lot of publications I publishing actually require it. No, I don't think it's a good enough story they wouldn't have said that, but, um like I'm shooting in the next couple weeks for paper cut magazines when one of them that have shot four for ages on day said just, you know, new requirements seem to have behind the scenes it's great also for social media. So people understand what it's like to be on your set teases people to the excitement of what your life is like in that you're being creative and doing that you're always producing new work but definitely shoot behind the scenes and people call it beats yes ok. Getting clothing. Yeah, yes, you could question some of the when you're shooting on maybe a person. Are you not personal project? But what? What? The going rates are for hair make up that kind of thing. Is there a range? So that s so it's a good climate. And so if ok, so whenever I'm not getting paid, I don't pay anyone but let's say that you do need to pay somebody I was going to give you my made up numbers based on new york and this is all I can tell you. Generally, I can usually find somebody as soon as I crossed the like seventy five dollars mark, I can usually find somebody willing to shoot with me and help me out. Commonly, people will do it care make up one hundred fifty like if you want somebody good to get it done. But then our people are like no it's four fifty from my day, but I mean my my makeup artist, even if, for example, you wanted to hurt my makeup artist comes in york and hire her. We shall do looks for two, fifty, three hundred, depending on if she's there for an hour or full day or something like that, but I would say, you can get someone to say yes for seventy five and you can usually find somebody good for one fifty kind arranges do you require your makeup artist to stay for the whole day to you while you're shooting? So you guys hear the question required to make cars safer the whole day whenever I can? Absolutely, unless I'm shooting a shoot with a tiny budget and the person like did it as a favour, I'll come to the hair and makeup it's way below my rate, but when the hair gets messed up, I can't fix it. I kind of know what I'm doing, so there are very few times where let them leave and those were always a time where they really needed to stay, so I always have them say, for behind the seas she seemed so that's something that beauty step back, especially so for behind the scenes. Uh, no matter what shape I'm doing, I can always find someone who's passionate about photography that just wants to be on set. And so in new york, in this casino invitation to anybody out there, I always have extra helpers on set. I have my two interns that air there all the time. I have my studio manager within asia of one, two people on set, and I say, hey, you can come watch my shoot, but you're in charge of behind the scenes photos and so you have someone help me out with that and stills, but if it's for a big mining thing, I have another friend of mine, mike should pay to do video because any traffic on that site and driven to mine, I'm thinking about social networking in those ways. One more question when you're like sending images like the makeup artist and hair cells, do you have, like an agreement with found about a man's usage at all? Or do you just like english? Just tell them, don't use it for this, and then if you want tio, you can have an agreement. Justice, not standard like standard is you just give them the photos, but and there's in the understanding is you still have the copyright if they use it for anything else. I used to say here the higher as files, as you know, this is for use in portfolio and self promotion on lee. There are actual agreements. You have someone sign it's just people don't do it. Yeah, that's, like, but I guess I just like, talk to him that I was. I never know if I should be getting anything in writing, but it's much easier to just yeah, that's, one of the few things where I would say like, yeah, it's it was in writing is it's always good and like just as a standard practice people don't do it so I don't want to be that person but he could could be that person uh how to get clothing so this is a big question I get and so I told you my own early secret it was awesome and like the funny one in new york like this is not me I'm just saying it happens there's this company called century twenty one that has really like they basically take last season high end brands and they sell him for cheaper um and people used to buy and return from there, but they got smart. They have keep sensitive patches that because for people that were in photo shoots are wearing them out at night to a party and then returning them and so it's the tag goes solid black when you wear it, don't try it this's if you're hot or like or you have ice have ice back in the air condition turned up in that studio right now like even with my right now it would be it would be black with the heat isn't here, I said getting clothing um one good way to start off as I would do vintage rentals and vintage rentals the same his consignment shops the going standard is ten percent of the sticker value now, if you're a rural area where a small area I was able to convince consignment shops invented shop to let me borrow stuff, I leave my credit card, I use it for the day and then come back and return the clothes and in one piece um, but in new york or other cities renting venture, renting vintage things, usually whatever that ten percent is so there's one place I think it's called like new york vintage rentals I just went from there recently where they have, like, duval's, she like gowns that you can rent from, like nineteen, seventy linked is gorgeous. I can't afford the rent, okay, but those places exists that in cities there commonly vintage places such a good place to start thrift shops by return just tend to say that with the truth of it, um we'll talk about stylists, designers you could reach out directly to designers and ask to borrow pieces there's a couple of designers that I followed there were local tow where I wass that I followed on facebook and I would just ask them, you know, hey have any pieces that I could borrow for a shoot and they say, sure, in exchange for images, um and I did that a lot with fashion design students, and so I would follow them when I was in syracuse university and went over to the fashion design school. I had a little meeting with the person ahead of the program said, you know, I'd love to photograph some of the pieces for your students, and so I had hundreds of pieces issue because they all wanted pictures of their pieces on models, and what was even better is they have fit models that term means who they fit the close to. So they provided me a model because it's, the person who fits the close best so I don't even have to find a model, so that was a really good way to start getting really looking fashion photos. Um, all right, so stylist, talk about stylist that's where you want to be, you want to be to the point for fashion photography, where you're not doing the hair and the makeup and the wardrobe, because then you can't concentrate on the pose and the lighting and all of that, because there's so much else in the way, and I mean a lot of my early work, I did my own hair, makeup and wardrobe, my silken hair, makeup wardrobe, like the picture that I had with the red lips and the the eyes I did the red lipstick, it was awful ahead to photo shop it, and then I make her skin white, so, like they've photoshopped helping me out there but you want to get to the point where other people help you so what if silence does is they have relationships with designers they research designers they call themselves a horde of stylists like that's their job they have their marketing to show that they're serious about that website and also show rooms so in cities most major cities for example there's something called the showroom what a shore mrs different designers it would be a pain and some people would do this in new york for example they live in brooklyn and they have pieces at their house and this publication wants to photograph their pieces but then to get a hold of that they got to send someone else to brooklyn and they've got to be home at the state like it just gets messy so what most designers do is they have a pr showroom they leave their close with this company and so if somebody like my word of south lisa says hi, I'm gonna shoot with lindsay it's for noise magazine um you know, do you have any pieces that we could use that showroom usually represents five, ten, twenty, forty different designers and shows you which pieces would be ok for that publication or for hey I'm just testing you know we're doing a fun shoot the theme is futuristic well, maybe these designers you're ok if it's testing for images whereas these would require you to be in a publication and that's what their job is basically just to watch over the clothing and to control who gets a hold of it so good silas has connections with all those showrooms so she can sometimes get the clothes for tests that are only supposed to be for publication or she knows what clothing is in which showrooms and there's a little over one hundred in new york, for example but there are definitely once in san francisco, miami, chicago um all the other major cities like that there's a showroom alright next term I had no idea existed um with this poll letters and we're gonna get that so I went john ford remember pull letters I'm getting published pull letters and getting closed feed into getting published um I like this is my like sexy pilgrim shot did that she um okay, so getting published the first thing that you do not want to do is you do not want tio send e mails randomly to magazines and just hope that they respond usually again the info act does you know good you really need to do your research so what? I recommend you d'oh and this is in my bonus material is kind of how to move it up the next level to really targeting your ideal clients but you need to figure out what magazines? What clients really would be interested in what you do because if you said if you shoot lens flare really someone and flowing material you are fantastic for, say, anthropology you're fantastic for, say lula magazine or material girl but there is no way that you would get published in, say, schoon magazine or there's no way you'd get published in noise or whatever it may be it's it just doesn't fit the style it doesn't mean that you're wrong or that you're styles bad just doesn't fit. So do your research not only for publications but also for clients there's no use pitching to a client who just does not fit your style I figured it and everybody that did not catch the presentation before were broken. I talked about styling inspiration, this whole presentation that deal is predicated on the idea that you do you work on trying to figure out what your style is before you get to this point where why you're getting to this point I'm still trying to figure out myself I'm always testing but I kind of overall know what unifies because if you have soft and arian romantic and really harshly dark bondage like in the same portfolio they don't know if they hire you which ones are going to get and it's a matter of like what feels safe, you fit my style, I'm going to hire you so that's kind of built on all of this but anyway uh forgetting published in magazines the people that you're looking for are the editor in chief the photo editor the art director and what you want to do is you don't want to even all the info you want to email those people directly in the secret that I always use is I decipher their email structure so even if they do not list their email maybe emily sue is actually an advertising department and they broke a listing her email so it's either sue at vogue whatever dot net well then I know based on anna wintour that would be like a dot winter at vogue dot net I can figure out how to get a hold of those people so if you can figure out the names of the editor in chief photo editor art director and decipher their email structure than you can write it directly to them when you email them it is the exact same thing is emailing the creatives you want to stroke the ego you don't want to be like hey I'm this awesome photographer you should work with me they don't care if you're an awesome photographer and you do want to stay hey I love your publication I recently saw this I thought it was great this reflects my style and I think would be a great fit here's something I like to shoot in the future like you you've got to get their interest beyond just like I just know it's, new york and I'm fabulous, it doesn't get you any traction at all, so that's one way is through those e mails, and I always send photos of what I think either fits like I'll send them, like even like a little love five by seven digital version of what fits like the images in the portfolio that best fits their publication or a mood board of what I'd like to shoot for their publication, showing it understand what is in their publication on dai also do a little social networking stocking like a little bit. So there are several publications, for example, I had been e mails teo, the editor of vogue turkey figured out vogue, turkey's email and sending her e mails I didn't hear anything back, and so is like, ok, well, I twitter stocked her, had a conversation and said, hey, I'm gonna send you an email look for it, and then she responded to that one so it's a matter of like, they get tons of e mails if they don't know to look for you. What's lindsay out there from all these other names have never heard of before, so they don't even open the email. But if you have some kind of like my twitter name is lindsay other they see that in a conversation back and forth that it's not a cold caller called email they've heard that name before there's also way through google now you can tell if someone even opens your email have that set up so no, I know I can watch like I know you opened it was fun all right? So there's two ways they publish magazines, you can either submit photos on spec like you shoot and hope it gets published or there's something called getting commission getting commission means they hire you, but being hired doesn't mean to get paid just so you know, because I was so confused about that. Yes, I got a commission. How much? Nothing. So killer. Um, magazines usually work between two and six months in advance, so know that if you are shooting right now you're shooting a fall editorial family on the tail end when fall would be appropriate and now would be appropriate for winter for most publications and bikini is certainly out. So knowing was applicable to these, many of the sites actually have the seams and the deadlines listed right on the web sites if they want open submissions or if you can get a hold of that editor and pitch an idea and say him of the pitch an idea could you tell me you upcoming themes aiken you know show you with the mood boards that's usually how you get them to respond the way to do it really in the beginning is to do a shoot and say ok though these five publications are relatively similar I'm going to shoot a shoot that shooting editorial that fits those kind of five publications and email them the j pegs and just hope one from picks him up like the first few shoots I did I set out to two hundred publications and I got like one response but if I really needed what if what if you you know by the grace of god you get to love my comeback that wanted um I have had this happen several times and what I'll just say is hey um thank you so much I actually already got this editorial picked up but I loved have you commission issue in the future okay? And then to say and then now we can get a commission letter which we'll talk about which helps me get published cause I'm hired to do it but yeah it's usually seven it's eight hundred pixels on the long side seventy two d p I j pigs is what I send them and include the credits credits mean the list of who was on your creative team or the clothing that was used or anything because sometimes they're like oh this designer she used we just didn't add with them we should definitely feature that because they just spent money on us like that helps to knowing the publication. Furthermore, paper cut magazine for the first magazines that I was published in, they want up incoming designers if I give them, if I give them, say, like valentino and our money, they won't publish, they actually won't publish it because it doesn't fit, there are no basically they want up and coming designers, so it kind of gives you kind of hold you back there. Um, my block. I have a list, the fashion magazines. It is by no means complete. I just listed a couple hundred there because I made the interns do the research. You couldn't you you will. Um okay, so pull letter. A poll letter is written for the magazine saying, ok, lindsay is going to be published in our september and october issues, so please lend her the closing and model she required to do the shoot basically just saying she's going she's working with us so the clothes would probably be featured here. And that's what a wardrobe says would present at a showroom helps him get more clothing similar to that of the commission letter. A commission letter is the same thing just has more weight thing like wins, he will be published versus like she's working with us it might be published if we like it it just commission letter has more hold to it again you don't necessarily get paid for that with even better than that is a commission letter with this thing and I'm a nerd so I kept thinking I kept this is another one embarrassment couldn't figure I thought was like lord of the rings something because being on I was like, what is l o r like over and over again? So l o r is letter of responsibility which publication says we're hiring lindsay she's shooting for us she's going to be published by the way we take responsibility for any the close hold which means if you pull a dress that fifteen thousand dollars and it gets ruined it's on the magazine so they feel more confident going after magazine and some random photographer course you will never work with that magazine a showroom again but at least it's not on you and it technically your stylist is supposed tio have that insurance if you're looking to get published, the places that I recommend you start issue in mad cloud issue I s u is a online platform for like where they flip through it's like the flip book for magazines that makes it look like it's a magazine well, if you go to issue in search fashion, they're hundreds of online magazines that pop up see which one fits you and pitched something to that more, and I'm published in online magazines all the time. Mad cloud is nice because matt cloud is for for publications that it costs a ton of money to get things published to get a print run of a magazine like tens of thousands. So what they do is that club says, listen, you designed to respects people can order a print version on demand it's going to be more expensive through mad cloud, but then you can at least say, you're print publication, not just online, and so sometimes people care. If you say it is a print publication, sometimes they will take, they will commission you or give you clothing a lot sooner than if you said, um, it's online, only people just like having the physical magazine, and then I also look up regional publications. Just another note, by the way, right of first publication, if you get commissioned by a magazine, or you're shopping around to your images picked up, do not put those photos anywhere they shouldn't go on facebook, they should go on twitter, they should go on instagram. They shouldn't go on your on your blogger website because the magazine says, basically, when we introduce, sees the world, it's was to be novel, this is our editorial if they could just see that your website and they could just look at your website so you don't want to put them anywhere until it's out with the day after it's out in the magazine, you could put him up on your web site in your facebook, so actually did that today. My editorial came out last night and urban coco magaziner yesterday and so I published one this morning. You can do that right? Making money. I'm gonna go through this theirs a lot of ways to make money is a lot of ways to not make money as well, but we'll talk about the good ways. So just keep this in mind. Editorials don't pay you do them for personal fulfillment, do them to grow your book, do them to make connections, but don't do them to try to make money. It doesn't happen. Um, the next get some decent payer catalogs, we'll know catalogs and portrait and then a look book. I'll talk about that in a second to get decent pay, but advertising is where the money is and that's where you get paid student advertising and it could be the most boring commercial shots that you think you could have shot fifteen years ago and that they still pay it on, and I find that very often. So these are all different ways that you could make money from. Photography could be a photo assistant and digital tech talk about a couple of these photo assistance. So unsexy it's, the first assistant, is basically the right hand man or woman to the photographer, making sure that the lighting is all set up, making sure that the gear is requested and just basically turned. Help manage the shoot where the second assistant reports the first assistant and does whatever they say, the second system, not necessarily the ideal place to be. You want to move up to first assistant, um also, he said, there's, a digital tech that is the person who is in charge of the communication from the camera to the computer and the backup in the archiving and checking critical focus and checking exposure. And so, for more technically inclined that's. Definitely something to do because it also pays better digital text would say that there's, a rental studio in a city official text in new york, often it's three hundred to five hundred dollars for a date, right? Teo, you know, managed to the computer side of it. So if you work at a rental studio like it's, a studio photographers can rent and you're a digital tech that when they come in, they can rent you. Basically ok, so the studio is going to take a cut, but you'll still get a decent day rate, so that is a very common route for photographers. If you're interested in assisting and knowing more about it may be getting assistant jobs. There's an assistant list you can get on for s and p and a p a a photo assistant is a website as well, which is a great resource and they're actually workshops for photo assistant where you can take intensive on how to be a good photo assistant. So learning the informant, digital backs and captured one and all that stuff those are they having in san francisco? They have him in new york. Have him in chicago. You have to look for them. Ok? Something is absolutely want you guys to know for sure is to check out the one I prefer. The one that I use is blank. People always ask me, what the heck do I charge? I have no idea what charge the program that I use his blink fit and we have some discount codes which I believe should job in the chat room as well. It's some random number on I can post up on facebook a cz well, but what I think it is it's, a program that you download the discount price that we have is for one nine nine with number nine three eight zero nine three zero, thirty percent off alright for thirty percent off on that is that blink? I think it'd blink, blink, blink, blink in your eyes, it's awesome, because what it is you go to that web, you download this program and it will ask you all the questions of how did they want to license them? It'll right out like a license agreement based on yes, no questions. You could send them these questions, and you can figure out what to do there. It will ask you questions like, do you need to rent here? How much does that cost? What I'll do is I'll actually list all the gear that I have, how much it would cost to rent and then deduct that amount like to say, oh, by the way, you're getting that for free because I own it. But it will also say at the end, based on what their licensing, what they're having you do, you can put in where you live and the amount of licensing, and it'll spit out of range of roughly what you should charge what's great is it gives you a fantastic estimate. With a breakdown of every single possible charge, and it makes you think of things you would have thought to charge for, like charging for hard drive space. If it's, a video job he's definitely charged for your hard drive space is going to cost you hundreds. So all these things that would have thought of day spent casting for models like all these things that you can and should charge for so blink that would be my recommendation. There. I talked about a look book really briefly look, book is like a mini catalog for a designer designers and don't have, like full catalogs like lands and what they might have their fall collection, which had twelve pieces, and this is something that they need every season, so they need it twice a year, and this is something that is nice continual income for me. And usually this is about as creative as it gets, usually it's like here's. What the clothes look like the back of the dress, like it's meant to be this is what the clothes looked like, but nowadays they often ask you to do something a little more creative as well, that they can use for marketing. So I have my designers that I that hire me every season and it's great, because I know that money comes in every single season. So I think I'm getting close to end here for finding potential clients wanted to check out the company is called agency access which is also known as at base it was ad based on what you can do is you can pay a large amount of money and you get access to a list of all the contact information for every ad agency every like every record label every magazine you get the email of the editor of the photo editor of the person charged actually put little logos next to the person that you'd want to talk to it tells you this is the person that you want to be in contact with uh I will tell you like a couple thousand a year to get access to all the information for like north america but the concept is if you do commercial work if you book one job from it by dealing commercial work it paid for itself so that's very common I do a lot of trade show research so if I want to get hired to dio makeup shoots I went to the makeup show my intern and I went to makeup show we walked around and we looked for makeup brands that had a big presence but crappy photography basically when we wrote those down and we went right over it said hi who is the person in charge of hiring your photographers or for putting together your shoots for your marketing we got their information we wrote down immediately like what was bad about their work what we thought have like bad models we have good connections like that kind of thing and then we a week later sent out those e mails and that led to job so it's doing your trade show research doing research from different magazines I mean it's no simple ways to do it either spend money or do a lot of leg work and that's commonly what it is um provo cards just a term you might want to know does leave behind it's usually five and a half by eight and a half probable cars instead of a business card often at a meeting you leave one of those and has a couple of your images that's kind of what one of mine looks like and that it's a full page image on the other side. Ah, a couple final term spec shoot your shooting something on spec meaning you do it for free and you hope it ends up being paid police suspect shoot that I did recently for example, agents I told you before agents they want youto have worked to get work and usually what it is is they take about twenty percent high end is twenty low and his tents or ten to twenty percent of whatever you make on a job but they handle everything negotiating invoicing following up like all of the business side of it. So if you hate it that's what they're supposed to do, I will tell you most photographer friends that I have that have agents, I don't have one right now had one last year don't are happy they don't just bring you a ton of work. It's not like sweet got an agent. I could be a full time fashion photographer it's not like that it's more like they might bring you a few good opportunities, and then maybe you bring them stuff to help them manage for you or help you manage that really high end client that you don't really know what to charge you don't really know how to handle you don't know the agreements, they help you not embarrass yourself. I'm in front of those people, all right? So finishing up last ones, your portfolio this is tied into what I said before, when you have a portfolio, make sure you're not showing your portfolio of everything to everyone. Don't show wedding to somebody unless it's a bridal fashion designer and don't show portrait of, um, whatever it may be. If you're going to like essence magazine, I should probably have portrait of african american women in my portfolio. To be able to be flexible on that and have some kind of style, because in the end, when they walk away from your work, you need to be memorable. Have that leaves behind that I mentioned quickly. Be a visual summary of what your portfolio s. So they remember you and make sure that portfolio fits what they would be hiring you for.