Importance of Having a Creative Meeting

Courtney had reached out to me sometime last year as her personal trainer had recommended my name to her for a photoshoot. When she reached out to me she wanted to do a fitness shoot. I was all for the fitness shoot and we had our creative meeting to decide on her fitness looks and outfits. I always encourage all my clients to do a creative meeting before the shoot, this is one of the most important steps in my process. I would also recommend you to ask your photographer to have a face to face meeting before the shoot. When I am traveling for portfolio shoots to LA or NYC, I do a Skype meeting with the subject/ client. Here are some of the things you should discuss in the meeting.

You should get to know your photographer his or her personality, same thing goes with me I like to know about my subject what inspires them, why they want to be a model and many other questions. I tell them about myself, my history, how I became a photographer and why I started helping models and actors, sometimes going above and beyond.

Discuss the package, you should always ask what you will get in the package, what is the process of the photographer? Do they help you in preparing for your shoot? Does the photographer like to direct and help you in posing?

Do they provide a Makeup artist, hair stylist, wardrobe stylist?

Discuss the looks for you to shoot.

Important part for me is to make sure that my model understands what it entails to be a model, and how to go about in the business. I like to know if they are ready to take the plunge.

Please don’t rush to the shoot until you are fully prepared. I generally give about 2 weeks after the creative meeting if I feel the model is ready. If I think they need more time to work on themselves then I suggest that they take more time and I give them homework to practice on and work on.

Discuss the timeline of the shoot and post production process.

With Courtney after our first meeting I realized that she is going to be good if she also markets herself as a fashion model so we discussed the possibilities and what she would need to do to prepare herself. We then put her shoot on hold until she was ready. I had totally forgotten about her and one day she emailed me that she is ready and wants to do “Road to Paris”. Package which is designed for someone who is launching as a new model. I engaged my team for her shoot, PJ did the styling, she decided to go on a shopping spree with her and tried and tested outfits and accessories on all the looks I had decided to do for her.