Courtney had reached out me sometime last year as her personal trainer had recommended my name to her for 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.
1. 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 some times going above and beyond.
2. Discuss the package, you should always ask on 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 likes to direct and help you in posing?
3. Do they provide Make up artist, hair stylist, wardrobe stylist?
4. Discuss the looks for you shoot.
5. Important part for me is to make sure that my model understands what it entails to be a model, how to go about in the business, I like to know if they are ready to take the plunge.
6. 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 home work to practice on and work on them.
7. Discuss the timeline of the shoot and post production process.
With Courtney after our first meeting I realised 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 prepare herself. We then put her shoot on hold until she was ready. I had totally forgot about her and one day she emailed me that she is ready and want to do, “Road to Paris”. Package which is designed for some one 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.
