Shooting Model Tests: Getting Your Break Into Fashion Photography
July 13, 2006
By Reuel Golden
Shooting test shots of up-and-coming models can be a path into the sometimes intimidating world of fashion photography. It's not lucrative, but it helps build your portfolio, provides contacts in the fashion industry and gives you professional credibility.
So how do you get your foot in the door of the top modeling agencies? Three professionals who book new photographers and look at portfolios explained to PDN what it takes to get a test shoot, what they are looking for, how photographers should approach them and what they should avoid.
Here we hear from Roman Young, director of new faces at Elite in New York; Colton Knibbe, development/new faces, also with Elite and Edward Smith, new faces/women at ICM Models in London.
Point of Entry
Edward Smith: Once a day I get a call from a photographer saying, "Can I have a model please?" That’s not the way it works. Any agency will want to meet with the photographer and see their work before they will agree to any kind of shoot.
Roman Young: We do get walk-ins, but it is not recommended. There is a certain business etiquette you need to maintain if you are trying to build up a professional relationship. Do research on the company and find out about our new models and then suggest that you would like to come in, show your book with a view to working with some of our new faces. A lot of photographers get a little arrogant when I ask them what they do. They may be great photographers, but I don't know that from talking to them on the phone.
Colton Knibbe: People say, "I assisted Michael Thompson or Craig McDean," but I really don't care whose light source they held, I care about their work and what they shoot.
Young: We will look at e-mail submissions and if the work is good we will get back to them quickly. There is one guy in Miami, Billy Coleman, whose work we just loved from an e-mail and we really want to work with him. We also love the work of Chadwick Tyler and a student called Elleser Galetta.
How To Get Your Portfolio Noticed
Smith: I like to see at least two stories in a book, a consistent style that the photographer can apply to different settings like full length, portraits, outdoor and so on.
Young: They need to have a vision for the type of fashion photography that they are pursuing. If grungy is your thing, then own that, don’t try and send in some glamour shots as well. Make it clear to us in your pictures what you do and do it well.
Knibbe: We’ve started to use this guy Colin Dodgson, who is still at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. Someone from Elite was visiting the photography colleges and his tutor recommended Colin. He is very young, but he has a definite point of view. He is going to be big and I’ve already sent his book to the agent Katy Barker.
Young: I don’t necessarily have a problem with random shots, rather than full stories, but when we meet [photographers], they need to show us that they have the desire and ability to expand on that because ultimately that's what we need.
Knibbe: There was a photographer called Roy Cohen who came in to see me and his portfolio was OK, not fantastic, but there was something about him his sensibility that I really liked and he ended up doing a great test shoot.
Enough Already
Smith: There is what I call the "overcooked photograph" where everybody is trying to get their work seen. So a photography student will get another student to do the make-up and another fashion student to do the hair and then he will come in and do some crazy lighting. They all want to impress and build up their book, but we want to see natural and beautiful images that show off the model in the best light. That is more likely to get them work.
Young: I see a lot of snapshot stuff. I want to be blown away by a sexy and sleek portfolio shot in a studio.
Knibbe: I do meet photographers who are on the sleazier side, shall we say, and they show me books where the model is wearing next to nothing. I am nice and cordial, but it’s not what we are looking for.
Young: The main fault with work we see is in the make-up. People need to remember that you can’t retouch make-up. At this stage less is more. Let the model’s beauty do all the talking and the lighting be an expression of what you want to say. It doesn’t always have to be big hair and make-up; a girl in jeans and a t-shirt against a white wall can work just as well.
Who Benefits?
Smith: We are marketing the models, so it’s in our interest to get excellent photos that they [the models] can use in their books. They won’t get work unless they get pictures showing what they can do, so choosing the right photographer for the test shoots is one of the most important things that we do.
Young: We can help the photographers get started and build up their books which will help them get editorial work. It is a small industry and if we find a good test shooter, then word gets around fast.
How Does It Work? Does It Pay?
Knibbe: Everyone in this city with a camera wants to shoot beautiful women and get paid for it, but it’s not that straightforward. It works on a sliding scale. At first we will pay for film and processing, then $35 a print. After that it can progress to $100 a shoot and $350 for our top people.
Smith: We pay between 50 pounds and 250 pounds, depending on the photographer. From that, we will want three different looks and at least two rolls of film for each look.
Young: Usually we send a new model to a new photographer and it can be risky because they are both nervous, but often it can lead to great pictures since they both want to progress. The more a photographer delivers, then the more we pay him, and he gets to work with a higher caliber of model.
Knibbe: We always guide [the photographers] to what we need. I always tell them that 40 percent of what they shoot is for us and the rest is for them.
Young: We don’t sit in on shoots, but we always tell the models that if something doesn’t seem right, then phone us or leave. The models are always chaperoned by their parents as well.
Smith: “We have an in-house studio and the first time a photographer works for us, we have him shoot here. In order to be a good tester they have to trust us to direct them at least at first.
Looking Good, Going To The Right Parties
Young: It is fashion, and people are judged on the way they look, but over time your work will stand will more than what you wear or what parties you go to. I have friends who are agents and they want their photographers to go out and, "Work it, work it!" Who you know helps, and you are not going to meet new people if you are staying at home.
Smith: Photographers have to have an eye for fashion, otherwise bad hair and bad make-up will appear in their photos. It is important that they are reading fashion magazines Vogue, i-D and Another Magazine for example. But if I saw a testing photographer always out on the town on the lash [English slang for drunk/wasted] it would put me off them.
Knibbe: It’s like any business: the more you know the greater your chance of making it.
Roman Young and Colton Knibbe of Elite can be reached at:
[email protected] and
[email protected].
[Article from PDN]
but it works for me and i'm often really happy with the results. 
