Modeling tips: Photographer types (6)

Photographers, you need them for the pictures. Most of them are nice people, but they also have some peculiarities. If you know how to cope with these peculiarities, you’ll get the optimal results from your photo shoots. To help you with this, this blog publishes a series of articles devoted to photographer types. Every single photographer is a unique person. Nevertheless, knowing the type could be useful for models. None of the observations in this article imply that a certain type of photographer delivers higher quality. Each category contains both good and bad photographers. The mere fact that a photographer is shy, arrogant or flamboyant tells us nothing about the quality of his or her work. It does tell us something about the way they work though.

Some models may think that there is no need to adjust to the photographer. ‘Let them adjust to me.’ If that’s you, let me ask you whether you care about the result of a photo shoot. If you don’t, stop reading (and you might as well stop modeling too). If you do, why not take all the factors into account that you can influence?

The artist
Photography is art. That is, some photographers use the reproduction technique ‘photography’ as a means of artistic expression. What was that again? Art. Uh, right, mmm’kay. Artist photographers have a very clear view of what they want. They work from a concept and stick to it. It is a petty that some artist photographers have trouble communicating their very clear view. They know exactly what picture they are looking for, but their main mean of communication is through images, not words. And of course, the things they are trying to put in the picture may seem a bit weird sometimes. But hey, that’s why it’s art.

Dos and don’ts
You really should work with one or two photographers of this type. It broadens your portfolio without taking the direction out of it. Working with art photographers is a great way to show your posing, acting and expression skills. These guys are typically beyond the everyday pics that anyone has in their portfolio. When I say one or two, take that literally. These pics tend to be pretty visible in your portfolio; don’t let them become too dominant. Unless you’re totally into this type of photography of course.

Since some of these artists have a hard time expressing themselves in words, make sure you study their work. This may help you understand their twisted minds and predict what it might be they are aiming at. Don’t be too sure though, artists tend to be pretty unpredictable. Like in finance, results from the past do not hold any guarantee for future outcomes.

Keep in mind that artistic photos sometimes derive a value from shocking viewers. Or from deviating from expectations. So if you think the shoot is weird, don´t worry, it is supposed to be weird. Although you obviously have to be clear about your limits well ahead of the shoot.


Other types
The intuitive type
The ex-model
The arrogant type
The shy type
The flamboyant type
The technical type