It appears some pics of me are going to be published in a book later this year. I\’d completely forgotten about that. Duh. You see how high a priority modeling is for me? On a scale of 1 to 10, it probably ranks around 9.5. But being in a spank book is pretty cool, I guess. The money I earned from that shoot has long since been spent, but, oh well. The shoot itself was kind of neat in that the guy used a true vintage camera to go along with the shots.
All the testimonials on his site are incredibly funny, statements from all these different women talking about how empowered and sexy they felt in front of the camera, how it was such an erotic turn on, how they\’d never even though of modeling before, let alone nude. Haha. I felt like that too, once, at my first shoot nearly five years ago. Now… dude, I model because I don\’t have an ounce of visually creative talent in me and I desperately wish I did. Modeling allows me to join in the process of making \”art,\” whatever that is.
It bothers me — a lot, actually — when I kill myself for a fucking shoot and end up in pain for days afterward (and not even porn, just a regular shoot), then the photographer — whose work I generally really enjoy — doesn\’t even bother retouching any of the images to use, let alone puts them in their folio. That pisses me off in a lot of ways. Mostly from the stand point of \”I want to make awesome photos and I\’m trying my best and nobody gives a shit about my work.\” I think a lot of the photos are great even without needing some touching up, but hey — what do I know? Maybe somehow I\’ve gained a horrible reputation behind my back and that\’s why few people use my work. I dunno.
I wish I didn\’t care. Unfortunately, though, I do, and it boils down to all these horrible insecurities which shouldn\’t even come into play considering I want to make visual statements — roll around in the mud, piss in the tub, go without make up, whatever it takes to make some sort of interesting eye candy — not be beautiful. I don\’t really care much about looking good on camera. Maybe that\’s part of the problem? The \”industry\” is full of photographers who want to showcase beautiful women. Pin-ups. Tasteful nudes. That sort of thing.
I want to make pictures of bleeding calluses, show the bruises and the scars, present the unpresentable. But I guess most of the photographers I\’ve come across… well, they want to make the ugly glamourous. It\’s like heroin chic all over again. Can\’t I just be ugly? But I guess not. And I guess that\’s why, even when I try to play it their way, they don\’t use any of my work. I can\’t find a photographer who wants to do the things I want, period, and so I feel like I\’m selling myself short by working with the people that I have. (Porn shoots excluded because, duh, it\’s porn, and I already know what to expect from that. Me, looking good, but nothing excitiing.)
They all mostly want to hide my cellulite or my stomach, or touch up my boobs in photoshop to give me erect nipples (mine are naturally inverted), or whatever else. And I guess the real me is too much work for their photoshopping skills, cos they don\’t even bother to take it that far. I don\’t know. I get so wigged by the whole thing — on one hand, I show photos to people and they say things like \”you\’re so hot\” or \”will you model for me, I like your look,\” or whatever, then I show up to do my thing and they don\’t like the work.
Is there something wrong with me? Like, what the fuck? I know I have different tastes in aesthetics but even when I do it their way — after showing them photos of me doing it their way — they don\’t want it. What am I doing wrong? My boobs are too uneven, my teeth too crooked, my legs too rolly, I\’m too short, my hair is too short, I\’m too curvy, too this, too that, whatever! People told me since the age of 14 that I should model. Eventually, a photographer talked me into it, and yes, I loved it. But since then, it\’s been this recurring theme of spending hours communicating with a photographer to set things up, get to the shoot and bust my ass for six hours, go home and hurt like hell for a week, and then… nothing. I get the CD with the photos, nothing is touched up, nothing is ever put on their sites (except most of the ones where I was paid, but the TFP ones almost never get used), nothing goes in their folios — it\’s like I don\’t exist, the shoot never happened. Except here I am with the shots, and some of them are really fantastic even from the point of view of someone who doesn\’t generally go for that sort of thing.
So what the hell is it? What am I doing wrong? I just don\’t get it. I put up the work on my own and people love the shots, but the photographers — nada. I just don\’t get it, I honestly don\’t. And it hurts my ego. I want to express something, and I\’m doing my best and they don\’t give a shit. Maybe that\’s the thing. Maybe I should stop working with people who want to make beautiful images and only work with people who want to express rawness. Which means that if the past few years are any indication, I\’ll get to make photos maybe once a year, and that\’s a really depressing thought. All I\’ve ever wanted to really do in life is make shit — perform, express, design, sing, write, whatever — and I\’m horrible at it. Augh.
This so totally did not go where I had originally intended.
