New Model, New Web Site Design

Joe, a 19-year-old Thai who graduated from Carmel High School just this year, was the third model I shot this week. I didn't finish processing the last batch of shoots until Tuesday night. Now I am behind again with three shoots to process.

Kaleb, the firs model I shot, Arron and Sam are models I casted through a model site. A couple others were brought into a shoot by these model hopefuls. I recruited the rest from people I knew or met.

There is no question that the models casted from the sites were easier and in some ways more fun to shoot. They were not only invested in a modeling career but were invested because thy have characteristics that make them suited for modeling. They tended to be more good-looking so friends and families were always telling them they should be models. They like how they look, like looking at pictures of themselves, and like to take care of their physical health and beauty. They like clothes and know a lot about style. They are, like me, professionals in the beauty industry.

For the models that I recruited from the street, being photographed was a new experience. Many of them are embarrassed to look at their photographs. They don't think of themselves as being handsome or beautiful. They don't have an investment in their physical looks. 

As much as I enjoy shooting good-looking people I harbor an unprofessional interest in impacting society in a moral or ethical way. Beauty deserves the adoration we give it but physical beauty by itself can not be the basis for happiness. Happiness is my main objective, whether in me or in others.

Shooting Joe today reminded me how my new career in photography and the old one converged on pervasive interest I have in the quality of people's inner worlds and private lives. I want to join the ranks of fashion and advertising photographers and will what I need to do to accomplish this. But I don't see myself getting swallowed up in the dazzle of the fashion industry. I see photography, even fashion photography, as a vehicle that carries not only my career objectives but my long-standing interest in assisting people attain happiness. Photography can effect this less directly than what I used to do. Art is not quite so direct so that its effect on others depends more on the viewer than on the artist.

In re-building my web site on Apple I am redesigning it. I am moving forward to market myself in advertising and fashion photography but I sense that I won't be a run-of-the-mill fashion photography. It's a new career, not a new me.