A photography class from the model's perspective.

[deudeu]

I participated in a photo contest this weekend... as a model!
It was a pretty interesting concept:
About 15 photographers from a local photography school each had 20 minutes with four of us in some large room, with some soft boxes, a few chairs, a makeup table and four of us. They could not walk out of the room with more than 36 shots. They were allowed to use light meters and tripods as well as their their camera, and i assume one lens, since i didn't see anyone change theirs.
In two weeks now there is going to be an opening and we will see their best two shots from this day.

I really enjoyed being able to see people with some formal photography education work. It was very interesting.
There is just so many different personalities and way of working with models.

But obviously, the most interesting thing was to check out everybody's equipment!

Unfortunately i won't be able to know what camera shot what because of the rules of the contest. But here is what I was able to observe.
First of all, students are all digital these days. Out of 15 or 16, only two were shooting film.
The price of the original camera goes to a Minolta 9xi (i think this is what it was). First time i see one of these. The other film camera looked like Nikon EM with a normal prime.
On the digital side the Canon 40D was the most popular. After that it was pretty scattered as far as models were concerned. But all but one were canikons. Only one guy had a Sony.

What suprised me most though was how few primes there was. Only three or four. I think i saw a bunch of Canon zooms which i wouldn't be able to name, and there was a couple tamrons 28/75. This one i want so i recognized.
Personnally, since there was plenty of room to move back and forth, i would definitely have gone with my 50mm...
Anyways, i thought i would share because i was bored at work.

 

[deudeu]

Oh, and with the money i bought some very old piece of glass, which was definitely the most enjoyable part of the experience.

A 30+ years old 28mm prime is now on the way... can't wait!

 

[bigalbest]

You seem to know a lot about photography for a model. And you should post links to some of the shots if you can.

 

[deudeu]

I am definitely more often on the photographer side of the camera. This was just an opportunity but it doesn't happen very often.

I don't think i will post pictures. I was not wearing anything, i don't think that it would be appropriate for this site.

 

[391615]

I had an opportunity to do this and I loved it, it was to show people how different it is to be on the other side, but I found it completely comfortable. But some people, and I know from shooting them, that they are stiff, and have no idea how to relax infront of the camera. And yeah definitely I only use my 50mm f1.4 for portraits. Unless I need distance, then I use about 135mm.

 

[bahandi]

lol... just thought of something. i'm going to assume you're a male, deudeu as you referenced yourself as not being a sony man.

there's a thread here somewhere about male nudes. maybe you can pm that girl a few pics with the essentials blurred out in case she's considering taking the nude pics of her pontential client. lol....

 

[deudeu]

Yes i am a male.

I don't think that i am going to send those to anyone. I guess it would depend on how good they are but there were also two other nude models there. I don't know if they would feel comfortable with me sharing pictures of them with the world.
Also, i think that if anyone is to be sharing those on a forum it should be the photographers, not the models. (And i usually hate pictures of me!)

 

[inneist]

The type of photography under your discussion is, I gather, studio portrait?

28mm prime that's too wide for the work. You may say I can always crop out other elements after the shot is taken, but compared with classical portrait focal length, the two perspectives resulted aren't the same, still. In this case, one normally prefers the normal perspective because it's considered more flattering for the model.

Nice you opened this thread, which makes me think of one question I always have wondered. In old Henri Cartier-Bresson days, I was told 50mm was the norm for the photojournalism. If you check out the annual international press contest photos in our time, seems wide angle is definitely on the vogue. In fact, many now even consider 50mm is a tele photo. Looks like photography is very much a mode thing? Aesthetical tastes do change over time.

I have to say this reflection makes me a bit uneasy.