Newbie Professional Needs Some Inspiration

[Clawed]

Okay, so I am not new here. It HAS been a long time since I've been at TPF, and it's here that I learned much of what I used in my career thus far. To be exact, I am a former wedding and E·session photographer who has shot about 15 weddings. However, I dissolved the business and now want to explore some other areas of photography.

So, here is the real point of this message: my desire is to combine my love of art and portrait photography. I am going to be hiring a model to build my portfolio but there are a couple of issues. (1) shooting a very experienced professional model sounds incredibly intimidating (2) I don't have a studio (3) I want to make it an incredibly ambitious project but I need some inspiration.

I want to get some feedback from all of you! What photographers do you admire and why? What kinds of work have you seen that has pushed creative boundaries and ignited your own passion as a result? Should I work collaboratively with the model to generate some amazing ideas? And also, I know nothing about working with a model - do they have a makeup artist or should I be the one to provide that. FYI, I am paying the model, so not sure if that plays in or not. Thank you!

~ Canaan

http://throughglassphoto.wix.com/final#!home/mainPage

 

[hirejn]

Joe McNally, Jerry Ghionis, Lindsey Adler, Joel Grimes are some names to check out. I don't really get into what Grimes is doing but he's got some nice work. Dave Black isn't someone people necessarily think of when it comes to models but he's got some amazing light paintings and strobe work. If you really want to push yourself, you'll have to do some serious lighting. Since you're paying for the model, you can essentially get her to play whatever game you want and do whatever look you want. You should previsualize some ideas, how you might shoot them, and then try to make them happen. You can instruct the model about the theme and what you're trying to achieve so she can plan clothing/makeup. Treat the model professionally, but she's getting paid so it's more about what you want than what she wants. Whatever you do, set the expectations up front and have a contract.