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Photography: Working with Models
A course for experienced photographers who want to learn more about photographing people and working with models. Own equipment essential.
Thursday evenings, weekly for five weeks.
Week 1: Introduction to portraits
Week 2: Clothing/fashion
Week 3: Sport/action
Week 4: Erotica
Week 5: Conclusion/Graduation
Cost: $200 plus model fees (if applicable). Supper included.
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Chloe saw the ad in a brochure she had picked up at the art gallery. The brochure was put out by the local community college which was well known for its evening classes. This accounted for the surprisingly low cost, as the college would have obtained a subsidy and possibly a sponsor to help keep the cost as low as possible. Chloe had seen ads for similar courses in the past which had been much more expensive. She was struggling to pay rent as it was.
Chloe had fallen in love with photography when she was given her first camera at the age of eleven. She had taken photography as a subject in high school, and then she had managed to get an internship at an advertising agency. This led to a permanent job where she was one of a team of three photographers. Chloe was young, just 19, so she was eager to pick up assignments which played to her strengths. She was great at shooting objects, especially liquids. If a job called for a photo of a pint of beer or a shot of espresso, her colleagues were more than happy to let her have it.
Chloe's manager, however, was pushing her to become more versatile. Her main problem was that she was too shy. She was okay working with just an assistant, but she was reluctant to work with other people, especially models. Chloe knew she had to get over this barrier, and this course looked like the best opportunity to help her. She just had two very significant concerns about the advertisement.
Chloe phoned the college and spoke with an administrator for the evening classes. "What does it mean by 'if applicable' for the model fees?" She knew that the hourly rate for models would easily make the course completely unaffordable.
"Each class has a homework assignment," replied the woman. "If you can't get someone else to model for you, then you have to pay to use the model that the tutor has arranged."
"Does that mean I can just get my flatmate to model for me?" asked Chloe.
"Only if they're also doing the course," said the woman. "The model has to be someone who was there at class. But don't worry. I understand that in previous classes, most people were happy to help each other out."
"Okay, that's good," said Chloe. "The other thing I want to ask about was, um, week four."
"Week four? Oh, you mean the erotica class. Don't worry, it's just erotica, not pornography. I mean, nudity is allowed, but it's not compulsory. It's fine if it's just a bit of a tease. I think the tutor says that the goal is to get her heart beating faster. She doesn't expect everyone to get her panties wet."
Chloe was a bit shocked by the woman's reply, and the answers provided only a small amount of reassurance. Knowing that she needed to be challenged she signed up for the course, but it still felt like something well outside of her comfort zone.
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Andrew was shown the ad by his older brother, who told him that he had already signed him up and paid the fee. Andrew's brother was a successful fashion designer, and Andrew worked for his company in an administration role. One of the tasks his brother wanted him to do was take simple photos of models wearing the clothes. He wasn't asking Andrew to do a professional fashion shoot as he always hired top photographers to do that, but there were plenty of times he wanted to just send someone a simple photo of his creations.
Andrew had tried to do this a couple of times with his brother, but his problem was that he found the models too intimidating. All his interactions with them were tongue-tied and confused. In all the photos he took, the model invariably looked awkward.
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Chloe and Andrew were both disappointed with how small the class size was. There were only eight people in the room, which included the tutor and a professional model who was assisting her. Given their introverted natures, both Chloe and Andrew had been hoping to fade into the background in a much larger group.
The class started with a round of introductions. The tutor introduced herself as Karyn, a freelance photographer who was taking a break from travelling as she had a young family. Her model was a 21-year-old woman named April. April looked like a fashion model: tall, thin, beautiful complexion and blonde hair cut short in an immaculate pixie style.
The first student to introduce herself was a 23-year-old woman named Deirdre. She was of a medium height and had multiple piercings. Her head had long black hair on one side and was shaved on the other side. Chloe's immediate thought was that Deirdre was a lesbian, then she immediately berated herself for being so quick to judge someone by their appearance. But then Deirdre told everyone that she was doing the course because she wanted to assist her wife who was a wedding photographer who specialised in gay and lesbian weddings.
Sitting next to Deirdre was Ruth, a chubby 22-year-old who was dressed in bright colours. Ruth told the class she worked during the day in a shop, but that her passion was art. She talked about dabbling in quite a lot of different types of art, but she still hadn't found her niche. Chloe suspected that Ruth's desire to become an artist was more than her actual talent could support.
Next to introduce themselves were two older men. The first, named Gerald, stated his age as 'late 60s'. He was tall, mostly bald with a long grey beard. He spoke to the group about belonging to an alternative acting and dance group that wanted to do more to capture their performances on film. After Gerald was Alistair, who gave his age as 36. He was about the same height as Chloe's five foot three, and he sported a goatee. In response to the question about why he enrolled in the course, all he said was that he "likes photography." Chloe found herself feeling a bit creeped out by Alistair.
The last person before Chloe herself was Andrew. He gave his age as 22, and described his job working in his brother's fashion design business. Chloe noted that he was tall and well-built with a handsome face. Out of all the men, he was comfortably the most attractive, but she was a bit put off by his bright orange hair.
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Andrew was relieved to finally get past the ordeal of having to speak about himself to the group, and he turned to his left to look at Chloe, the class member he was most interested to learn about. It wasn't just that Chloe was young and pretty, although there was no denying that she was. From looking at her, Andrew wasn't surprised to learn that she was only 19, but it did mean that he was more than impressed by her career success. Listening to her talk about her job, he felt that familiar sense of intimidation he felt with the fashion models at work. His intimidation reduced a bit when he listened to her sharing about the same nervousness he felt about working with other people. He could sense in her a vulnerability that he could relate to.
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After the introductions were complete, the class began. Taught mostly by Karyn, but with a lot of helpful input from April, they presented a lot of information which they supported with practical demonstrations. Both Chloe and Andrew felt invigorated but frequently overwhelmed. After spending a very short time discussing traditional sitting portraits, they soon moved on to full body shots and a variety of posing ideas. They also talked about foreshortening. After showing a number of funny photographs demonstrating foreshortening done badly, such as people looking like midgets or looking like they had stunted limbs, they then demonstrated how foreshortening could provide an interesting perspective if done correctly.
Mixed in with the teaching was a lot of instructions about appropriate professional behaviour. Both Karyn and April spoke passionately about the need for photography to stamp out some of the misogyny and exploitation that was still all too common. They talked about the need for photographers to never touch models without consent, and to be very careful about starting relationships with models due to the inherent power imbalance that often exists. Other pieces of advice included always providing robes to allow models to cover up and safe changing areas, even when the photo shoot involved nudity. As April put it, "even if I'm only going to be wearing a garter belt and stockings, I still like somewhere private to get changed."
These instructions got everyone thinking about the upcoming class on erotica. Karyn had quickly gone through the lesson plan, but she hadn't gone into any detail about the future weeks, preferring instead to encourage the class to only focus on the current lesson and trust that the future classes would take care of themselves. Andrew felt his heart pounding as he thought about it. He found himself picturing April wearing only stockings and garter belt, maybe bent over a table or lying back on a bed, maybe even spreading her legs wide. These images had a predictable effect on his cock, and he was forced to quickly adjust himself. However, the idea of being the person to actual ask April to adopt these poses terrified him.
Chloe was also having similar thoughts. She had similar images of April in her head, and similar feelings of terror at the idea of being in charge of ordering April around. She also, much to her surprise, had a physical reaction. Although she didn't have an erection that needed adjusting, she suspected that a wet spot was forming in her panties.
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