i use MM and i find it quite useful in order to build your skills and experience working with non-pro models who are willing to trade their time for pictures.
Better than craigslist or approaching women on the street, god forbid! ha ha
also, if you have an interesting idea for a shoot, you will find that you will get a lot of interest from a number of models to choose from. Just pick carefully as other have stated.
I was in the same boat as you with needing people as the family was getting feed up. I started a face book group and just asked all my friends to join it so there friends would see it and maybe join. I give away cd of the better photos and have also given the odd print as well. Here is a link to it so you can see what it looks like. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=89321094679&ref=mf I have meet some very nice people and had a few shoots from it.
I have met some great people on MM. There is a lot of guys with cameras calling themselves photographers. It really makes it easy to shine there because of it though, lol
Just scrolling through the model listings, I noticed that 95% of the profile pictures are crap. It's not a stretch to conclude that if you don't have an even half-decent picture to post for your profile, chances are you are not a model.
Its not so bad once you get to know it. There are pretty girls with bad pictures, ugly girls with bad pictures. Meh, who cares.
What you do is, you identify a pretty girl (with good/bad pictures), and take nice looking pictures of her. Who cares about GWC and the like, it has nothing to do with anything. Also, a real model would probably want to charge you, so be happy that you get a pretty girl pretending to be a model.
Root around on there and eventually you'll hit paydirt.
+1 for me...i've had a great experience over at MM...
jfinite wrote:
Wow, such negativity in this thread. I think MM is great, but it's not all butter. Couple of thoughts...
1. You don't have to shoot 'girls'. There are male models as well. I have found them to be slightly more reliable than female models, but they are probably outnumbered 10 to 1, so the numbers are skewed.
2. Be picky about who you shoot with. Understand that if a model's port contains three cell phone shots and two of her on some Motel 8 bed in some twisted contortion of a 'pose', she's prolly new. Prolly.
3. You may have to put up some money to get a few decent models to shoot to get your portfolio started. After you've shown that you can deliver, the models will start to come to you....Show more →
one thing I will say is that they clearly don't care about obvious fakes.
I in fact turned in a profile yesterday that is blatantly stealing shots from a suicide girls profile (when the suicide girl they are stealing them from lives far away from alberta, and is about 7" shorter than the model is claiming to be) got a response from the moderator asking for more info, then a thanks reply when I provided it, but the profile is still up, stolen pictures and all.
CarminaF wrote:
Its not so bad once you get to know it. There are pretty girls with bad pictures, ugly girls with bad pictures. Meh, who cares.
What you do is, you identify a pretty girl (with good/bad pictures), and take nice looking pictures of her. Who cares about GWC and the like, it has nothing to do with anything. Also, a real model would probably want to charge you, so be happy that you get a pretty girl pretending to be a model.
Root around on there and eventually you'll hit paydirt.
Bingo. I've had great luck with MM....all of the models that I have shot have been from there. Ignore the people that you don't think are" models" and ignore the GWCs and choose who you want to work with. As Carmina said, there are pretty girls with bad photos and ungly girls with nice photos. Choose who you want to shoot with and do it. It's a great resource in my opinion.
Ian Bower wrote:
I'm looking for a model to practice my photography on - a day of just shooting somewhere. I don't want to worry about what she is wearing (yet). I don't want to pay anyone, but I am MORE than happy to trade for portfolio shots.
Its hard just to find someone to "just go somewhere to photograph" without a theme... There may be some people that is new, they will be willing to do that.
Its good if you have an idea or theme that you want to shoot... there are better chance getting a hits... but you probably want to have some nice portfolios also.
I've been on MM since the beginning, my MM# is 224
my daughter, MM# 229 is a local model
that said, I feel like I should put my two cents worth into this pot
If you want to learn the art of shooting people, MM models is a great place to start.
If you are learning photography & lighting, you may want to consider hiring an experienced model.
Models shoot with photographers for a couple of reasons
- to practice their modeling
- to add good pictures to their portfolio
- to earn $$
if you can't produce images to improve their portfolio, you should probably pay them for their time, then you can practice away and not worry about what you should give them as far as images
if you do strike a trade deal, it most likely will be with a beginner wannabe ... she will learn the most from seeing all the images, so she can critique herself ... I'm not saying give her all the images, but at least put them up in a gallery so she can review & learn from them
as far as what to give her (in a trade deal) try for as little as possible ... those that think they should get all the hi-res images on a CD don't understand that you want to maintain quality control ... politely explain that a few good edited images are way better than hundreds of crappy images, and that they can only use one or two images per outfit in their portfolio.
If you are lucky enough to shoot an agency worthy model, they will need the hi-res for their comp cards & such, but still don't need quantity, but their agency may want a CD with the good shots, and the rights to use them
When I was beginning, I let the models pick 10 shots per outfit which I would edit & give hi-res ... now, they get 1-3 shots per outfit, and still get the hi-res as actors & models must make multiples to leave at castings/auditions etc, so owning the hi-res is practical & economical for them, my release allows them to use the images for personal promotion only. The difference is, for me, I now only test with working, experienced, agency level models, the beginner models can hire me if they want to shoot with me (unless I'm working on a stock project)
don't expect an experienced model to spend the day shooting with you for free, they don't get anything out of it, because it will be a while before you are shooting at their level
The animosity and sheer arrogance on here is staggering.
All I can say is, don't screw your models over. How you treat people you work with says a lot about you as both a photographer and a person. Don't deny them prints or high res images because of costs or whining about copyrights. You're wasting their time as much as they're wasting yours and you owe it to them to give them something for their time as much as they owe you a good work ethic. The model/photographer dynamic is supposed to be symbiotic.
Moreover, the ire levied toward beginners seems to belie the fact that everyone was a beginner at some point in time.
this is me wrote:
It doesn't really matter how you approach them. 80% of them will cancel or never show up.
Sorry for being so negative here but it's a fact that you need to be aware of.
+1
A simple telephone conversation beforehand helps this rate increase. When people make arrangements over PM, they seem more willing to flake.
johnbonham wrote:
...
Just use them as props while you learning, don't worry about "social" issues (lol) that's totally unnecessary, they're just purse props while you learn.
It's full of tons of girls who with egos/issues who want to say "Hey, I'm a model!" etc. Most of these girls are toothpicks and 5'3" with no chance at ALL of ever becoming a model.
Just use them as props while you learning, don't worry about "social" issues (lol) that's totally unnecessary, they're just purse props while you learn.
A simple telephone conversation beforehand helps this rate increase. When people make arrangements over PM, they seem more willing to flake.
The better your work is, the less likely they are to flake also. A quick email or text the day before will usually save you a trip if they are going to flake. No read, no response = no show, but you know the day before.
Your recognition of red flags in pre-shoot dialogue will reduce your headaches dramatically. Just don't setup shoots with people who make your spidey senses tingle.
CarminaF wrote:
The better your work is, the less likely they are to flake also. A quick email or text the day before will usually save you a trip if they are going to flake. No read, no response = no show, but you know the day before.
Your recognition of red flags in pre-shoot dialogue will reduce your headaches dramatically. Just don't setup shoots with people who make your spidey senses tingle.
+1, if they sound flakey on the phone, they're prolly fakes IRL.
CarminaF wrote:
The better your work is, the less likely they are to flake also. A quick email or text the day before will usually save you a trip if they are going to flake. No read, no response = no show, but you know the day before.
Your recognition of red flags in pre-shoot dialogue will reduce your headaches dramatically. Just don't setup shoots with people who make your spidey senses tingle.
Sorry to quote you again, but this is my experience as well. In the 20ish models I have shot from MM, I have only had 2 people flake on me. If you're smart about it, you won't have many problems.
It was meant in a light-hearted way.