After 8 years of modeling, I definitely have my fair share of funny, horrible, and odd stories so I thought I’d compile some of the craziest ones into a couple of blog posts for you. These are in chronological order and I’ve left the names out for some of them. This is part one and I’ll have part two out for you soon.
Let’s jump in…
Big Fat Liar
When I wasn’t really modeling yet, but trying to get into it, I met a man on MySpace who I’m just going to call BFL. My current self would have seen this guy coming and shut him down before he even had a chance to meet me. However, back in late 2008/early 2009 when this happened, I had no idea of what was out there. BFL had lots of pretty photos in his MySpace photos of different models that looked good. He also seemed to know what he was talking about.
We set up a shoot in a graveyard to do a goth witch pin-up calendar. Yep, I fell for the older calendar scam.
Before the shoot, he contacted me and told me to pick up a disposable camera because he’d left his camera in another model’s trunk. He told me disposable cameras were what all the fashion pros used anyway. That sounded a little weird to me so I brought my family’s point and shoot too.
BFL asked us (my boyfriend was driving) to pick him up at his house because he had night blindness and couldn’t drive. Again, that sounded weird as we were going to be shooting around dusk, but he had all those nice photos and talked a good game.
The shoot itself actually wasn’t bad. He took the disposable and claimed he’d get the photos developed. I took the point and shoot since he didn’t want those photos anyway. Of course, the photos never got developed, but the story continues…
One night he asked us to pick him up again so he could come to hang out and we could talk about photos, maybe do another shoot. This was during the brief 9 months that I was living in an apartment. I felt I really needed more photos if I wanted to continue modeling, so we agreed.
The moment he got in the car I regretted it. First, he wanted to stop and buy a bunch of beer. I didn’t want that in my apartment (I have never been a drinker and my boyfriend wasn’t either), but let him do it anyway. Then we got home and stayed up for a while.
I think this was when I showed him some of the art nudes I’d been seeing and that I really liked those. He told me I should never get into nudes.
He also didn’t want me to take my socks off and walk around barefoot like I normally did because feet grossed him out. Finally, we went to bed and he stayed up. He drank all of that beer (4 or 5 of the large cans) and he ate all of our food! At that time I was barely paying for things and that was a huge deal. After that, I insisted we take him home which we did.
Eventually, I broke contact.
Oh, and as for his camera, apparently that didn’t exist. I found out later that he had a couple other more experienced models on the line as well. He’d been telling all of us that he’d left his camera in one of the others’ cars. I also found out that he hadn’t shot a single photo on his MySpace. They were just photos of models he knew.
Thank goodness right after him I met a much more professional photographer named John Wilson who would end up doing both my first real shoot and my first nude shoot. He was the one who really got me started in modeling.
First Creeper Guy
Shortly after I started modeling for actual photographers (or at least those with a camera), I was contacted by a photographer I’ll call FCG. He wanted to shoot some outfits/costumes and I think it was paid work. I explained to him right away that a lot of adult one size costumes wouldn’t fit me because I’m so tiny. I also told him that maybe I had some stuff we could shoot in. He wanted to meet at his shoot space to talk and see what outfits I had. He was very firm in that where I was going was his shoot space and not his home, which was kind of odd, even to me at the time.
We (again, my boyfriend was driving) arrived at his shoot space. It was a motel type building that had been converted into apartments. As soon as I walked in, he was sitting on his couch watching TV. I noticed that he’d shoved everything in cabinets and such to make the place look like he didn’t live there. He got up and walked me through to a bedroom with a completely stripped bare, stained mattress that had a couple cheap sexy school girl type outfits on it. I told him right away that they were too big and suggested I show him what I brought.
We went back into the living room where my suitcase was. He proceeded to sit down on the couch and go back to watching dog agility trials on the TV. I don’t think he ever even looked at anything I pulled out and tried to show him. Finally, I told him we needed to go and left.
After that, on the way home, I started wondering if I was ever going to be able to make this modeling thing work.
What I Learned…
Both of these stories tell you that I’m a “people pleaser”. At that time I was also really, really shy. I’ve learned to be more assertive, particularly in regards to my modeling.
Looking back on these stories, I am also reminded that everyone starts out without knowing all of the in and outs of this community. I had no idea what I was doing. Those memories are part of why I make such an effort to help others who are new. I wish there had been more of a community when and where I started. If there had been, I think I could have avoided some mistakes and progressed much faster.
More to come…
I have three more stories that I’ll be sharing with you at a later date.
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