Photoshoot Preparations

Today I'm meeting with a photographer for the first time to discuss doing an entire series of superhero photos for him and I to share in our portfolios. If you aren't familiar, that's called a Trade For Print (TFP) usually; sometimes, Trade For something else like CD just to be specific. He's not paying me to model and I'm not paying him for the pictures. We can use the shots in our portfolios or whatever we discuss. For me, I have his permission to use them as part of my publicity for the charity work and store appearances that I do. I've contacted a make-up artist too for a similar trade on days when I have an event and hopefully her schedule will allow for it.

Since I honestly have no idea what I'm doing in regard to modeling, I'm looking to this photographer Rob Gardner (Boonton, NJ) to guide me throughout the process. For today's prep he asked me to bring fabric samples in because he's interested in doing more than just a stark white backdrop so he's going to examine the colors and come up with different backgrounds. We're going to plan out colors and even scenarios for action shots utilizing his friend as a stand-in street thug.

I remember my college days going through the Fine Arts building and seeing the fashion students' exhibits. They had cards with their sketches and swatches of fabric so I created my own version of that with any of the materials from my suits that I could get my from my bottomless pit of leftover fabric. I used Hallmark blank greeting cards to put through my printer; set my printer to "Best" quality in the properties; created a MS Publisher document with photo, name of suit, list of fabrics; taped the fabric to the card because staples would screw up the fact that I've double-sided these. Since I did double-side the cards, I could have fit up to 8 costumes but I only did my 6 favorites.

If you don't make your costumes yourself, ask the designer to send swatches either in advance or with your finished product; sometimes this is a nominal fee like $3-5 usually just to cover postage if it's in advance.

Here's an example of what the design cards look like: