The Spirit of Partnership
Great collaboration means that occasionally you’re not in the driver’s seat, you’re the co-pilot and you trust that you’re being led in a great direction by your partner.
That’s how I feel about working with models, when I’m with a true artist, because modeling is an art form in my opinion, I feel much more like a true collaborator than a solo artist. Working with Romeli gives me that feeling, she’s someone who truly brings a great deal of value and energy to a photo project.
I had an idea for this photo set, something I dreamt up after watching a few documentaries about the old New York. In my head I thought I could recreate a certain feeling, a specific moment in time, I was chasing a nostalgic vision. When I shared my concept with Romeli, she immediately understood what I was going for, and she gave me some food for thought that really improved the session.
Circling back to collaboration, being able to trust that your partner in this creative experiment understands you and adds to the vision is super clutch. The energy seen within these images don’t come from me, it’s my job to capture the energy in such a way that makes you feel something, but the energy comes from the model, in this instance from Romeli. Photographs tell the story of a moment instantly, you can easily see when a model and photographer aren’t in sync, when a golden moment was missed or when the vibe just isn’t right. (I’ll talk later about the importance of pre-production in a later post, I’ll ask some of my friends to chime in as well.)
Again, I had a vision for this shoot, and through good collaboration my concept was elevated. I captured this set of photos in February of 2019, I’ve revisited these images almost a dozen times and I’m sure I’ll keep tweaking them because I feel like I’m not quite there with how I see them in my head. But, I want to share them with you now in this post because I’ve been thinking long and hard about the idea of collaboration lately. It’s priceless, it’s invaluable, and I totally understand why I often see photographers working with the same few models.
Anywho, that’s my think piece for the month.
Peace.