In a model’s shoes

Being a model is simple, being a Good model is not and it is something many photographers should know. As the role of a photographer is not just triggering the camera, the role of a model is not just "standing there"; it takes confidence, dedication and personality to come out as a strong model. A photographer's challenge is to take someone new on board for a photo shoot and make him or her feeling in the right place in order to help the nature of the model to come out. There have been times when Fabiana and I have worked with models who did not concede a single part of their real nature, making the shoot to fall flat, while other, inexperienced models came out incredibly strong. This is the case of Ilaria, whose dedication and commitment to the session was commendable. It was her first proper photo shoot, and it was spiced up, pushed towards the see-through of fashion more than the comfortable editorial style. It was a challenge she accepted. And she won!
Every model, as every photographer from the other side of the lens, has a time to get ready. This can literally be few seconds to some hours, in the case of Ilaria we decided to start with some soft options on the styling side: my bad. Ilaria was prepared to something strong, edgy, and I think that the soft start set her off her mindset. Communication had been very precise with her on what we were looking for and I thought that it would have been easier to give her an easy way into the edge we were looking for. It was not for lack of trust, but to make things smooth. What I did not realise was that Ilaria is one of those committed people who are ready to trust you as photographer. This mean that the first shots did not carry that strength Fabiana and I were looking for. I was analysing the result and, despite their quality, they were not carrying her nature in it.
As always I have to praise the team we worked with: Anna Louise, Caterina and Neelam were fantastic and worked perfectly with us to make things superb, and they made it in each and every single frame, still I was looking for more strength. It was there that we decided, together with our stylist and hair stylist support, to push Ilaria's boundaries a little bit more, giving her that edgy look that was planned, and from the first shot we realised that the photo shoot would have not fall short as Ilaria started delivering exactly the look we were looking for: edgy, strong, not delivering the beauty of the woman, but the image of the model.
I believe that there is a very important lesson to be learned from this experience: it does not matter if the model you have in front of you is experienced of at the beginning of her career: you have to pursue your vision without planning the shoot in function of your models' comfort. Good models will deliver, bad models will be soon forgotten. Ilaria is a fantastic model, she is committed and she delivers what she is asked to: I really hope we will be able to work with her once more, but this time I will be much more focussed on placing a bet on her professionalism from the frame number one as I know she will not fall short of expectations!
You live, you learn!
As always, allow me to present you the fabulous team that worked with us during the evening: we were lucky to have them on board!

The Team
Photographers: Carlo and Fabiana Nicora
Stylist: Anna Louise Dockeray
Hair: Caterina Maiolini
Make Up: Neelam Samrai
Model: Ilaria Gilardini