Thursday, September 23, 2010

ModelMayhemWTF

Any of you follow ModelMayhemWTF on Twitter - They are pretty fantastic... A few weeks ago, while searching for paid work in Baton Rouge, I posted a photo to MMWTF: A naked model holding a dead catfish - Everything about the photo was "Ummm? What? Fuck?" - Well, coincidently, I had also emailed the guy, asking if he had any paid work for a traveling model - He said, "Yes! I have tons of ideas! I will hire you for four hours...! Come on over!"

And he did have tons of ideas - He had bought a bunch of pumpkins and he wanted me to stab them with knives - "Oooh this would be great if we had some fake blood" - He grabs red food coloring and starts dropping blood droplets all over the pumpkin and my boobs... About 10 minutes in, I notice that the food coloring is not coming off my hands... I ask him, "Did you check if this stuff washes off first?" And he goes, "Oh no, I forgot - I was just so-into-the-moment and you needed fake blood...." - I run to the shower.... It does not come off - Stuck with a weird pink blotches everywhere.. "Do you want to keep shooting?" "Of course! You look fine! Pink looks fine" Next he decides to shoot "Attack of the killer blob!" He pulls out a five pound bag of white powdery substance... "What is that stuff?" And he goes, "Oh, I work at the chemical plant!... I took it from work." And I go, "Yea, but what IS it?" And he goes, "I am not sure - We use it in a lot of things, like paint and household substances..." "But is it safe?" He goes, "I think it is..." At this point - I figure - I must have no-showed on this guy years ago... and now he is going to punish me with blotchy skin and cancerous materials.... But I shoot it....  and I shoot it fast... Showering afterwards, through the glass doors, I noticed the photographer now wearing nothing but a pair of tiny orange shorts...! Alarms sound off in my head! What is going on? He announces, "We are going to swimming! I have a few bottles of liquid nitrogen I took from work..." And I say, "Isn't that the stuff that dermatologists use on wart removal?!" And he goes, "Yup! Same stuff!"  Wow... what did I do this guy?.... Pink tinged, covered in cancerous slime, and now he is going to burn my skin off? Wow....

But actually, the liquid nitrogen was pretty neat - I have done a lot of photoshooting over the years and no one has shot anything like that with me before.... The liquid nitrogen freezes a very thin layer water... The water vapor then condenses making the most beautiful foggy smoke stuff...! Everything was great until he said that he wanted to Reanact a movie "FaceOff"... and he threw all the liquid nitrogen on my face....  and my face melted into the pool....

Everything was great until that happened.... (just joking... )

Seriously, though.... although it was a lot of fun, I learned a valuable lesson... Which is, almost all the models out there (including myself) put far too much trust into phototgraphers.... We expect the photographers to consider our safety and avoid dangerous situations - We expect them to plan their shoots, to scout, to experiment, to practice before we show up to shoot, to know what they are doing...  And sometimes they... just... do... not.... This is just a quick note to all you guys: Please try to consider your model's safety.... :  )  It is important and my mom would appreciate it a bunch!  Thanks!