When I flew to Spain at the end of the previous year to find a new home, come business premises to launch my new lifestyle, and photographic business, I left a few business cards with one of the air hostesses. I thought it was worth trying my luck, and I've always been of the opinion that, 'if you don't ask, you don't get.' Air hostesses, it seemed to me would be perfect model material, after all, they are generally chosen for their attractiveness, their outgoing demeanour, and people skills.
On top of that they are always immaculately groomed, as it's part of the job. So, on exiting the aircraft, I had passed some business cards to the hostess on the door. She had smiled very professionally, but said nothing, and I thought that was the end of that, but of course, I'm ever the optimist and thought, just maybe...
A few months into my new life, with the villa I had bought altered, reconstructed, and refurbished to service my photographic requirements, I was doing well. I had a steady stream of clients, mainly garnered from the millionaire's playground of the Costa Del Sol, and the many marinas where they moored their motor yachts. The wives and mistresses of the very rich were wonderful clients to have, they could well afford my fees, and I quickly gained a reputation for secrecy and discretion, which was paramount given the nature of their photo shoots.
Of course, they were also sexually motivated to a great extent, and that meant many of them got rather aroused during the photo shoots, which in turn meant I occasionally got to sample the delights of these very high class, society ladies. There will be more interesting, not to mention arousing tales from that source in due course.
I was just going around one day, checking that everything was in tip-top condition; a constant battle to keep standards as high as possible. Just a bit of cleaning and dusting, in between attending to other pressing matters, answering e-mails about bookings and such like, when the phone rang.
When I answered it a lovely, cultured, English voice asked if this was the photo studio, and when I said it was, she explained that she had been an air hostess, on my flight in late November, early December the previous year, and had been given one of my business cards. She was due into the Costa this week, and had a few days layover if I wanted to arrange a shoot. I asked her to send me a picture by e-mail before I committed myself to anything, and a picture dully arrive taken just the month before she assured me.
She was impressive, and I was impressed, very well proportioned, shoulder length dark brown hair, a lovely face and great figure, plus she included her vital statistics, height, (5'6") bust and hip size, etc, so I e-mailed her back, and we arranged a time for the shoot, later in the week. Her name was Alice, and I explained exactly what was involved, what she would need, clothes and lingerie wise, and looked forward to seeing her when she arrived.
On the morning of the shoot I got the lights set up, and checked, used the flash meter to work out the exposures, made sure the cameras were fully charged, etc. I like to be fully prepared for any eventuality. I read one of those motivational things somewhere which went, 'Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail,' and nowhere is that truer than in photography. There are so many variables that can lead to things going wrong, and believe me, I've met with that old devil, 'disaster' a few times over the years. Now, as a professional, I check everything at
least
twice, and have back up and substitutions in place for everything I can think of that might go wrong.
Luckily, nothing went wrong, and the lovely Alice duly arrive, but much to my surprise and consternation she had brought a friend, who she introduced as Sasha. I say consternation because, I hate working with someone, 'looking over my shoulder,' but worse still, it can make building some sort of rapport with the model almost impossible. If the model is an experienced professional, then it can work because they are so used to working with other people there, but with an amateur, like Alice, it can be a big problem. The only mitigating factor was that the friend was drop-dead gorgeous, another air hostess who said she was interested in modelling for me too, and wanted to see what it was all about.
I had my doubts, but kept them to myself for the time being, and hoped that I'd be able to bring the best out of Alice, despite her friend being there as a spectator. I wondered if I could turn this to my advantage in some way, but in the meantime, I put that to the back of my head and after a wee, 'acclimatisation,' period, where we chatted and had a glass of white wine to help keep any nerves at bay, (I had tea - no alcohol or coffee when working) we finally got started.
I always start with the model fully dressed, then let her undress gradually until she is in lingerie, but this time I debated with myself if I should start with Alice in lingerie right from the start. However, bearing in mind she was an amateur who had never modelled before, I made the snap decision to have her fully dressed to start with as usual. It not only gives the model time to get used to the idea of being photographed, but it gives a wider range of shots from fully dressed to nude, which maximises the selling potential of any photo shoot. I could sell fully dressed shots as 'lifestyle,' for advertising and editorial purposes, and the lingerie and nudes to a range of different markets as usual.
