Letter from Boston

Volunteer Model

By MASAKO YAMADA

One of my friends has always had a creative bent and she carries around her camera all the time. She is infamous for snapping photos of her friends in rather embarrassing situations, but at the same time, her friends have often appreciated the candid results. She has put a lot of thought and effort into her hobby even though she has not had much formal training. However, she has recently decided that she needs a more solid foundation in order to pursue the art further, and has started to take classes in subjects such as graphic design and studio photography.

When it comes to photography, however, classroom learning doesn't really mean that students sit at their desks and take lecture notes. They spend most of their time actually taking pictures and evaluating the results with a critical eye. It takes different kinds of skills to take different kinds of pictures: awesome natural scenery, beautiful bowls of fruit and ballet dancers on stage certainly cannot be treated in the same manner. In my friend's class, the students are learning to take pictures of posed people in a studio setting.

This means that the class is always looking for models — models who will pose for free, no less. My friend sent out an e-mail message to many of her friends asking whether they'd be willing to be models in her class.

She says that many of those people gave a positive response. I am one of the people. She made it clear that the students were not looking for supermodels but rather people who would be able to pose naturally, so I figured I'd be a sufficient candidate. Besides, I wanted to help her pursue her goal of becoming a better photographer.

It's true that I probably would not have volunteered so readily if she were an aspiring acupuncturist, plastic surgeon or hairstylist. But I knew that posing for a photography class wouldn't hurt me at all, except perhaps for the knowledge that a whole classroom of students would have photos of me (many of them in rather unflattering poses) that they might later include in an exhibition or portfolio.

I've used my friends as topics for my articles so often that I figured that I could pay back a little.

There is a photography school three minutes away from my laboratory and this is where the session was held. I walked inside the photography school for the first time. The decor was extremely stark. As far as I could see, there were no typical classrooms with desks and blackboards. Instead, all of the rooms were box-shaped spaces with gray walls.

Lights, curtains, umbrellas, screens and wires were scattered about. The students took a long time to adjust the angles of everything. Far from being glamorous, the scene of my first photo shoot was practical and even a little grim.

The people in the classroom were very casual and nice, however, and I felt comfortable. They were not the artsy sort. Rather, they seemed like kindly neighbors who happened to like taking pictures.

As soon as they got the equipment ready, I sat on the designated seat, and the students started snapping away. Five or six students must have taken photos of me.

They did not shoot all at once. Rather, they took pictures one at a time, since each student had to plug his or her camera into the lighting setup to synchronize the flash and the shutter. Besides, each student needed to practice moving me around.

I found it extremely difficult to create expressions that I didn't feel naturally. I suppose it's common for professional photographers to coax brilliant smiles or sexy pouts from professionals models even in the starkest of settings, but with amateur photographers and an amateur model, this seemed nearly impossible.

While I was sitting in the studio, I felt newfound admiration for both professional photographers and models for being able to create mood out of nowhere.

I have seen some copies of the photos that were taken, and sure enough, most of them are too cheesy or too stiff. Two or three photos came out quite naturally, however, and it made me want to learn more about what it is that makes these things "click." I'm sure the aspiring photographers are trying to figure this out as well.

Shukan ST: Oct. 27, 2000

(C) All rights reserved