I saw Yuri’s photos for the first time surfing around aimlessly on a couple of stock-sites. I soon started searching directly for more of his photos. I was fascinated by the naturalness, vitality, perfectness and beauty of his photos. Some days later I found myself writing an email and asking to become a model, I followed the guidelines for new models, although I did not really believe in getting a result from that – Ok, I have a nice smile and I am a natural type, but.. I got a reply the next day and was basically invited to Denmark immediately, everything paid for. It toke a few months of finding the right time for a visit and making sure that everything was clarified, but soon I was on my way.
Some busy weeks had followed, where I hadn’t had time to think about anything at all, I suddenly stood at the airport in Cologne with a huge suitcase. I had thrown everything in it, from what I thought that I could probably need it, as well as the few clothes I ‘had borrowed’ in different stores before. Here I was, standing at the terminal and said goodbye to my boyfriend.
My thoughts where racing: “Wow. What are you doing? Are you really flying to Aarhus to do a job and get more photos for your book? Ouch! Thank god, that you moved around so many furniture articles last week so that you’re looking a little bit sporty and slim, although you hadn’t time for doing any sports the last two weeks. How will it be there? And what will I experience?” With these and similar thoughts I stepped into the plane and fell asleep, changed planes and fell asleep again.
My flight arrived one hour late but I saw Yuri still waiting to pick me up. We said hello and we chatted for half an hour while driving to my Hotel… and what a hotel that was! Super luxury and right in the center of the city! He said goodbye with the words: “We’ll pick you up at 9 o’ clock tomorrow morning. I’ll call you. Good night!“
My thoughts on a day of shooting:
07.00 Ring! Hmmm… What time is it? Where I am? Hmmm… Hotel… … … Shoots… … Denmark… Just five hours of sleep… Oooooh…. Too little! … Soooooo tired…. More sleep! Just a few minutes…
07.30 Ring! Ok! Stand up! No more time for ‘Just a few minutes…’ Take a shower No! NO…! No Close-up mirror! My eyes! Help! Looking horrible! Ok… O.K.! Calm down… Pffffff… Photoshop will do it. – Hopefully… After a shower I sorted my clothes in what I needed for the shoot and what I definitely would not need and put the usable stuff back into my suitcase again. A little breakfast. Back in the room I 
made sure that my skin and nails are looking good and put some natural makeup on, as Yuri’s stylist had asked me to do.
09.00 Phone-Ring! “Hey! Yes, I’ll come downstairs.“ Downstairs they were waiting in the car – Yuri, Melike (producer/stylist) and Phillip (assistant). They welcomed me and we started driving to the big studio – out of Aarhus, through small villages and fields to an old warehouse.
9.30 A warehouse! I think it must have been the strangest studio where I have ever had a shoot. It was not yet finished, and construction workers where still in the building. The studio was huge and had all kinds of stuff in it. Everything from surfboards to scientific instruments… Nice! Very nice! Must have been a lot of work! So. um! Yes… Clothes… After we had a closer look at my clothes, the things Melike had brought and what I had with me from home. We decided on a couple of sets, for the first shoot, and looked at stuff for the next day as well…. and changed my make up because of my typical German way of doing that. Ok. Learned something new about “putting on natural make up“. Then we all sat down for a breakfast (my second) with Maria, the first assistant, who had arrived in the meantime. Yes! Something to eat while shooting! Yeeepheee
10.15 We started with a living-room shoot. I started posing, Yuri took a lot of photos and told or showed me different positions and sometimes just said: “Stay!“ He worked with a large set of descriptions of feelings and actions, so that I could get an exact idea of what he wanted to see. Because I was experienced as an actor from before, it wasn’t that difficult to act out a role or situation. 1200: some changes of clothes, some different settings and objects to work with and sometimes another role – from the young girl in the living room to the medical scientist with a microscope or the business-woman at work.
16.30 “Ok. Finished for today.“ Oh. Time went by very fast! … But it was exhausting enough…, I’m tired again… Embarrassing. They must be thinking “she is always sleeping and tired” Yawned so often… “Are you tired?“ “No… Äh.“ Hmmm… Yes, a little bit…“ “Long day! We will bring you back to the hotel.“ So… We tidied up and Melike brought me back to Aarhus. I was still trying not to fall asleep and to chat a little bit. It worked! Presumably it was because Melike is fluent in German. Yeeepheee! That was a relief! Not having to concentrate on speaking an understandable and reasonable English. Yuri understood German too, but spoke to me in English.
17.00 Back in the hotel I took a shower, then I laid on the bed with my laptop to check my emails (Another great service of the hotel… free wifi!) and dozed off just a few minutes later.
18.30 Waking up… Enough sleep for now! And probably the whole week. I went outside to see a little bit of the town and had a dinner (Paid dinner! Hmmm… No expenses this week…), Forgetting that the prices at the different menus was in Danish Krones and not Euro, I was stunned by the prices! Could it really be that a single meal cost 100 euros and more… I soon figured things out and the prices seemed more reasonable. 🙂
20.00 Found a restaurant next to a little river which streamed through the town and thought about the past day, the next days, what to do better, what to expect and my boyfriend, family and friends at home. Afterwards I walked back to the hotel.
22.00 I decided not to go through the city again by myself. Instead of that I switched on my laptop, started Skype and phoned while doing some image editing of photos of earlier shoots.
24.00 I drifted off with the sound of an English movie with danish subtitles. Good cause with this subtitles… Great day… Really interesting, instructive and yes, nice… I think this was a quite typical day of this week. I had the chance to voice my own thoughts and wishes about the shoots and like stock photography because it is a great way to get more exposure. I also earned some money and got so many new photos for my portfolio Altogether it was a very exhausting and hard week, but I gained a lot of experience and got to know nice and interesting people as well as a very professional and perfectionist team who knew exactly when to take more photos and when to stop. I think I got what I marveled at Yuri’s photos before: naturalness, vitality, perfectness and beauty. Over the week, I could adapt myself to the team and could get more routine in producing stock photos, so that the results are better and the work was much more relaxed than those two-day shoots I so often have done in my professional life as a model. In my opinion stock 
photography is a complete special way of taking photos. At the most of the stock shoots you don’t necessarily need it, but it’s better to have know-how in acting to get the most natural look in the photos and the scenes. So there were many moments when I was happy to know acting and how to use it. I could also use my experience in dancing, which Yuri utilized after he had heard about it. It was a diversified week with many different impressions and I have learned a lot more about about doing a stock-shoot: different way of acting in front of the camera, putting on make-up and dressing up, as well as some more essential background information, you have to know in this business. So, I would do it again at any time. See Eva Marias Personal Homepage
wow, this is quite interesting to go through the model photographer talk. cool. and yes have to admit a really cool and down-to-earth model.
cheers.
Seeing the experience of a shooting session through the eyes of a model can be very helpful for a photographer.
If I’m not too indiscreet, what were the broad terms of contract? I’m not asking for numbers, just the nature of the exchange: partly TFCD and partly payments, or was it fully paid, or did it include other items as well?
I’m asking this because I find negotiation to be the most sensitive part of working with models, since you don’t want to work for free, but you don’t want to take advantage of them, either. Maybe you could post an entire post on this subject one time?
Cheers!
Oh wait.. I just found out that you had already covered most of my questions in the “Guidelines for new models” post. 😀
it’s really interesting to read this. i think it is helpful to hear what the model thought about a photoshoot.
Great photos with a beautiful and interesting woman… I really like her look too! Yuri has a great eye for those incredibly beautiful yet very natural/normal looking models.
ich wfcrde besonders gerne wisesn vom wem die drucke auf dem bild IMG_3985 sind(noch in der losen reihe)ansonsten danke ffcr die dokumentation der arbeiten, mir hat der rundgang freude bereitet!