Yes its exactly what you think it is. They are the face of the fashion and glamour industry around the world, the "ROOPMATIS" (the archaic, sarcastic Hindi word, meaning a dumb beauty). They are everywhere and you can find then in every corner and every circuit of this industry, however, it is a very difficult task to find one good model who has got the "THING" in her. Most of them are after money and cheap publicity. On the floor, in front of the lens they are as dumb as a stone, most of them lack facial expressions, actions and unaware of what is going on. I have found many a good faces, but either they are not interested in conceptual and creative photography, or they dont have a wee bit idea of what that is. Another difficulty for me is money now. Not every time it is possible for me to hire expensive models to get my experiments done, unless I get a paid assignment. Paid assignments are 99% commercial and they DO NOT entertain conceptual or creative photography with low or medium key lighting. The reason being, those photos will not be considered as a "good" photo in the modeling agencies or by public. I once showed one low photo to one of my so called artist friend and he replied, "dude you should some good flash, the light is very low here", or "why dont you use photoshop to do some editing?" I couldn't help but laugh my heart out that day. Needless to say that he got offended and stopped talking to me.
TFCD seems to be a very good choice in this case, atleast for me. I have approached many a models and Most of them were interested about it after they got the details from me. Recently I am trying to materialise the themes and styles of Legendary Painter and Sculptor Mr. Gustav Klimt. Especially the late 1800 concepts of "Femme Fatal". It is very tough to regularise those things into a shape and then convert those concepts for photography. All of his work is abstract and he used mosaic style and other aids to hide the crude reality and give it a polish of art which is first drawn on the canvas. I would love to get suggestions on this particular topic. Need very intellectual and physically well articulated female models for this project. Looking forward to work with one of my British friends from Oxford. It is only possible if he comes here again within next few months.
Conceptual and creative photographs are not some pile of heavy stuff which most of the time is beyond our understanding, rather they are, according to me, the most easy ones to understand. They should carry one strong message, a story for drawing the viewer's attention, and an attractive portrayal/representation. I always found others talking about this in the other way round.Though it is a intellectual side of photography and also less explored, but still it tends to draw my attention and I always feel a need to work on this front to give my viewers some message on the issues less touched or avoided by us.
