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How important are good photographs to a model's career?
It's not just about good photographs, but the right photograph for that individual. The world is full of people who try to be models and do portfolios and nothing happens, but you also find a lot of stories where one great photograph makes a career. I once had a friend visit from Texas who just crashed on my couch and eventually I got bored of him hanging around the studio. So I took some photographs of him one day and sent his headshot in for a Miller Beer commercial I was doing and he got the ad. Then they got him approved through all the unions, put him in a TV commercial as well and he made $35,000 in one week.
A few years back I was in Miami shooting the Health Expo, but all of the guys had these big, bloated bodies and there was nothing for me to shoot. So I made the magazine take me to the beach instead, and coming out of the water was this guy we'd met the night before who was the doorman at Prince's club, and I motioned him to come towards me and I kept the camera low so he didn't notice and just kept shooting as he strode up out of the water toward us. Once he got up to us I told him what I'd done, got a release and gave his picture to Irene Marie, (Irene Marie Model Management) she gave the picture to Gianni Versace, and Versace hired the boy instantly - this guy became the Versace model for two years. Not to say that's just because of my picture, because it was natural light and he just has that look, but that's what a good picture can do.
What makes a good photograph?
To make an amazing picture happen is a process. It's not just that a beautiful person comes in and you pick up your camera and you take a picture. It's a process of teaching them how to communicate with the camera, to communicate with the photographer, and to teach them, referring back to grooming models, what's perfect for their look. My approach is to gradually unveil people, and I frequently use acting exercises to help accomplish that. Often when models come to me they think they're just going to pose and get some pretty pictures - but they always end up changed.
What do you do to get the best out of a shoot with a model?
I do one exercise where I'm very rowdy with a model and then all of a sudden very gentle or psychologically intimate with their life. For instance I'll have someone in front of me and they're giving me all of the stuff they practiced in front of the mirror, and I'll say to them, "Alright, so you're looking hot, all the girls are after you, and you're standing in the doorway of your big house giving a party, and first this beautiful girl goes through you don't know, and then this one you've been with before, and now it's someone you really, really like."
And so for each of those he'll really turn on the charm and have a different look, but then I'll say "No, this time it's someone you haven't seen for a really, really long time", and I really close in with the camera, and then say "It's really your grandmother, but she isn't alive now is she? This picture is for her." And it gets very emotional sometimes, but those are the great shots, because when you're in front of a camera all of your emotions are on the surface, and as a model, you're so delicate, you're so vulnerable and that's when something real comes through.
One of the great things about what I do is take people through their fantasies and document them. If this were the Medieval Ages I'd be a wizard.
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Sean Kahlil Photo Studio
57 W. 16th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10011
Tel: 212-691-0213
Sean Kahlil shoots regularly for such publications as Details, Village Voice, NY Times, Hello, Playgirl, Exercise for Men, Fitness Plus, Iron Man, American Natural Body Builder, Personal Performance, Soap Opera Update, Soap Opera Digest, Soap Opera Weekly, Soaps in Depth, True Romance, Modern Romance and Eye Propaganda among others.
He has worked for a wide-ranging commercial clientele including recent work for Falcone, Lorenzo, Betsy Johnson, Revlon, JC Penney, Serendipity Restaurant, Annheiser-Busch, Miller Beer, Hiram-Walker Distilleries, Godiva, 15 Gyms, Meta-Fit, MetRX, Studio 54, Roxy, Limelight and Palladium.
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