Every professional must tell a small lie from time to time. We all tell lies from time to time:

Model: “I love your work, but at this time I’m only accepting paying jobs.” When they’ve most likely never gotten a paying job in their lives.

Photographer: “I can get you published with Playboy if you shoot nudes” When they’ve never been published anywhere.

The two above may be a bit extreme and put me on the side of non forgiveness with my peers, but I don’t care! Let’s look the green-eyed monster in it’s one big bloody green eye and call it as it is: dirty lies!

We all tell them. We all know for the most part, when we’re being lied to. It’s up to us to accept it or reject it. The problem with a lot of people, new people, is they don’t know when they’re being lied to. In order to be successful in our industry, you almost have to over embellish yourself and or talents. To get to the next level in your career, you have to oversell your skills to land the job you want, not the job you have. No one is ever happy with the job they have and always dram about the next gig or next opportunity. It is here that the problem lies.

Instead of loving the moment we’re in, we’re pissing away today and because we’re doing that, we lose the importance of what it can give us: the opportunity to tell the truth! If we commit to today and our clients today, we can do what we embellish so we don’t have to lie.

I see a LOT of photographers tell models and wannabe modelsthey will shoot them in genre-X, when they know the model isn’t suited for it. Prime example is here in CO, lots of photographers tell their 5’5 model they’re shooting them for fashion. These girls do these “fashion” shoots then come across an a-hole like me who gives it to them straight, no chaser and they hate me. They go to some of the local agencies and the only legit agency here in CO has no interest in them, then the other two boutique “agencies” (That aren’t even registered with the CO Secretary of State) will take them on “exclusively” and kill the girls chance at shooting or possibly getting work.

I see a lot of Models embellishing their skills to try and get paying jobs. They work with local photographers who hype them up, make them think they’re amazing, only to work with a real photog and have their dreams crushed. These models in their heart, feel they are fashion models and some even move to New York with their corny commercial images only to be crushed and realize they’re not going to be the next Alessandra Ambrosio or better, Adriana Lima. Often times, because they’ve shot with Local NY talent, they use this as a way to bolster themselves saying “I’ve shot with NY’s best. Photographer X and Photog X” both of which no one has heard of, but the model is using these embellishments to try and secure work. The most common form of lies is the sample used above. The girls have no interest in working with a photographer so instead of breaking the photogs heart, they say are only booking paying gigs. Instead of coming out saying they don’t think there’s room in her book for the photographers work, they try and say they only get paid and the photographer community is small. So small that photographers gossip and word will get around. Soon, that model will see less and less TFCD interest and will end up speaking and thinking poorly of photography, photographers, modeling and the industry.

I am not above lies! Not at all. For me, my lies are small ones. It’s mostly in a pose that a model has done for another photographer and s/he says they like it. I’ll say “Lets shoot it” and we will never revisit that pose ever again. Or another lie is when they do the modified duck lips with their mouths parted and teeth showing. Hate that pose, but if it helps me to move on to something I can use, I’ll dig it and move on.

What’s your lie?