I’ve been shooting models now for 5 years and still am frustrated with trying to select models. Tonight is one of those times.

Next month I’m teaching a glamour photography workshop. I have one lovely but new model that will be working the already sold out practice session. I want an experienced glamour model to anchor the workshop. But I also need a model new to our workshops. Right now we don’t have many on call, so I have to go to Model Mayhem and OMP and look for models.

My frustration is you don’t always know if what you see is what you are going to get.

First, since I’ve never shot with them I don’t know if they are a good model, or that they will even show up. Can they pose well on their own? Since it is a workshop the photographers will not be super great at telling them what to do, so they need to be able to handle it themselves.

Second, glamour models have a lot of Photoshop in their images. For some every image has total skin smoothing. To me this is a red flag they have bad skin. But they look good and they have shot with some good photographers. Do ask them even if heavily Photoshoped?

Third, I’d like a model comfortable with nudity, though I’d accept one willing to only do lingerie. But that is sometimes hard to tell in their profiles and even harder when MM is not displaying all profiles.

Fourth, some models have excellent ports, but their profiles are so obnoxious or crazy I’m put off and don’t want to deal with them.

All of this is frustrating.

What I’ve decided is I want to shoot with a model before the workshop, but that doesn’t give us much time and I don’t intend to pay the model for this. I’m a little hesitant to contact a model and tell her she needs to “try out” with a test shoot before the 7th of next month.

In the end I’m waiting for a response from one of Houston’s best models, which we may not be able to afford. If I get a no then I’ll have to decide what to do next.

I thought I’d share this with y’all because it isn’t just the new guys that run into frustration when trying to recruit models. It happens to all of us.