No Answer is an Answer

So, you’ve sent someone you’re interested in working with a message.  For whatever reason, you’ve monitored whether or not the message has been read, and you see that it has.  Despite this, the model hasn’t replied to you.  Not a peep from her.

First of all, why are you sitting and monitoring whether or not the messages you’ve sent have been read?!  Seems like such a waste of time, and I’ve never understood why people do that.  Send the message, and move on.  Certainly, you have better things to do with your time than wait for “unread” to change “read”, right?  I’d hope so!

Why might a model simply not respond, instead of taking a few seconds to just say “no”?
There are tons of reasons a model might not respond.  Some of the most common ones are…

Clothing Sizes & Women

I’m going to share this article because, while it’s relevant to all women, it’s also relevant to models, because it’s getting harder and harder to list an actual, accurate dress size because of stuff like this (especially if you don’t have access to designer size charts, and/or don’t work with designer garments).  And all you hobbyist models who quite often purchase their own wardrobe for shoots (or deal with photographers saying “I’ll just buy what I need for you, what size are you?”), certainly you share my frustration with shopping and finding the right fit.  Especially when on a tight budget and/or looking to buy in a short time frame.

Pre-Shoot Meetings.

Quite often you hear photographers encouraging other photographers to require a model to attend a pre-shoot meeting in order to tell whether or not she’ll flake, to make sure she looks like her photos, to make sure you’re on the same page with shoot concepts, or to see whether your personalities will “mesh” well enough so that the shoot will be a success.  Or you hear models (or the occasional white-knight photographer) telling others to go to a pre-shoot meeting to ensure the photographer isn’t a creep.  I have even heard pre-shoot meetings likened to casting calls!  There’s a lot wrong with all of that, so let’s start at the beginning…

Why Public Blacklists Are Bad

Public blacklists–lists of people an individual doesn’t recommend working with–can be found on many profiles on Internet modeling sites.  They are often fueled by anger and judgement, and are usually created and added to during the heat of the moment, while one is angry due to the actions of the very person they’re blacklisting.  The list-maker usually just wants to “get back” at the person whom they feel wronged them, and quite often, the list maker doesn’t pause to think of the consequences to themselves that these lists often have.