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Value of Model Mayhem
I am finding it easier (or at least as easy) to find models to work with, outside of Model Mayhem, than within. I found that a bit strange, because I joined the Mayhem a few years ago, because I was looking for motivated models, and I did; I have enjoyed participating in various projects with about twenty five different beautiful young ladies (some two or three projects). Now, successful contacts are coming from me just going about my non-photographic, day-to-day activities, without really even trying. I thought about canceling my membership, but I realized this site does provide valuable valadation, for when I mention to others that I am a photographer. Any thoughts? Mar 16 14 08:46 am Link I shot this beautiful model 5 days ago - 3/11 http://199.167.201.88/screencaptures/6IiPr.png 18+ http://199.167.201.88/screencaptures/cSfw0.png 18+ http://199.167.201.88/screencaptures/PGsf0.png 18+ If it weren't for modelmayhem I would never knew she exist. Nor how to contact her. her port https://www.modelmayhem.com/2705092 In fact, every beautiful models in my port are credits to MM. All except that one happy waiter guy. Mar 16 14 08:54 am Link I cancelled my membership and just went with the free package. I honestly find very little value in this site other then the forums. If you put yourself out there, it's easy for you to find models. I go to group events a good bit. Hand out business cards to random girls I want to shoot with and do a ton of networking on Facebook. Mar 16 14 08:57 am Link Model Mayhem is what you make of it. Do good work that models see value in, make fair offers, be positive, network, etc, and you'll find plenty of value in being here. If you don't do any/all of the above, you probably won't find much value. Mar 16 14 09:04 am Link barepixels wrote: ^^^^ Does amazing work, networks, and is a very positive person. Perfect example of the type of photographer that ends up finding plenty of great models here, and gets plenty of value from being on MM. Mar 16 14 09:09 am Link haha thnx. you are pretty awesome too. amazing portfolio! can't wait to shoot you. Mar 16 14 09:17 am Link barepixels wrote: I love the positive attitude, assuming that we'll definitely shoot.....because you're probably right. Mar 16 14 09:22 am Link MelissaAnn wrote: ^^This^^ Mar 16 14 09:22 am Link If I lived closer to a big city, I would be ecstatic with MM because models wouldn't have to come 50+ miles to show up. As it is, I shoot once every couple of months. I need to just set up photo days in San Diego which is a nice two hour drive through the mountains from me. Mar 16 14 09:22 am Link MelissaAnn wrote: Good point. Mar 16 14 09:39 am Link I find MM better to decide who to work with and who to avoid. I met a few photographers on Facebook but after looking at their presence on the forums here, their profile, the "rules" they state (I never pay models, EVER, don't ask!), and just the overall quality of their port...I decided to avoid them. Ended up dodging a few bullets too thanks to this site. It works for some and doesn't work for others. Same with everything else in this world. Find something that works for you, ignore the rest. Mar 16 14 09:43 am Link GER Photography wrote: I have a photographer friend who spent a summer at his parent home in some small town. he was miserable. He said, when he search for models within 50 miles he found only about a dozen total and more than half have not log in over a year. Mar 16 14 09:46 am Link MM was a great place to help build a portfolio but if you want to make a living out of your photography, you have to leave the computer and get out and meet and greet. Mar 16 14 09:46 am Link Ed Devereaux wrote: well said. Mar 16 14 09:52 am Link Most of my models were from MM but many were from art networks or both. MM is not the powerhouse they used to be. First it was OMP hen MM. Lately I have seen people in my circles drop MM for what ever reasons and go to more focused networks. I look at MM as the yellow pages of models. Everyone and their mother is here which is overwhelming sometimes Mar 16 14 10:03 am Link As far as finding models (or photographers) within or without MM that's going to depend largely on a variety of considerations such as your age, employment, recreational and social activities, genres, experience/skill, location, etc. I find MM my casting pool of choice because: I'm old--Lots of models think shooting with a 76-year old man is creepy (especially if he's shooting nudes), I'm retired--Work is one of the best ways to meet new people and around the water cooler is a great place to put the word out. I don't have that any more. I don't go out much--Lots of old people are boring and lots of young people are uncomfortable around old people, besides which, I've got a wife who's witty and fun. I shoot nudes--Which turns a lot of people off, even if they're not asked to shoot them. Sometimes because they're not asked to shoot them, I'm not the best--I'm a good distance away from the worst, but still it's unlikely that anything shot by me will grace the cover of a magazine or museum wall. I live in a less than popular neighborhood--But that's changing as artists, etc. get priced out of neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Dumbo, etc. However, if I did find the MM pool drying up for me, I could: Expand my genres--There are thousands of young actors, dancers, etc. looking for headshots, for example, and some people look better with their clothes on. Perform a community service--Lots of senior citizens centers around--great source for interesting faces. Lots of youth centers that would love to have someone willing to teach art or photography classes. I've never tried it, but family portraits is a legitimate business. Join or start a meet-up group--In New York, it's hard to walk around without tripping over a wanna-be model. Socialize more--Saint though she is, there are days when my wife would like to throw me out of the house. And some old people are kinda cool. And within MM, I've found that being an active, supportive part of the forums is a great way to reassure potential models that I'm one of the good guys. It's a great way to meet models. All IMHO as always, of course. Mar 16 14 10:26 am Link I hardly ever arrange shoots on MM actually. But I still found it very valuable, and still do today. Some examples, for me: *amazing inspirational work on here. I love that I can list stuff I really like *I met a ton of people. Even made a couple of friends on here! *I don't have an open facebook account, so not everyone can see my pictures... if someone wants to see my portfolio, I direct them here *the handful of shoots I have done through here have all been awesome *generally, it opened my mind a lot. I have a much wider view of beauty and awesomeness than I did before joining the mayhem *it's done wonders for my english vocabulary! great practise  *I get to help other, new models in their journey on here Mar 16 14 10:43 am Link Art Silva wrote: This; just as Art, I used to get all my models through OMP, but since the new owners took over and most of the models I work with no longer update, or even visit their ports there, I get most of my new models here on MM. Mar 16 14 11:09 am Link I have found great models on and off MM but this is the only site with great forums. Someone ask a question in a forums and I have often read it and pick something up I didn't know or think about how to do. L2 Mar 16 14 11:15 am Link MelissaAnn wrote: Very accurate statement. Mar 16 14 11:17 am Link IMO, mm is akin to internet dating. Ie. You can meet some great people. Some even meet their life partner on the internet. And then you also meet a bunch of weirdos who misrepresent themselves. Makes you salty... Other people prefer to meet people they date face to face. And then again, some leave internet dating and cone back to it later after meeting too many creepy people face to face... Look at mm that way for a perspective Mar 16 14 11:34 am Link Your mileage may vary. MM, I think, has a specific utility. If you're looking for a place that is geared towards social/community, MM is NOT the place! It just is not. I don't care what people say about the forums. Think of all the things you can do in your Facebook news feed. You can see your friends pictures, like them, comment on them, watch someone's video, post your own status which could easily include a link/video/picture, read through a particularly interesting discussion, like/comment on more pictures, see someone you don't know tagged in a friends photo and reach out to make a connection, like a few new pages… all in a matter of MINUTES. Seriously, all of that can be done in a span of ten minutes (depending on the length of those videos). Can you do all of those things on Mayhem? No. So evaluating this site on those terms is missing the point. The value is in the directory and categorization. Seeing a member's body of work, how often they post, the relative popularity (based on views) of their look/work, the profile page is well-set to learn about an individual. It is functionally a directory that facilitates learning about an individual, not a communal experience. It's not a sharing community like Instagram or a communal soundboard like twitter. It's not a blog like Wordpress (thought clearly some do blog via forum posting). If you want feeds and followers, MM just isn't the place to go. I can't find stats and info on a model by going to Facebook. I can't search for the specificity of a look on Instagram. I would agree that you get what you put into this site to a point. To me it has to do with site expectations going in. I can't expect my wrangler to offer what a camero offers. If my needs are to haul lumber then I have no business buying a mustang over an f150. Mar 16 14 01:07 pm Link GER Photography wrote: Yeah I'd love MM if I actually had some options. If I did a local search right now.. 70% of the results on the first page would be horrible ports and mirror selfies. The last log in on the first page would have been from 6 months ago. Mar 16 14 01:41 pm Link Natural Body Photo wrote: As others have said, it is what you make it. Mar 16 14 01:52 pm Link I don't use MM anymore to find models, or even when I look I don't really find anyone promising. For some reason Facebook is way better and nearly all the models I work with were found there. Even the ones that do have an account on here probably don't even use it/aren't active. I just come here for the forums, which I not only find helpful but entertaining too. Mar 16 14 01:59 pm Link Of the 29 models in my current MM portfolio sets, 5 or 6 were from online contacts of one kind or the other. That means 75 - 80% came from real-world sources. It's like any other tool. Just as it isn't possible to build an entire house using a hammer, I certainly wouldn't depend on MM as my main source of contacts. Mar 16 14 01:59 pm Link GER Photography wrote: I'm somewhat in the same boat. I lived in Houston for 20 years and never had a shortage of willing models to shoot. I moved to the country 20 years ago (3 hours from Houston) and MM is proving to be a great way to shop for talent. I do live in a college town (SFASU) so I still have no shortage of fresh faces to work with, but MM has introduced me to talent I would have never discovered otherwise. And the forums are a great place to keep up with the latest news and trends in the modeling/photography world. (and to give some of my new MM friends a hard time) LOL! Mar 16 14 02:11 pm Link Extremely valuable! I've cast two films successfully from this site. Being an independent filmmaker (until I start getting "Hollywood" budgets), I simply don't have the resources to set up multiple castings in cities across the US. This site gives me a broad list of talent to choose from, tells me there skill sets, gives away a little of their personalties through their profile descriptions and a little bit of their style in their portfolios. It simply makes the casting process for a film that much easier and less expensive. Mar 16 14 02:24 pm Link Much easier than maintaining a personal website and easier to segregate modeling and music. Very valuable. I book a lot of work and have made some great friends along the way. Plus, I like to chat it up in forums work/no work so it's all-purpose for me. Mar 16 14 03:52 pm Link MelissaAnn wrote: This is only one way of looking at things.... Mar 16 14 04:07 pm Link Something not mentioned before in this thread, most (but not all) agency models will NOT have a MM profile but will have a presence on Facebook. Mar 16 14 04:13 pm Link Everyone comes here for their own needs and reasons. For me it's models now that OMP is mostly dead. Not great but reasonably effective. But referrals from other models generally matches what I find on MM. As for the forums and contests, I find them of little value. Mar 16 14 04:29 pm Link Darren Brade wrote: Very true. Mar 16 14 04:33 pm Link For what it's worth, MM is just a lot more fun than so many of the other sites I belong to. That has to count for something. Mar 16 14 04:36 pm Link L2Photography net wrote: Yes. Mar 16 14 04:37 pm Link Eugenya Donald Photo wrote: The forums rock! Mar 16 14 04:37 pm Link Darren Brade wrote: I must have missed something, but I always thought that agencies are the best place to find agency models, I don't recall there ever being a suggestion that MM has ever been the place for that. Mar 16 14 04:52 pm Link DougBPhoto wrote: Yes. Mar 16 14 05:04 pm Link Another Italian Guy wrote: I meant searching by stats, not just searching to find their accts. Mar 16 14 05:08 pm Link DougBPhoto wrote: Dude, Mar 16 14 05:09 pm Link |
