What Ra Retouching does...differently:
I work a lot in the fashion industry, (models, agencies, photographers, muas, designers, retailers, stylists, etc.) I also work in the music and wedding industry, among many other types of industries and clients.
I modeled for 15 years and started to retouch my images the last 5 years of my career, WOW, what a difference. I use to rely on my tears, hoping they were going to be something I could use...not always the case. Either the printing was terrible, there was another model in the shot who was distracting, the styling was hideous, my hair and makeup was crap, the retouching was awful or all of the above.
So I had to do the next best thing, TEST. I put my all into my tests, from location, styling, to photographer and makeup artist, all in a cost effective way. I always created successful tests that made my portfolio more marketable which of course made me more money!
Clients would always say when viewing my portfolio, "Is this from a job or is this a test"? After a while of saying, it's a test, I decided to make my tests that already looked like tears, appear like a tear.
I know it's kind of a no-no, but clients really don't care or need to know, clients like what they see and book you for your marketability. There are some pretty bad fake tears out there and you can tell. For me, I worked full time as a model, so I had plenty of tears to vouch for, just wanted to have more control over what was in my portfolio.
I put a lot of thought into my tears, from the picture selection, cropping, font colors and sizes, tag lines, descriptions; whether I created editorial stories, catalogs, covers, ads, or posters, you name it, it should have been real!
When people in the modeling industry became aware of my "secret", they started contacting me asking me to retouch and/or design tears for them...one thing lead to another and I took my hobby, so to speak, and turned it into a money making full-time business after I retired from modeling.
Because of my client's dedication to their career, testing, collecting their tears and out takes and taking their images to me, they are successful for spending the time and money into their portfolio.
There is always that catch 22 saying in the modeling industry, clients won't book you if you do not have tears, but how to you get a tear if a client won't book you...by hiring Ra Retouching!
For new talent, I would not recommend "tears", because you are not experienced enough, but nothing is wrong with making the test look like as professional as possible, by a cool crop, color correcting and natural retouching. The client will think it's a tear if it's amazing.
It's up to certain talent to manage their portfolio, know how to make it flow, what to take out or leave in when seeing each client, know which images are best for their zed cards or online websites (thought I do help if asked). Tears are tears, and you have to know what will help you get that job and what will hinder you from that job.
It's frustrating to hear people in the industry who complain they are not making enough money, their day rate is not high enough, they are not booking jobs or being requested for castings, not getting response from recording labels, buyers are turning them down, etc...if they truly wanted success, they would put effort into their images and not have excuses for their lack of success. A client might spend a few hundred dollars on an order with me, but the thousands they make from that one order hails in comparison to the amount of time and money they spent. |
