Fierce Fitness

My manager is brilliant and asked me to go to Wilhelmina models open call and submit for their fitness division. Something I had never really considered but to him it was a no brainier since I have a professional athlete background and continue to stay in shape. The biggest hurdle for me was that most of my photos were from playing and the few fitness shots I had other than that were outdated. I needed to get new photos asap. The first attempt through a Facebook photo group yielded mixed results as the photographer did not have a sports or fitness background and did not know the best angles to shoot various athletic poses or moves. My second shoot was with a photographer I have shot with many times and happened to have some availability. We ended up getting 4 amazing shots to add to my portfolio. I happen to own two cameras because I enjoy photography as a hobby. One is a T1i I received as a gift and one is a T2i I purchased to make a short movie. In the equipment bag is a standard kit lens 18-55mm a 50mm a manual Olympus 50mm with a canon adapter, a wide angle lens and a telephoto. The third round was a high concept mixture of futuristic fashion and fitness conceived by my boyfriend and it yielded numerous amazing photos using my equipment. There is still one more high concept water element shoot I am doing with another fantastic photographer that will hopefully get the movement photos I have on my inspiration board.

After the first three rounds I had to edit, print and a portfolio. My manager made it sound like it would be a non chalant easy interview process and I would just need a few 4x6 photos to show. The day of I had a panic attach and thought maybe I needed a portfolio to put them in. I mean how professional is handing over an envelope with 4x6" photos hanging out?! Of course you can't buy the one I wanted in store and my handy dandy prime was unable to get it to me same day(sigh to my poor planning). I went to staples anyway with hopes and was met with disappointment. While I was browsing the internet I saw that container store may have what I wanted, so off I went. They did not have what I wanted but had cool clear plastic containers for storing 4x6" photos. I remembered from my graphic design studies a story my professor told me about making her correspondence to clients in an odd size that made it have to go on top since it didn't sit flat. I figured no one had used this as a portfolio before and bought 3 to customize.

Then went about branding them with my info. In addition I recreated the "leave behind" we did my senior year of college to leave an impressionable and branded item behind after an interview so we would be remembered. After digging through my old dvd archives I found my original illustrator file(go me!) and resigned it for fitness.You can see the fruits of my labors in the photos in this post. The actual interview did not go as I thought it would and I did not get to leave my portfolio or branded calling card behind, but now I have my template and will be using these for acting as well. Wilhelmina fitness will have an update after the long weekend ???

As always, shine bright and enjoy the long weekend.

​xo

Lauren