It
took me two years in the U..a. to find a native American (American Indian)
model to photograph. Paul van Dyk, a popular techno DJ from Berlin, Germany,
was spinning in Hollywood at a New Year's Eve 2000 event, when I
noticed this very handsome native American looking guy (with thick black
hair and a big smile). Excited at the prospect, I approached
him (John) immediately.
When I asked
him if he had ever thought about modeling professionally, he replied, "Yes,
I already model professionally". At first, I took this response with
a grain of salt, as, perhaps, the usual Hollywood exaggeration, but
John is signed with Blue Models (Beverly Hills) and accepts modeling jobs
on a regular basis. Nevertheless he was interested in a shoot with
me and we meet a week later.
John lives
in Pasadena, the next town north-east of Los Angeles. The day of the shoot
started out marvellously and LA was quite sunny; however, the closer to
Pasadene I got the darker and colder it became. We had just gone through
his clothes and had selected some really nice things, had applied the make-up
and had driven to the first location, then it started to rain, heavily.
Rain in Southern
California in January? How unexpected and annoying this was!
It usually rains during February and there might be some dizzling in March,
but that's it for the whole year. What a paradise for photographers! Oh
well, no paradise this day! We had to stop our shoot and reschedule
for the following week.
John makes
a living modeling, and not a bad one either, as his two new
cars (both
Volkswagens) show. Male newcommers are paid $500 per job. Experienced
and well known models are paid two to three times that much (with no upper
limit, especially in the US).
As his few
modeling jobs do not provide enough income for him to earn a decent living,
John is planning to spend his free time opening and managing a juice shop
that exclusively sells freshly squeezed fruit. It will be called
Fresh
Berry, a nice play with words, as Johns last name is Berry.
In
late summer, John will become a father, and has already bought a nice little
house in Pasadena. Houses in LA are of simple construction.
They are built of wood (unlike the houses in Europe that are
built of stone, concrete and steel), and usually have one floor with
no basement. Houses like this, although looking like big garages
to a European, can be built easily, quickly and inexpensively (at least
outside of Los Angeles), but, waste a lot of space and make American cities
enormously wide-spread.
John ist übrigens
ein sehr Lieber, sehr zuverlässig mit gepflegtem Umgangston. Er lacht
gerne und herzlich, hat wunderschöne Zähne und zeigt sie auch.
Er hat meine Fotos bei seiner Agentur vorlegt und ihm habe ich noch weitere
Models zu verdanken (darunter Joey). Leider fuhr ich wenige Wochen später
nach Deutschland zurück, ich hätte den Kontakt zu Bleu Models
gerne ausgebaut.
In
March of 2001, we met again for another shoot. This time the weather
co-operated! See our results in the MalePerceptions CD
2001!
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