Almost every model starts in the same place: total reliance on the photographer’s cues.
Where do I put my hands?
Should I look at the camera?
What do I do with my face?
That’s normal. That’s where everyone begins. Over time, most models build their first “defaults.” The three or four poses they can slip into without thinking. Chin up, dreamy eyes, parted lips. The “pretty girl face.”
Those defaults are not wrong. They’re the first layer of a script. Every professional model needs a set of recallable moves, the same way a dancer knows steps or an actor knows lines. But here’s the problem: that’s not modeling. That’s Instagram influencer at best. That’s the look that attracts hobbyists. And if that’s all you’ve got in your toolkit, you’re not reaching for the stars. Those scripts are supposed to be a foundation, not a cage. They need to be cultivated like a garden, not repeated like a broken record.
Real modeling is about:
Shapes: the body as sculpture.
Tension: holding energy inside the frame.
Lines: using arms, spine, and angles as design.
Mystery: what you hide is as powerful as what you show.
Character: the courage to be deeply yourself, and the skill to become someone else.
The industry doesn’t need another girl who knows how to look vacant and “ethereal.” It needs someone who can turn her body into sculpture, someone who can conceal as powerfully as she reveals. Someone who can snap from raw intensity to resting bitch face in the space of a shutter click.
It’s easy to get stuck in the first default script that impresses others and makes you feel confident. But I’m here to disrupt that confidence. I want you to rebuild it. I want to put you back in that place you were when you built that first script and encourage you to expand it. It’s going to make you feel insecure at first. But you got this far, and you will level up. Many models never reach that point where they build a script at all. You’ve managed to push into it, and you will manage to push beyond it.
Here’s the truth: glamour pop drama on autopilot might impress your friends. But if you think it’s going to impress an agency, a casting director, or a magazine editor, you’re already losing. The camera sees through habits. It doesn’t reward autopilot. It rewards presence. You being fully alive in your body, every inch of it.
So if you’re serious about modeling as a career, stop recycling the same three moves. Every time you do, you’re not in control, your habits are. Throw them out. Ban yourself from using them. Then see what’s left. Safe gets you nowhere in this business. And that goes for both of us. We work hard to build something that feels like our own. But if we don’t kick it and build it higher, we won’t last. Anyone can use a camera. And with practice, anyone can light a subject. And there’s always someone prettier, and with practice anyone can pose. We have to throw everything away and start over. Over and over again. Make ourselves unpredictable, and unforgettable. And when we manage to develop a recognizable consistency within that storm, now that’s the raw material of iconic.
Practice like an athlete.
Pick a Vogue Paris spread. Copy every single pose in the mirror. Yes, even the ugly ones. Especially the ugly ones. If it feels sexy, chances are it looks cliché. If it feels unnatural and awkward, you’re in the arena of iconic. Learn where your hands belong, and more importantly, where they don’t. A hand with stiff fingers on your own body will never read as natural.
Stop chasing “pretty.” Pretty isn’t art. Pretty isn’t fashion. Pretty is safe. And safe is boring. Study the models who broke the industry: Kate Moss, Kristen McMenamy, Naomi Campbell, Saskia de Brauw. None of them survived by being merely beautiful. They survived by being singular.
When you step in front of my lens, don’t give me “pretty.” Give me form. Give me shapes. Give me concealment. Give me defiance. Take control. Show me that you’re more than habits. Show me that you can create something only you can make.
Because modeling isn’t about looking good.
It’s about making us look twice.