The Original Free Entry ModelGirl Contest

ModelGirl, London's original free model search, is on again at last!

It's been dormant for a few years, mainly because we just didn't feel the time was right, but now ModelGirl has been relaunched for 2012.

We first ran our ModelGirl contest back in 1992 - in the dark days before just about everyone had internet access. At first, we tried to promote it ourselves as a small, local event. Part of that promotion involved sending press releases to every local newspaper we could find to try to get something published about the contest. We were lucky, because the then largest local newspaper group in East London heard about it.

That started a close, cooperative relationship which lasted for almost fifteen years.We ran the contest each year through the local 'papers. They provided free coverage in exchange for our work in shooting all the pictures and administering the whole thing. Clearly, they were happy to have the extra readership the contest brought and to be associated with what became a very successful annual event.

In the mid 2000s, the newspaper group were bought by an even larger publishing company - one which, it has to be said, did not share the same enthusiasm for promoting local events.

That coincided with our hopes to take the whole thing onto the national stage, extending the idea further with a travelling roadshow-style of mobile studio, intended to cover most of England.
As the support from the newspapers declined, we put a huge effort into promoting through every other conceivable channel - supermarkets, health clubs, beauticians, model agencies - you name it, we spoke to them, agreed terms and set things up. Sadly, it was just too inefficient to do things that way and the project was abandoned. Abandoned, but not dead.

As the internet as grown in popularity, it was only a matter of time before we felt it was possible to restart the contest, promoting it through the medium which has grown to replace local newspapers for most people as a source of news and events information.

The continued popularity of similar, TV based contests also convinced us that the time was right.

So, We're running it at www.gibsonsphoto.co.uk/modelgirl and promoting through several internet channels. The search is on!

There's google adwords, of course. That's been driving a couple of dozen entries each day towards the promotional pages on our site. Then there's social media such as facebook, twitter and such.

They all have their place in the overall scheme of things and we expect their influence to grow.

Right now, things are gathering pace. Previous experience suggests we'll see a big infux of entries in the new year, as people start to think more about their futures, careers and what they really want out of life.


While that can sound like just so much marketing speak, the truth is we have 'discovered' quite a few successful models over the years. Some of our entrants, finalists and winners have have success on TV in presentatation roles, in fashion as catwalk models and yes, on Page 3, too.

The contest seems to give those individuals both the confidence and the experience to approach the things they want to do more positively, and that's vitally important in this business. Certainly, we do everything we can reasonably do to help - in the past we often used our network of 'names' to put our models in touch with the right people. And of course, having a pretty full portfolio of high quality pictures to show doesn't do any harm either...

So, while we won't try to pretend it's not a money-making opportunity for us, it's much more than that. It really is a genuine step onto the ladder of success for many of our models.

Of course, we also recognise that there are a LOT of girls who have no intention of following a modeling career, but just want a bit of fun and the excitement that goes with being a part of something like this. That's fine - we'd never exclude anyone. The funseekers are sometimes the most genuinely enthusiastic models of all! They get their buzz and they can get pictures of themselves the like of which they'd otherwise probably never see at prices that are extremely reasonable. We don't try to hard-sell and we don't try to oversell. We do offer a great deal on pictures for those who want them, but with no pressure at all.

Is that so hard to believe in today's manipulating, misleading, rip-off culture where a so-called 'free makeover' can end up costing those fooled into participation a small fortune? I suppose it is. The difference about us is that we're a business that's been established for sixty years. Not sixty days. We have every intention of being around a lot longer, not disappearing as soon as we feel we've milked every possible penny out of our marketing budget and have a reputation that smells like a farmyard.

Of backgrounds, technology and convenience...

Last time, I mentioned in passing about optical front projection as a means to extending creative options in my studio. It's a system I've been using for over twenty years, so I'm pretty familiar with it, both the advantages and the disadvantages. And the technical limitations and hassles associated with it, too.

On the face of it, it's a huge plus to be able to pull up photo-realistic scenery into any image at the flick of a switch. In practice, we have to manage a huge collection of film transparencies, storing them in good condition as well as in an easily searchable manner. It can be a problem if it takes several minutes to locate a specific background while a client is waiting... We also have to maintain the screen itself. Frequent washing with warm, soapy water helps remove the inevitable fingerprints, but small creases are harder to deal with. Over time, a screen becomes damaged to the extent it becomes unusable, and these things are not cheap to replace.

The other most significant drawback is the need to employ unusually controlled lighting techniques. For most types of studio work, diffuse light is most commonly needed. But the direction of light has to be carefully controlled when using optical front projection. The screen typically has a cutoff point around 25 degrees or so from normal, where 'normal' is the angle of view of the camera. This means that any light hitting the screen at an angle of less than about 25 degrees to the camera's own view tends to wash out the background image. To provide this combination of diffuse yet directional light, I developed my own light boxes many years ago. These are about two feet deep and reflect the light from a flat panel in the back of the box, passing it through a grid at the front in order to cut out any wayward bits. This works well, but the boxes are heavy and quite cumbersome. Sadly, I've found no practical alternatives which work as well.

The biggest stumbling block for people using photo-realistic background systems of any sort always seems to be making it convincing. It really shouldn't be hard for anyone calling themselves a photographer to appreciate that matching the lighting direction and quality, together with the perspective is absolutely necessary. It's really not that hard to do, but I have seen some appalling attempts.

In recent years, I've obviously had one eye on the possibilities of colourkey as an alternative to my optical projection system. It's cheaper to use, in terms of the screen. It's less demanding in terms of lighting control. But it's also far less subtle and obviously relies heavily on software. It does though fit in with one development I have considered for a while, but have yet to find a practical way to implement.

The idea is to replace the part of the optical system which uses a flash head, a modelling lamp and a film transparency with a digital projector. The problems are primarily: (1) getting enough light from the projector to give an acceptable exposure time, especially when the output is filtered to match the colour temperature of my main lights. (2) getting enough resolution to provide a convincing background image. (3) keeping the whole system light enough, small enough and running cool enough to be practical. The big plusses would be the ability to file backgrounds on the nearest PC and to adjust them more easily for scale and perspective. The hybrid of digital projection with an optical background system might actually be very useful, having the most important advantages of both, but I'm beginning to wonder whether it will ever be economically achievable.

When a picture shouldn't be interesting

 Most of the time, photographers try to create pictures which grab the viewer's attention. It's what you'd expect when you make pictures to stand on their own merits.

Ribblesdale, January 2011

Sometimes though, pictures need to be there, but not take over. This picture is a case in point.

It was taken half way up the side of a snowy hill in North Yorkshire on a cold and windy day last January. I was out walking with a bunch of old school friends (and yes, we are all getting on a bit...) and simply wanted to document the trip.

In the back of my mind though, I knew that I would have to make a dvd for the group so that everyone could have a copy. And I knew that meant a dvd cover.

A dvd cover is not the main product, just part of the packaging, but if it's done right it can certainly enhance the enjoyment of the product.

As well as looking for pictures which would be interesting in themselves - combinations of light and shade, compositions based on perspective, muted colours and distance effects - and of course including a sufficient number of pictures showing each member of the group in suitably heroic and/or idiotic activities, I also knew I had to shoot a few 'empty images'. I use that term in the same sort of way as the original Japanese meaning of Karaoke; an empty orchestra, acting as a backdrop for some as yet unknown performer. In the case of my dvd cover, that performer would be the text and logos added to the image before it was wrapped around the dvd case.

If I used a picture which was in itself interesting, it could be terribly distracting. Neither the image nor the text would dominate and as a result, neither would hold the viewer's attention. By deliberately choosing an image to melt into the background (sorry, that icy pun just had to go in there...) the text does not have to compete.

It's a common enough technique, used for all sorts of advertising and marketing purposes, but strangely ignored when photographers consider composition. Maybe the idea of producing an image which will only ever be used in a supporting role doesn't sit well with some photographer's egos.

There's another time when I often use this technique of creating empty images. In my studio, I have an optical front projection system. Used sensitively, this allows me to add outdoor scenery and atmosphere to an image created in the studio without resorting to digital methods. such as greenscreen. Optical has an important advantage because of the inherently much greater ability to composite with extremely fine detail such as hair and gossamer-fine fabrics. The key things to remember are to match the lighting effects if you want to create a realistic composite and to remember that the background image is just that - a background - and you don't want it to attract attention to itself. Done right, the effect can often look more natural than many pictures actually taken on location!

Other times, the frontpro can be used to deliberately create very artificial effects - backgrounds which don't even try to look like normal scenery. That's another story...