Van Hart wrote:
Around New Orleans..are there Female Amateur models available for
Photo & video for Hire ..?
Hi there,
If you pay them then that makes them a professional model by definition.
"Professional" means doing something and being paid to do it.
I have done a number of nude sessions with unpaid and beginner models. When they are beginner models it can be rather hard work for you as the photographer, so you really have to be onto your game in giving them plenty of clear instructions and so on. And if you're new to it yourself then it can be rather daunting to start with, and that makes it even harder work.
My suggestion to help get you started is go to a local art school's (or art group's) Life Drawing sessions. Do some drawing there, even if you consider yourself to be bad at drawing, but also get talking to the people while you're there, and so long as you don't come across as a bit of a creep then you should find someone keen to model in a photoshoot that way. And the Life Drawing models are already comfortable in their own skin and they are usually pretty good at posing without needing too many instructions from the photographer as well.
However, in any case, do make sure you have a good set of poses in mind - do your homework in advance.
And also think carefully about and plan the lighting.
Further, make sure you know your camera well - the last thing you want to be doing during a nude photoshoot is to be messing about with camera settings.
And you will need to have some sort of theme in mind as well. Is it going to be indoors, or outdoors, and is it fine art or erotic or what?... Make sure you have decided, and be very clear about this, so that you can tell the potential model!
When I first started shooting nudes, I asked my art teacher if I could use her (private) art studio (a studio set up for drawing and painting that is). And I asked her if she'd like to help me do it. She was very keen to assist. So that made it easier for me to get started in that my art teacher gave most of the posing instructions. However, I had my own posing ideas too, so I also gave instructions to the model as well.
Then it was not very long before I felt totally confident in doing nude photoshoots without an assistant, but an assistant can still be handy, such as for holding a light reflector and things like that. There are plenty of Youtube videos about holding light reflectors and making the best of them, so if I am using someone to assist for the first time, I direct them to watch a Youtube video in advance. The best news is, if you're doing nude photoshoots then you should have no trouble at all in finding a keen assistant!
Good luck!