Here’s something that’s never happened to me in all my time doing photo shoots. One of the models showed up a good 25 pounds over weight. I’m not kidding. And get this. She was 15. Yep. Puberty can be a bitch can’t it? It was an amazingly uncomfortable situation. We went back to double check her model card. Could that possibly be the same girl? I mean, she’s got red hair too. But that was about the only recognizable feature. I remember the head stylist telling me that at the fitting the girl was “curvy” but this? We needed a better warning than “curvy”. Like a flare gun. Or a fucking smoke signal. This girl looked like Seth Rogan. No, this girl looked like she just swallowed Seth Rogan whole. Plus the outfit we had planned for her had horizontal stripes, multiple layering and a tight denim skirt. It was definitely a first.
But here’s the moral dilemma. What do you do? Technically her model card was misleading. That’s not the person we thought we were hiring. You obviously don’t say anything to the girl at the time. You work with what you have and you do the best you can. But do you contact her agency? Do you ask for your money back? Inevitably the message gets back to her to lose a few pounds…something I’m sure she’s been told before. Then where does that leave you? You potentially are the asshole that sends this girl spiraling down an ugly path that starts with wearing garbage bags when working out in 100 degree gyms to binging and purging and ending up on A&E’s intervention. Do you wheel out a treadmill and see if she gets the message? Or do you say nothing and take it in the ass?
What would you do?
