Almost 5'4". Isobella Jade

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       Portfolio

      Over the next few months I got more involved with my shoots, my ‘little productions.’ I got to be an art director. Maybe I could put that on my advertising résumé. I laughed to myself, especially now that I was being paid by the hour. I liked to help pick out the locations, styling all my clothing and doing my own make-up. I felt secure at last. After all, exchanging emails with photographers couldn’t be more harmful than Internet dating and people did that all the time.

      Friends would introduce me as: ‘My friend the model!’ I loved their enthusiasm. I really loved it. Suddenly I had friends and a fan club. People I didn’t even know would knock on my dorm door, asking to see my web link and modeling photos. I didn’t need a magazine tear sheet or an interview with Conan O’Brien to be considered a model. They believed it. I believed it.

      I was a model.

      Really what I had become was a freelance model. It was a title I called myself more often now. As a freelance model, there wasn’t much planned besides the date and time to show up. Once at the shoot, the setup was simple: a chair, a couch, a roof, a bedroom, or a bathtub. So what if the small but obvious details that made a shoot professional were absent, such as a photo assistant who adjusted and set up the lights or checked the light meter, a make-up artist with her Mac make-up kit, and another assistant holding the reflector. Nor was there a stylist there to give the shoot a more defined purpose, while wrapping the body in fabric and ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ about the how great the colors looked. There was no one there to keep everyone focused and make sure that everything was perfect. None of those roles existed.

      It was just the sound of breathing between model and photographer. The changing area was usually a bathroom or a bedroom where you would fight for space amongst the items scattered on countertops and floors – items owned by a sister or roommate, maybe a wife who wasn’t home. Often, I glanced over at the hairspray or at an expensive perfume I’d always wanted and could steal, but I held back, fearing I might be caught and blamed. Sometimes I was tempted to borrow shoes the same size as the ones I wore, but I worried I would get bitched out for slipping my dirty wannabe-model foot into someone else’s polished shoe.

      Instead, I’d carefully, quietly pull out my costume of pink thongs, glitter cream, thigh highs, and a mini-skirt, and get dressed. Items I owned or had worn during a drunken night out with my girlfriends. Anything without an alcohol spill or puke on it was fair game. These items I carried to the shoot were the difference between amateur and professional. These items made me a freelance model.

      Week after week, the sound of the camera lens zoomed and clicked, snapping and capturing the tease, the squinted eyes, the lip-gloss smacked lips. Wearing yesterday’s underwear wasn’t an issue and the twenty-dollar shoes looked just as sexy as the six-hundred-dollar ones. The scent of sweat under my arms and the slight moistness from being turned on lingered long after the actual shoot. I wondered if the photographer could smell it, too.

      It was our own little production. Bootleg sometimes, the lighting too dim, and the shutter speed and aperture all wrong. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about making the perfect shot. Besides, Photoshop could fix anything. It was a photographer and model wanting their fix and fantasy for a few hours. Unlike before, now I got paid for my time.

      After each shoot I was careful to pack up everything I brought, because running back for a forgotten ring, panties, or hairbrush only meant the possibility of being asked to shoot another time or to go for a drink and being tempted to. It was best to keep track of my shit, especially since many of these amateurs weren’t friendship material.

      I would look at myself from another perspective and feel trashy, slutty, and like I had an addiction problem. I would think to myself that maybe I could use the money from my nude shoots to get some quality pictures from a professional who had real ambition. The thought was always there in the back of my mind, hiding, peeking out now and then. But it was always quickly dissolved by the thought of my being dissed because of my height, being told no by agents and bookers. At the open calls, I showed them all my half naked photos, but getting in the door was one thing, staying inside was a different challenge. I felt accepted everywhere except when in front of an agent.

      No, for now I just wanted my photo taken. I was content and proud seeing my photo on the Internet, on a photographer’s website, or maybe once in a while making a few prints for my cheap bendable plastic portfolio from Pearl Paint. Although just having a portfolio meant nothing. I knew that much. Anyone could buy a fucking portfolio and put photos in it. But having one would impress those who knew nothing of modeling, like my friends or sorority sisters who introduced me as ‘the model.’

      After all, how many people have piles of CDs scattered around their dorm room, and their photos all over the Internet and on their boyfriend’s bedroom walls? Still, I needed something that at least ‘looked’ professional. A black book with sexy photos inside must mean something, right?

      Just take my picture, and make me feel beautiful.