Always remember, being in front of the camera is a very vulnerable place to be and nothing makes your model more queasy than to just be out there, alone and naked, while you and the assistants hover, pace, look shaky, and talk pixels and f-stops. A crew can voice doubts and talk techie, worrisome crap right within earshot of the model. I always imagine it’s like the operating room chatter during a long, serious surgery. That doesn’t matter to the patient, ’cause they’re knocked out. But your model is right there, listening. If your fretting, so are they. “Is it all right? Is it serious? Am I going to die?” Not good. Think of it this way. You’re a passenger on an airliner, some rookie co-pilot is accidentally sitting on the intercom switch, and you hear somebody in the cockpit say, “What’s this button do?” I was in Texas, shooting gorgeous fitness model Christina Martinez for our then newsstand edition of Muscle Elegance Magazine, during the shoot my heavily sandbagged strobe unit literally blew up. Flames started shooting out of the softbox. Not smoke, flames. Big ones. I walked up to Christina and shrugged . Told her we had another unit, we’d have it running in about five minutes. Not to worry. Remember, as insecure as you are behind the camera, they are doubly so in front of it. So, even though things are going to hell, give ’em the old “this is just temporary, we’ve got it handled” look. Try to make them feel good. (Even if you just peed your pants!)
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