Worth A Thousand Words?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Seeing that same person live (video) or in the flesh is only worth two words. Those two words are either “Hell Yea!!!” or “Hell No!!!” I’ve been dealing with models for the last five years or so. Some come and go while others are very close and personal friends of mine to this day. Most are very unreliable and the few that I call “my pals” have always remained on point. During my stint as a model recruiter for various projects from Capitol Cuties to Funk Flex/King Magazine model search, I’m always flooded with pictures. The funny thing about that is most pics look pretty good especially with the advent of Adobe’s Photoshop. Yes, Photoshop is one of the best software packages known to mankind. It can turn an ugly duckling into a swan. It can work in your favor but it can also work against you. I’m an avid Photoshop user. I’ve processed plenty-o-pics before, removing stretch marks, cellulite, acne, bags under the eyes, adding airbrush for that magical doll baby look and I’ve even shrank some waist lines. In my experience I have learned a couple of things: People rarely look exactly like their pictures. They either look better than their pictures or they look worst than their pictures. Photoshop has worked against me in this situation. I’ve gone to meet up with chicks based on a picture only to be disappointed when seeing the real thing. Has this ever happened to anyone? ...Ladies? ...Gents? So now I’m forced to sit through a brief introduction and conversation about their lives and experience in modeling, while simultaneously trying not to make it look so obvious that I am staring at her “man hands”, those extra pounds and spare tire in the waste line that magically seemed to have grown overnight, or the ever elusive “perfect skin” that seemed to have mutated back into blemishes and blotches in the blink of an eye. I always end these meetings with a sigh of relief because these are not my dates or my love interests, only models that I will probably never see again in life. Weaves, colored eye contacts, cat-like fingernails, tons of make-up, irritating high squeaking cartoon-like voices, bad wigs, bad breath, clothing three sizes too big or three sizes too small, bodies three sizes too big or three sizes too small, amazons, midgets, extremely large breasts with flat asses or extremely large asses with flat breasts, coke bottle glasses, hairy chins, beards, mustaches, skin craters, moles, hairy moles, witchie pooh moles on the end of your nose, no fashion sense, no common sense, overly sensitive, over dressed, under dressed, over worked, under paid, bad lisps, stutters, ghetto and loud as f**k, chipped tooth, a chip on her shoulder, horny as hell, celibate, jealous boyfriend, bad relationships, butchy girl lovers, kids, no kidding, no bra, no panties, no douche, no duh, yellow teeth, cheap perfume, fake diamonds, fake furs, $2 sunshades, fake gold chains, chain smokers, weed abusers, lushes, intervention worthy alcoholics, good time girls, big boned-ed, newbies, vets, teacher’s pets, emotional wrecks, and extremely dry skin are among the choice props of the circus-like misfits that have crossed my path. I often reach the point that I get fed up with meeting these misfires in person, but I try to keep in mind that very phrase, “Some people look better than pics and some look worst”. Normally the people that I think look average in their pics actually look better than their pics. Reversely, the people that look hella fine in their pictures turn out to be “not so hot” in real life. Adding insult to injury is the fact that those same people have the most problems, whether it be mental, social, or just their lives in general. There are exceptions to that rule, of course. I mean, what is a rule without exceptions? Molds and rules are broken on a daily basis. I recently visited someone who looked cute in her pics but looked better than her pics in person. I actually found myself saying, “dayum” when I saw her. Pictures can’t account for height to weight ratios, measurements, and a dozen other things, namely personality. You can’t watch a person’s walk or the way they carry themselves by looking at a flick. Subtle nuances and the proverbial poetry in motion are missed in still photography. I had another friend whom I had not met in person at the time introduce me to some new online webcam/IM service. As a model, her pics were always on point. I use to wonder if she looked as good as her pics in real life. After seeing her on the webcam, I realized that her pics were no fluke. She was the real deal. Now that I think about it, she actually looked better than her photos...Picture that.

-PANAMA