Who are you?

Knees weak, arms are heavy, mind racing, heart pacing, palms are sweaty; these are usually the reactions to an encounter with someone famous.  Naïve me, only managed to get a Hi how are you in before I was whisked away. Then again, I had no idea who I was talking to. To me she was a beautiful Korean model, to others she is a big time celebrity known as Nam Joo Kim.

In the eyes of a celebrity, I am sure that lack of recognition could be nice actually. I find myself by no means a celebrity in Seoul, but people take pictures of me on the street, ask for pictures at the coffee shop and congregate around me on the subway. And while I know that larger objects have a greater gravitational pull and I am bigger than the average Korean, I think those laws of gravity are flawed. Constantly afraid of letting this get to my head and develop an ego I fight that internal battle.

In the past week I have had 3 shoots, and actually have on more this coming Thursday. It was at the Macaw sportswear shoot where I bumped into this celebrity.  A fear developed quite early into the shooting when we learned that the wrong shoe size was brought for my monstrous feet. I walk around with a small clown shoe of 11.5 US. Unfortunately the much to small 9’s were sitting waiting for my feet to attempt to be jammed in. Thankfully there were alternative shoes that I could slide on.

Friday and Saturday I had the opportunity to shoot with Luel magazine again. This time I had 2 editorials in the magazine and will be on more than 15 pages. When there is that many photos of you in one magazine, you certainly need to be careful of avoiding the faces of Zoolander effect. This is a flaw in models where the fall back on looking the exact same in every photo. This Zoolander effect is what separates poor from successful models. The variation and ability to a demonstrate a chameleon like skill to transform and emphasize character in still frame is the key to success. 

There are times where I wish I could afford the clothes I wear in shoots, this shoot was certainly no exception. I had one Tom Ford set that was worth over 25k. But this wasn’t my favourite. A simple Turtleneck by Zegna made of Cashmere and Microsilk  and a suede jacket screamed Zach. I don’t know the price tag as of yet, but I know in a bellowing tone it beckons, HAHAHA when you win the lottery maybe.