"Transformation" - on models, photographers, and the process of beauty. Rodney Smith's wonderful post.

I must see something in her face or her demeanor, and I realize this almost the moment I notice her, as she is walking through the door. I go through the motions, but generally I know immediately if she is the right one.

Ironically, a girl’s (I don’t know how to refer to them, as they are barely 21. Are they girls or women?) presentation in these castings, although the culture would refer to them as natural, they appear to me as almost unnatural. They seem almost lifeless and uninteresting. Perhaps there is a natural beauty and all these girls are beautiful, but when I first see them, they appear without style and usually without grace and definitely without all the accoutrements of our culture, which help transform them from girls to women. Something in these castings is missing for me. They come looking dead on arrival.

So it is with faith and hope that I choose the girl or girls to be in the shoot.

via rodneysmith.com