Everybody loves to talk about how the modeling world is rife with drug abuse, models collapsing on set from heroin overdoses or looped out of their minds on coke. Photographers are purported to offer 14 year old models lines of blow left & right. Sad scene, right? And the media can't get enough of stories like this. Well, allow me the opportunity to disappoint you.....In all my years of modeling I never experienced anything like that. Drugs at clubs and parties...yes, that happened and I saw it all the time. But never on set. Well...except for that one job in Milan.....
I had been booked for a shoe and hosiery catalog off of a polaroid my booker took of my legs. Two days after she emailed my polaroids over to the client I was on a train out of town to shoot the catalog. I passed the time text messaging all of my friends and listening to a Cafe Del Mar CD on my headphones while the couple in the seat in front of mine (which faced me, mind you) made out to the point of practically procreating before my very eyes. When I got to the town the shoot was taking place in, it was late at night and I was taken to my hotel by a photographer's assistant. I checked in, went up to my room, took a shower and crashed out. Or at least tried to. The hotel was clean yet spartan, no problem there....my issue was that the pillow was so enormously overstuffed and rock solid that a block of granite would have made a softer place on which to lay my head.
The next morning I woke up to an intense and practically paralyzing pain in my neck and shoulders. I could barely turn my head or look down. This was going to pose a problem. Trying to be a good & professional model when you feel like someone has taken a sledgehammer to your neck & shoulders is quite the feat. I met the client and photographer's team in the lobby and we piled into a couple of vans and were off to location. I didn't mention the pain to anyone and pretty much just grinned and bore it. I tend to be like that. I don't like to let on that I am uncomfortable or unwell while working which I know is stupid, but it is what it is. After the first few shots I began to sweat from the pain. It was the kind of pulled muscle pain that extends all the way to your fingertips and with the poses the client was asking for I was startng to freak out. But I gritted my teeth and went on.
After lunch I just could not take it anymore and I told the client that I was dying of pain, (it really had progressed over the course of the morning), and I was sorry if I seemed out of sorts. He was extremely sweet and concerned and immediately told me that he had a friend the next town over who could offer me drugs to make me feel better and be able to finish off the day of shooting. Hmmmm. Drugs. After a brief phonecall to this friend we headed to a meeting place and soon after, said pharmaceutical purveyor shows up. Here I was, for the first time ever, being offered drugs on a photoshoot.
And I was more than happy to accept and take the.......MUSCLE RELAXERS! Ha!!!!! So, there it is. Scandal of all scandals. My photographer's friend was a pharmacist and had brought some muscle relaxers to ease my pain. Nothing illicit or creepy by any stretch of the imagination. The sharp, stabbing pain turned into a dull ache after I took the pills and I finished off my job without any furthur complications. I got on a train that evening and went back to Milan where I buried my face into my very own, lovely pillow.
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