Stories from My Time in Front of the Lens

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Text and Images by Andrew Prokos

In my previous article I spoke about moving to New York City at the age of twenty to start graduate school. I also talked about how my very first full-time job in NYC as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art exposed me to art, broadened my horizons considerably, and pointed me in the direction of a creative life.

In this article I will cover the relatively short period of time where I existed as the subject of the camera’s lens, and not as the photographer. I was a working model in print and TV commercials in Europe from late 1993 until I returned to New York in early 1997. It’s not a period of my life that I discuss much so it might come as a surprise to all but my closest friends. I haven’t discussed it publicly for a few reasons. It’s the distant past for me and I am a very different person now than I was in my early twenties. I certainly still remember this period of my life and I respect the person I was at that age, but I had a lot of growing up to do. I was also concerned about how this would be perceived as an artist…after all I am not a fashion photographer, my work tends to be more intellectual in tone and doesn’t focus on people. Where does this all fit in, and would it just be a distraction from my work? Ultimately I decided to stop withholding the complete picture. I am at an age now where I want to put the complete story out there for the reader to judge for themselves, and not to worry so much about people’s perceptions.

What this period of my life did do is to expose me to the professionalism of the industry and especially of working fashion photographers. I always got along with the photographers and crew because I respected what they did, I could relate to it. They had actual skills other than just winning the genetic lottery. I don’t want to fall into stereotype here…but I simply didn’t find many of the other models very stimulating, and I didn’t make a lot of long-term friendships from my model cohort as I had with my artist friends back in NYC. They were generally very young, and many of them existed solely as vessels for others to project their desires and their fantasies onto…I did not want to see myself in that way. In other words, I had a hard time allowing myself to be objectified, even if it was expedient in terms of making a living. I was always more an observer, but for that period of my life I suddenly found myself as the focus of the attention. Most people also don’t realize how insecure many (not all) models are…especially the women. They hear the clock ticking every second of every day regarding their youth and their looks, and every aspect of their appearance is scrutinized. That leads them to become hypercritical of their own appearance, and takes a psychological toll over time. The more successful ones learn to separate their professional persona from their ‘real life’ persona. In general the men had a lot let pressure because the stakes were not nearly as high for them. The male models who had some forethought usually transitioned into another career after a few years, or used the money they earned to open a business of their own. It was a stepping stone for the men.

photo: Gianlorenzo Marcucci

photo: Gianlorenzo Marcucci

Early Days

To begin the story I will have to take you back to 1993. I was living in the East Village and working as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum. I had basically decided to drop out of grad school at NYU for lack of funds. I had become a classic slave of New York…working to pay the rent but not earning enough to really move in any real direction. I was twenty one and restless…why was New York not at my feet yet? Nothing was going according to plan.

My roommate at the time had moved up to NYC with me from Florida. He wanted to be an actor and was studying and doing all those things that would-be actors in places like NYC and LA do…primarily, waiting tables. Now Jorge was always a highly creative individual, even back in Gainesville, where he lived in an old wood frame house in the student ghetto, painted, took photographs, wrote in English and Spanish…and was pretty good at all of it. A bon-vivant and skilled at the art of making himself endearing to others, Jorge had the kind of sense of humor and personality that garnered him a lot of friends quickly. One day I came home and Jorge, his best friend Robert, and a beautiful young creature were sitting in the living room drinking their preferred summer beverage, Pernod with orange juice over ice. As it turns out the young woman was a working model who also waited tables with Jorge on the side. After hearing me complain about feeling trapped in my job she offered up “you know, you’re very tall and have a good body and the right look…you could probably do modeling.”

Photography Series

Wonders Never Cease

Now this idea of trying modeling had never occurred to me, despite the fact that tourists would literally stop me in the museum to take pictures with me because they though that I looked like this or that celebrity, or that people would stop me on the street and ask “are you a model?” It was the height of model mania in 1993…models were everywhere on TV, in music videos, and on the streets of NYC…I certainly didn’t identify with them. In fact, they almost looked a bit freakish to me when I saw them on the street. I was the chubby ethnic computer nerd with thick glasses growing up in Florida, and I was surrounded by better looking and more athletic Anglo-Saxon types. My friends and I played Dungeons and Dragons, not football. I was not used to seeing myself as other people were apparently seeing me, and it’s something that I never really became comfortable with the way the other models did…but I will touch on that later.

Back to my roommate and his model friend…she recommended that I stop by her agency which had open calls for aspiring models on Wednesdays of each week. I was incredulous, but eager to make more money and move on from my dead-end full time job. I showed up on the next Wednesday and got into line with all the rest of the wannabe models…some of which had comp cards and books, and others (like myself) had nothing in hand. To my surprise I was the only person selected that day and they brought me back into the office to assess my experience and discuss “the business”. Click Model Management seemed to be a busy and reputable agency at that time, and I found the people I dealt with straightforward and serious. They explained to me that New York was one of the top markets in the world, and the highest-paying market for men by far. In order to get started I needed a portfolio, and I was set up with photographers who would shoot tests and set out to create a portfolio for me. Other than that, I was told to go to Europe if was serious about starting in the business, as there was much more work for men in Europe and it was easier to get a start there than in New York. The lightbulb went off…my escape plan was hatched!

I was fortunate that my very first test was with an Italian photographer who was living in New York at the time…I wish I could remember his name, but unfortunately I do not. He was extremely patient and understood how to style a shoot all on his own. These are traits where the Italians excel…they simply have a sense of stylewhich is deeply engrained in the culture in Italy, and I was always pleasantly surprised at how my shoots turned out there. But back to that first shoot…I simply couldn’t believe my eyes. This photographer had made me look like a star just through styling and lighting…and an assist with the poses too I’m sure. The agency was pleased, and asked me if I wanted to go to Milan to tray and get a start in the profession there. They put in a call to their partner agency in Milan and it was set. I now had an agency in New York and in Milan.

An American in Paris

Fast forward…I worked another six months or so at the Metropolitan Museum of Art working overtime shifts to save my money for the move to Europe. My roommate and I had hosted his friends from his time living in Paris at our place in New York…not once but several times. Each year the Frenchman would bring a new girlfriend and was working on a different film…a true cineaste. Now it was time for him to return the favor. I booked my ticket to Paris, thinking that I would be welcomed with open arms after hosting the French Lothario so many times in New York. Pas du tout! I was welcomed only grudgingly and to a very sparsely furnished apartment in the 18th arrondissement where he was living off the good graces of the auntie who owned the apartment.

I won’t dwell on my time in Paris for long as I spend most of my days roaming the streets with my camera, completely enthralled with the beauty of the city. I hadn’t been back to Paris since high school, and I was experiencing it in a different way, and in winter when the streets weren’t full of American and Japanese tourists.

The agencies I went to with my book full of model tests from New York could not have been less interested. Paris was where the women made the money, not so much the men. Male models were not terribly in demand nor important there and I was dismissed. I didn’t spend a lot of time trying, I was just happy to be in Paris, and in my time there I made friends with my friend-of-a-friend’s roommate, who was a down to earth type from the provinces, and also with a girl from mainland China who was the mistress of a French film director. She was pretty, she was stylish, and she spoke fluent French and English. We spent time together going to movies and eating Pearl du Coco at her favorite Chinese restaurant. It wasn’t the experience I had expected but it had all worked out just fine. However, I came to Europe to work, not to play tourist…my time in Paris was coming to an end and I decided that it was time for Milan.

photo: Maurizio Montani

Photography Series

Sono Arrivato!

I arrived from Paris via train at Milan’s Stazione Centrale, one of the most beautiful train stations in the world, and one of the great architectural projects of Mussolini’s Italy. On my first day in Milan I headed over to the agency that Click in New York had set me up with, Fashion Model Management (aka ‘Fashion’). It was one of the best agencies in Milan at the time and was located in a posh multi-floor townhouse. I was assigned to a male booker who was legendary in the business, not only for his ability to get his models work but for the preferential treatment he gave to some over others. I was advised to get on his good side if I wanted to work…but seeing that I couldn’t really stand him from the minute I met him I promptly ignored that advice. Think rabid Pomeranian and you will have an approximation of his general ‘atteggiamento’. Still, I did get sent out on many a casting call. I was advised that my book and my tests from New York were completely unacceptable in the European market and I would have to start over with new tests. To a certain extent that was true, but what was also true is that the second you landed in Milan the agency took a piece of everything you did…including new model tests. They received kickbacks from the hotels, from the photographers, from everything that the models did…on top of a portion of the model’s earnings from the jobs they booked. I may have been young, but I wasn’t dumb…una faccia, una razza after all…I knew how Italians operated, I could sense it all around.

One thing that was made clear to me in Milan as soon as I started going to castings was that I was physically too big for most European sizes, and certainly to be a fit model. I was a typical American boy…I worked out, I ate a lot, and I had muscles. In Italy that was not popular in the mid 90’s…they preferred slim models who didn’t have big muscles. I was instructed to stop working out so much or I would never find work. I promptly ignored that advice as well.

While in Milan I was generally passed over for runway and print campaigns, but I did find my niche in TV commercials, product photo shoots, body shoots, calendars, etc. I was a bit too beefy and clean cut for runway at the peak of the grunge / “heroin chic” phase. I didn’t mind, I liked TV commercials…I liked being on set and talking to the crew and I found it fascinating to watch them work.

At the beginning I had no experience whatsoever with acting and modeling, and it showed. I was constantly lectured by the director or the crew on basic things that a professional should already know…they were being patient with me. When you are on set the lights are pretty intense…they blast you with light and it is very hot and bright. You are also surrounded by the crew, which sits staring at you hoping that you will get the take right this time so they can wrap and go party afterward together. The last thing anyone wants on set is talent that doesn’t know what to do.

When they turned on those bright lights I started squinting, so I learned a new trick that helped me to overcome any nervousness that I had initially on set. I took out my contact lenses for the duration of the shoot. This may seem counterintuitive, but it actually worked for me. I didn’t squint and I couldn’t really see the entire set staring at me from behind the camera, only what was in close proximity. I never told anyone on set, but I generally worked this way on most commercials set in studio. Eventually, I was finishing up my scenes in a few takes as I was not nervous in the slightest…I spent the rest of the day on set waiting.

Viennese Secession

While I was in Milan I was recruited to two more agencies…Vienna and Athens. By this time I was tiring of the model game in Milan and knew that this wasn’t the kind of life I would be able to keep up for long in Italy. Too much favoritism and too many expectations of “going along to get along” on multiple levels. I also didn’t like being trotted out in my underwear in front of strangers and being touched by them. I realized it was part of the profession and many models become inured to it…I never got used to it. I departed for a six week stint in Vienna where work awaited me as a catalog model…much of which consisted of underwear shoots.

My time in Vienna was a respite from the pressure of Milan. Vienna was a small market, but profitable for men. I liked the agency and I loved the city. I was placed in a shared room with a rather horny model from Scotland who never stopped talking about his “bird’, how he missed his bird, how he couldn’t wait to get back to his bird. I had such a hard time understanding his thick Scottish brogue that I would apparently wander off while he was talking and he would finally give up and say “Damn it man! If you don’t understaaand what I’m saaayin, you gotta let me knoooow!”

I spent my free days in Vienna playing tourist…visiting the incredible palaces and museums, the Baroque churches and galleries. One day I came home and there was an intervention. My roommate and one of the female models staying in the same house asked where I was spending my days when I wasn’t going to castings. I told them…”I’m sightseeing, I may never come back here again!”  They were flabbergasted that I had never invited them, but it had never occurred to me that they wanted to see these places. From that point forward I was head model tour guide, setting the agenda for a group of mostly younger Americans and Brits to see Vienna. When my six week tour was up in Vienna I was again asked to stay. The rudimentary German that I studied in high school and university was progressing, and the couple who owned the pension didn’t want me to leave as I imposed a certain level of normalcy on the others. But at that age I had plans, and I was not going to be dissuaded from whatever plan I had in mind.

At this time my friends from New York were now suggesting that they pay a visit. They wanted to see Europe and they knew that I wasn’t exactly making a ton of friends with the models. First to arrive was La Oberdana…my artist friend from New York who also worked with me at the Metropolitan Museum. She had convinced me to steal away with her to Rome, where she had found an apartment in Trastevere. Why not? I had made some money in Vienna, and I wasn’t so eager to sit in Milan again. I took the train to Rome, and thereby starts another offshoot of this tale…my time living in Italy in Rome, on the island of Procida, in the Bay of Naples, and in Sicily with La Oberdana. We were young and free, and lived on a shoestring budget. Eventually we went to Greece together and more friends joined us there in my family’s apartment in Athens. I worked in the Greek market this entire time, mostly in television.

Photography Series

Greek Gods and Monsters

After leaving Milan and skipping out to Rome, then Naples, then Sicily and back to Greece, my agency in Milan had had enough. I had managed to arrange living alone at the Hotel Giusti by becoming friends with the portiere. I got an angry call at my apartment in Athens from my rabid pomeranian male booker in Milan saying that I owed the agency money for having occupied the room alone. “Oh great, another hair-brained Italian scheme to extract money from the models” I figured. “Sorry, caro mio, it’s not my problem what the agency did or didn’t do at the hotel and I am not paying for it, capito?” The rabid pomeranian booker from Fashion finally told me…”who do youuu think you aaaaara? Nobody talksa to the agency likea dataa!” “Well, it looks like I do caro” Click. That was the end of that relationship, and my agency in Athens received a fax the same day that I had been terminated from Fashion Model Management in Milan. I still remember the phone call. The tone from my booker in Athens was solemn, as if the President had died. But I could have cared less, by that point the whole scene in Milan had left a bad taste in my mouth. I had my own apartment, was working more in Greece and could travel to the islands, to Turkey, life was good.

My time in Greece ended up being far more profitable than Italy ever was. Of course, it helped being Greek-American. It helped having the best agency in Athens at the time, Agence Unique. It helped that I had a place of my own and didn’t have to deal with any models in my space. The Greek market was as large as it was due to all the locations the country offered for photo shoots, and due to the fact that commercials in Greece tended to be shot in Greece and not just repurposed from other markets. Greece had a large and well established industry at the time, and multiple agencies. It was a standard stop for many of the models circulating in Europe, and I got booked a lot, mostly for television commercials.

One commercial that I still remember was a Noisette chocolates Christmas commercial where I had to sit drinking champagne and eating chocolates dressed in a tux with a young American model. She was hysterical and we hit it off…we also ended up a bit more than tipsy and I heard the complaints at the agency the next morning. More TV commercials…for FAGE yogurt, a Greek electronics store chain where I played a young groom having to carry his bride across the threshold and spin her around while showing her all the wedding gifts. Too bad it was mid summer in Greece and she was not a petit model at all. Take after take and I was drenched in sweat!

Life and Death in Cape Sounion

The most memorable TV shoot was for a Greek bank, Laiki Trapeza (Popular Bank). The location was idyllic…the Temple of Apollo at Cape Sounion, about two hours from Athens at the tip of the Attic Peninsula. I was paired with an Israeli model who looked like a child when I first met her. I thought, this child is going to play the wife? Of course, two hours of hair and makeup later and she was transformed into an entirely different woman. We were set at the edge of a cliff in Sounion with the Temple behind us in full view. The entire commercial was to be filmed from a helicopter, which was landing and taking off repeatedly and circling overhead. The director remained on the ground and gave orders via walkie-talkie, both the the talent and to the camera crew in the helicopter.

As is the case with most television shoots multiple takes were required, each time with the helicopter circling overhead, and making a dive under the cliff and a steep upward bank to capture the models at the edge of the cliff looking outward toward a bright and secure future. During each take the director would instruct us to move closer to the edge of the cliff…each time a bit closer so that the view was unobstructed. During the final take the helicopter did it’s upward bank and came too close to us…the suction from the propellers was so strong that both I and the petite Israeli model were sucked forward, almost careening over the edge of the cliff to our demise hundreds of feet below. Fortunately I had my arm around her during the take and I could feel that we were just going over so I threw my body to the ground and she came along with me. The helicopter swooshed by overhead and we lay on the ground perfectly still in a state of shock. We both stood up, and it was the only time in my life that I can say that my legs were trembling like jello…I didn’t think I would be able to stay standing. To my astonishment, the Israeli model got up, brushed herself off of the grass and brambles and looked perfectly calm…if she was shaken, it sure didn’t show. I said to her “can you believe this, they nearly killed us!”…she nodded her head in agreement. The production assistant was then talking with the director on via walkie-talkie and I could hear them in Greek discussing about how the helicopter had gotten a bit too close. I am not one to hold my tongue when I get angry…and I let loose a tirade of curses and profanity at the director for the ages. I made it clear that what they were paying wasn’t worth losing my life over and a lot of other choice words for them. The entire crew was stunned into silence. But apparently they decided to keep one of the previous takes and we wrapped. When I got back to Athens I got a call from the agency. The director had called the agency to complain that I was “difficult to work with” during the production…in other words, I had embarrassed him in front of the entire crew. The talent should be seen, not heard.

End of an Era

I continued on circulating back and forth between Italy and Greece for some time, earning enough money to stay in Europe and feed my passion for shooting. One thing to keep in mind during this entire time was what I was doing when I was not working. I was mostly traveling…my friends from New York came to visit in Italy and Greece and we traveled a lot. I saw Italy from top to bottom, traveled extensively throughout Greece and Turkey as well. I had brought my camera with me from New York and it occupied a lot of my free time. Looking back on that period of my life I was laying the foundation for my future career through lots of experimentation…I just didn’t know it yet.

So how did my modeling career end? By the end of 1996 I was already growing tired of the insecurity of the profession and I knew that I had a lot more interesting things that I could do with my life. I spent one last season working in TV before returning to New York in 1997 determined to move on. Little did I know that it would be another seven years of working various jobs before I would finally turn pro as a photographer. The late 90’s were a wonderful time to be in New York, and I had found my niche working in interactive advertising as a freelancer in those years and started to earn more than I ever earned in any full time job, or as a model. It dovetailed nicely with my tech skills, design, photography and my abilities as a programmer. I would have loved for the 90’s to have continued forever. I was in my late 20’s, finally had some stability and money, and was enjoying what I was doing. Little did we all know what was coming with the tech bubble bursting in the year 2000, and then 9/11 2001 shortly thereafter. The heady late 90’s gave way to a completely new reality in New York and my youth gave way to a more mature way of thinking, which finally led me to strike out on my own.

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