A demonstration class in which a photographer, makeup artist or stylist takes an audience through their work. The model is the person everything is demonstrated on.
How it works
Calm work, but long: the look is built slowly, with pauses and explanations, and you sit under someone’s hands for an hour or more. Then the participants photograph in turn — the same look, dozens of times, from different light.
What is asked of you is patience rather than presence: you are a teaching aid here, and most of the time goes on the tutor talking to the room.
What must be agreed
What happens to the frames. Every participant shoots on their own camera, and those images travel further than it seems at the time: into portfolios, into social feeds, into advertising for the class itself. “Shot for teaching purposes only” is worth putting in writing, or in a month you will find your face in somebody’s course promotion.
The minimum paper kit — «Releases and Agreements: The Minimum Paper Kit».
Payment
Usually hourly or per class, occasionally in trade — frames from the tutor. Trade is honest here only if you have seen their work and know what you are getting; “shots from the participants” do not count as payment, because their quality is unpredictable.
Who benefits
Beginners, genuinely: you watch a makeup artist and a lighting setup at work for free, and you learn why you are being asked to turn a particular way. After a few classes an understanding arrives that nobody explains on an ordinary job.
Where the substitution happens
If the model is the one paying to take part, it is not work but a course, and it should be called that. A real masterclass is paid for by the participants, and the model is paid by the organiser.
