But then something happens that makes you think. Back in October, we had new family photos taken. We used the same photographer that we used the year before because we like her, she's reasonably priced, and she's really trying to get her feet into the photography business. We like her. She takes great photos of our kids, which is hard to do with toddlers who have the attention span and patience of a goldfish.
A few months later, I get a Facebook friend request from a young lady that I do not know. As usual, I take a look at her profile and our mutual friends, the only one of which is our family photographer. I message her to check her out and she says she doesn't know much about her but she follows her on Instagram. Seems harmless so I go ahead and accept her friend request and move on.
I soon discover that she runs a kids modeling agency here locally. Hmmm ... interesting. She runs a modeling agency and our only mutual friend is our family photographer, who conveniently had posted photos of my children on her Facebook page a few months prior. Wheels start spinning .... then she starts posting about needing more kids between the ages of 0-3 years to add to her roster .... wheels spin some more. After the second posting, we take it as a hint and decide to submit their photos through her website and see what happens.
Last week we attended an open house at her agency - not exactly what I expected but probably a good indication of the industry. It was two hours long. I was thinking that we would be there for the full time, some presentations about the agency and the industry, getting a chance to talk to her, take a few photos, etc. Nope - we were there for MAYBE 15 minutes. Entered the lobby, filled out paperwork, attached their photos to the forms, went upstairs, walked up to a table in the hall where they were sitting, had about 3 minutes where she asked how long we had been interested in modelling, handed us a brochure and out the door we went. How did the boys do? B hid behind his dad's leg and refused to look at them, and P refused to let go of his basketball. Not high hopes.
The following night, we got our first Chuck E. Cheese experience at a birthday party for one of B's preschool classmates, and when we got home, I posted some videos. The following morning, the young lady from the agency "liked" one of them and commented about how much she loved those two little boys. I thanked her and told her it was nice meeting her on Saturday and she responded that she would certainly be in touch towards the end of the week.
Today we met with her to go over the actual contract, the agency, and basically how things work. There were 10 other kids in the room with us - out of two hours of who knows how many kids stepping in front of that table, we were in the 12 that ultimately got picked, bringing her agency roster to 60 kids. I have to admit I'm a bit freaked out. We really have no idea what we're getting ourselves into. Most of her work is local, but she does book things throughout the Midwest - Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota, Wisconsin - which I'm guessing are probably more acting gigs and not something like $125/hour photo shoots. And in some cases, we may only get 24 hours notice. But we'll see how it goes. It may end up being that someone only wants our kid(s) every other month and we never venture out of Northeast Ohio. Or it may be that we're having to turn things down because we get two days notice that they want us in Minneapolis, and that's just not feasible for us on a normal day. We'll jump in, get our feet wet, and maybe sometime over the next few months, you'll see my boys in the next ad for baby Gap :-).
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