Working as a Model in Japan

I recently got my first "real" model job in Japan for a Japanese company. It was nothing fancy and I will not appear in a fashion magazine but it was an easy job and it paid well. I would like to share my experiences here.

I found the job on a Japanese website with job ads for freelance models. You don't necessarily have to sign up with an agency, signing up with one of these websites can be enough to get jobs.

Usually most clients on such websites are looking for Japanese models but sometimes you can find jobs for foreign models as well. I found a job to be an image model for a vending machine last month and applied. They were looking for a female foreigner. To my own surprise, I was accepted for the job.

After I agreed to the offer the photographer contacted me about what clothes I should wear and which makeup and hairstyle the client requested. You might think that the client is supposed to prepare the clothes and hire a makeup artist but for smaller jobs, it's quite common that the model has to use their own clothes and do the makeup on their own.

Recently due to corona I also see a lot of remote jobs, where the client sends the model some clothes and instructions on what photos they want, the model then needs to find someone to take photos of them or take the photos themselves and only submit the finished photos to the client.  Clients can be very creative when it comes to cutting costs.

On the day of the job everything went smoothly. I had to arrive about 30 minutes early. The shooting itself was only about 30 minutes long and finished about 10 minutes behind schedule. I just had to stand in front of the vending machine and pretend to use it, so it was quite a simple job. I got paid right after the photo shoot was finished and could go home. 

I assume that this is not the usual scenario. I didn't expect everything to go so well. At least I would have expected some major delays or long waiting times and I was prepared to have to wait for my payment for a few weeks, but nothing like that happened. It was a pleasant surprise.

As the photos will be used for printed B2B advertising materials I will probably never get to see them but that is OK.