Showing posts with label unique. Show all posts
A Modeling Agency for Unique Real Life Characters
Most modeling agencies are interested in beautiful, tall and slender models with perfect proportions, but Berlin-based We Are Unlike You is not your typical modeling agency. As long as you have a unique style or persona, their only requirement is to be yourself.
“We are unlike other model agencies,” founder Maurice Redmond says about We Are Unlike You. “We don’t just offer tremendous looking individuals, but real characters who don’t just look the part, they feel and act it too. Because it’s simply who they are.” The story of this unconventional talent agency began when Redmond saw some photos documenting the Berlin burlesque scene, taken by his photographer Paul Green. Intrigued by the characters in the images, he started thinking about the stories behind them, so after talking with Green and Tim Rhodes, a mutual friend and photo agent, the three decided to work together and connect the colorful individuals in the images with their stories in front of the camera.
Their goal is to work with people who are special not only for the way they look, but also for who they are and what they do, and help them get involved in projects that fit their unique personalities and talents. We Are Unlike You’s roster of amazing models includes “a 7ft a baton-twirling blue bunny on suicide heels, the man from Helsinki with the strongest nipples on earth, a human crab, a burlesque dancer that can make grown men weep and many, many more”.
At We Are Unlike You, models have conventional talents like acting, singing, dancing, event hosting, as well as off-the-wall skills like running on heels, bending iron bars between teeth, glass walking, or acting with fire, but what sets them apart from other models is that they don’t play roles. “ Each of them have embraced their stage persona as a life commitment, Maurice Redmond says.
“The fact many of them make their living performing and embracing their passions is what makes them inspiring, not how many tattoos they have or how wild their makeup, drag act or burlesque costume is.” We Are Unlike You books its models for commercial shoots, and most of the photographers, directors, casting agents, copywriters and creative agencies they work with actually encourage their models to come with their own costumes, props, outfits and just be themselves on camera.
We Are Unlike You is not the world’s only unconventional modeling agency. A while back we wrote about the Ugly Model Agency, a bold and unique company who works with unusual-looking individuals.
Photos © We Are Not Like You
Unique Intriguing Finger Celebrities (Art)
If you’re willing, even your fingers can be transformed into famous people of your choice, and that’s what the Italian artist Dito Von Tease did for his Ditology project. He photographed his own index ‘dito’, (aka finger) and magically manipulates it into public figures like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg with astounding accuracy.
(Image Source: Ditology)
There’s one disadvantage though: the portrait will look either too cute or too cool! Check out our 10 favorite picks below and if you feel like making one for fun, there’s an app for that.
With this level of accuracy and detail, it’s hard to tell if this really comes from a regular index finger. Dito Von Tease is not (just) another photo manipulator.
I love how vector designs are created to suit this Mario character. The artist truly cares about every single element that adds to the accuracy.
Masterpiece remastered, but how the heck did he re-create the cloth in renaissance style?
If you haven’t noticed the similarity yet, here is the photo for you to compare with.
Ronald McDonald’s look always freaks me out, but this one scared me with its seamless, realistic combination between background and portrait.
If you use Facebook every day, will your finger start looking like Mark Zuckerberg? Nailed the hair.
Love him or hate him, you can’t hate Dito Obama.
Quick note: every master work like this takes between 8 and 16 hours.
All these convincing designs and textures makes me wonder if finger people actually exists in real life!
For more fabulous finger portraits, you can visit the main Ditology site. Now which finger portrait is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!
How to write content that is truly unique
Let me start by saying that I love writing. Creating content has never been a chore for me; I like nothing more that putting pen to paper (or more accurately fingers to keys) and letting my thoughts pour out of my head and onto the page.
I understand however that not everyone feels this way and I also accept that writing is not something that comes naturally to everyone. Quality will vary (although this is something that can be improved with practice), but this can be overlooked if the content and message is good.
What I do not accept however are those that do not even try to write for themselves and simply plagiarise other people’s content, particularly through the use of article spinners.
With this in mind, when I read a blog post this week extolling the benefits of using article spinners to rank your site, my blood temperature started to rise. Worse still the article had received numerous votes on blogengage (not their fault, they have a great service) and had made it onto the front page.
There were various comments from other members agreeing with the article and a particular one that got my back up was that no content is truly unique anyway -with the insinuation being that when we research a topic we are just becoming human spinners -so we may as well let a machine do the work for us.
This really hit a raw nerve with me, so today I am going to look at what I believe makes content truly unique and how you can produce blog posts and articles which are fresh, engaging and insightful – no matter how many times the topic has been covered in the past.
What Unique Content Is Not
First let me clarify that what I am talking about today is not what makes content unique enough to pass through google’s duplicate content filters. If all you care about is getting your page indexed then yes, an automated tool could possibly mix it up enough to get you by the algorithm (for now).
Once a potential customer is on your page however, do you really think a spun article is going to make them trust you enough to want to use your product or service?
Actually, let me rephrase that…
When a potential client is on your page then again, do you truly suppose a spun article is set to make them believe you enough to need to utilize your item or administration?
In case you didn’t guess I just put that paragraph into an article spinner as a test. I googled ‘article spinner’ and used the first one that came up, so would assume that it is one that is widely used.
Doesn’t read well does it and that is just one paragraph. If the whole page was like that I would certainly be heading straight for the back button.
Apart from reading horribly it is clearly not a unique piece of content, although as I mentioned before it might slip through the duplicate content net.
What Does Make Content Unique?
So if a topic has been done to death, how can you make your articles truly unique?
Well, to my mind there are four main ways in which you can write an article about a popular topic and bring something genuinely fresh to the table.
- Offer new insight
- Your own opinions
- personal experiences
- An interesting twist
I will go through each of these in more detail.
New Insight
The first one is easy. If you genuinely have something to say about this topic that no one has ever said before, then you have a golden ticket. Be it new facts, research or just a new perspective.
This is naturally going to make your article unique and people who are interested in the subject want to read it.
Your Own Opinions And Experiences
This is, for me, the key to creating truly unique content and also to writing compelling copy. Only you are you after all!
Write with a strong voice and give your opinions, even if they are contrary to the popular beliefs on the subject. In fact, in many cases, especially if they are contrary to the popular beliefs on the subject!
If your article includes lots of facts and figures, don’t just quote them without any comment – if people want just the facts they will go to wikipedia.
Explain why you feel these figures are important and what you believe they mean. And don’t worry if people disagree with you, that’s exactly what will start the debate and get your comments section buzzing.
Personal Experience
If you are writing about a topic in which you have personal experience all the better. Tell your readers about your experiences, what you learned from them and how they have caused you to form your opinions.
Not only will this ensure that your content is truly unique and valuable, it will help you to form a connection with your readers.
This works well with a standard ‘how to do this’ type article. For most topics there are probably dozens of these already, so using little anecdotes will help to separate you from the crowd.
An Interesting Twist
Find an interesting twist, or quirky take on a topic. For example, last week I was writing about the importance of writing great titles for your blog posts and in the article I compared blog posts to salt.
It wasn’t the greatest analogy in the world (I freely admit that!), but it did help to make the article unique to me.
Takeaway
I’m sorry for the serious tone of today’s post, but the claim that everything has been done before anyway, so we might as well just cheat gets me going! There are no shortcuts to success and creating truly unique content, which engages your readers takes time and practice.
Write with passion, infuse your own character and opinions into your articles and you will be well on your way to succeeding with your website and watching your subscriber count/sales grow.
If you have any questions, feedback or other tips on writing truly unique content then please leave a comment below. Join me on twitter, or subscribe by email or RSS for loads more internet marketing, blogging and SEO tips.
