What is your sales proposition? why should people hire you?
Right now all you've told us, a community of photographers that you're asking for business advice from, is that your sales proposition is that you are cheap. There's plenty of that going around.
Agree that no photographers shoot the same. If you're just doing a shoulder up kind of headshot and don't have a starting point and have to do it super quickly, one foot pointing forward, heels together, turn the other foot around 90 degrees to create an L shape with the feet. Then look back towards the camera. This will result in a turn in the upper body and a slight angle to the face which can work very nicely.
For a more involved shoot I am more likely to try and get them natural, get them to talk to me about something that gives them joy and so on. I'll gently guide them to move aspects of their body that might be working against them but don't want to make it too rigid.
Look up Jerry Ghionis and other posing masters. I like Jerry's concept that you either rebuild a house (pose) from scratch if the person is incredibly awkward, or you renovate (let them do their thing, then alter their pose a little for the camera). I tend to ask people to be comfortable and then renovate rather than start from scratch.
Working with your local team can open up a lot of opportunities as well if you get your foot in the door. I never exploited all of them because I worked for the club and had to set professional boundaries. However clubs need a lot of photographs both match-day and promotional, they have community events, gala dinners, and the team is full of cashed up young men who are getting married, having kids etc.
It can be an effective network depending on what you want to shoot.
Yes hire a photographer AND a model/s (or the actress if appropriate) where everyone has the full understanding of what the works are being used for. An alternative could be if there is an AI image generator that doesn’t block adult content but I’m not sure if that exists as it would be a total car wreck.
I get that shooting MLS is fun. I shot the top tier league in my country as well. Difference is I was being paid and shooting every home game near me. The other shooters were selling their images through an agency.
You really ought to work out what your business plan is or switch to lower impact shooting such as working directly with a local team and covering home games.
It’s your time of course and you can do what you want, but that amount of time for no income is poor from a business perspective and if you’re claiming on tax we’re talking business.
As a side note the things photoshop did, especially in the beginning, were based on techniques for editing in the dark room. And things like dodging and burning have retained that connection to the analogue process.
Even 100 years ago composite (adding photos together to create a different scene) photos were being created in the darkroom.
The chemicals in the darkroom were very bad for the health of photographers though. Digital makes it a much better and healthier profession.
Lighting, pose, settings, editing etc. are all the easy answers. But ultimately you're asking a group of people that prefer to take photos than be in them how to feel good about being in photographs. You're probably better off asking in a modelling subreddit and it's probably more than a technical question but a larger question around self acceptance.
You may be right. It’s possible because some of the earlier footage of the conflict was Russians targeting journalists so perhaps they don’t want that to happen. Even behind the front lines fitness is important though, still possible a person could be targeted by drones and artillery.
All good. You’re right that the us has their own people, hence why I mentioned jobs above. I’ve seen photography jobs in aus military as well and it’d be safe to assume probably Canada, uk and other western countries have photographers or media positions. But if you’re wanting to document conflict in its rawest form you’ll find that with photographers that go to the most dangerous places in the world, which I honestly don’t recommend. That said I’d be very tempted to head to Ukraine if I didn’t have other people in my life to consider.
There are combat photographers in Ukraine, probably Gaza, and other flashpoints around the world. It's not all just about conflicts involving the USA. That said they may be mostly self-funded and working on speculation that publications will pick up their work later.
You’ve probably got a lot of advice here so I’ll take a different tack.
Be ready to be a conflict photographer. How fit are you? You may need to be able to keep up with a trained infantry unit while carrying your gear if that’s your thing. Fitness is never a useless thing.
How is your ability to take good photographs very quickly and under duress? Hard to train for but consider some local documentary projects to practice.
What are some stories that need to be told in your own community? Drive some of your own personal projects.
In terms of payment another Avenue may be that armies actually have paid photographer positions. I wouldn’t be surprised these days if they also included videography. You’d be photographing everything from combat to portraits of generals to events to recruitment images etc. like army positions though they go through basic training.
Just some ideas but I’d say don’t make conflict your first project, get some chops on your local area telling stories and build up many of the skills you’d need.
Not unreasonable price wise but working a job without an agreement is.