Many Hats

For Zikale, that in-between space has become as much a part of the job as being in front of the camera. After twelve years in the industry, he has learned that modelling rarely means staying in one lane. “I don’t like to sit idle,” he says. When work slows down, he creates it himself — finding photographers, putting shoots together, directing, styling, researching and learning what happens on the other side of the image. Over time, those different roles have changed how he approaches being a model too.

Ha Ho understands that flexibility from a slightly different angle. Rather than putting strict boundaries around what being a model means, he is happy to step into whatever the day requires. If something needs carrying, fixing or helping with, he will do it. There is an openness to the way he works that comes from paying attention to the people and environment around him, something that becomes particularly useful when two people who have never worked together are suddenly expected to share a frame.

Their day starts simply, or “humbly” as Ha Ho puts it, with coffee and a fitting. Before either of them has to perform for the camera, there is time to talk, get changed and settle into the day. Ha Ho arrives with a simple confidence: “I can handle whatever comes my way.” Zikale has learned a similar lesson over his time in the industry, where every photographer, creative team and location can ask for something different. Some photographers direct every movement, while others want to see what a model naturally brings to the frame. “You have to adapt very quickly,” Zikale says, and part of the job is learning to read that language without losing your own instinct. Ha Ho describes that intuition as if it were an antenna, saying, “You can pick up on what the photographer or team likes—or doesn't like—without them saying a word. It’s in their facial expressions, tone of voice, or even a subtle shift in the rhythm of the shutter. We feel every bit of it and adjust our movements and expressions in real time.”

That awareness extends to the clothes, too. A look can appear effortless in the final photograph while requiring plenty of thought from the person wearing it. Can you lift your arms? Can you jump, turn, move? Does the fabric follow your body or change the way you have to work? Zikale knows how quickly the polished surface can disappear when a shoot is moving fast, remembering occasions when he has had to change completely in public with little more than a towel, or disappear into a Starbucks bathroom between locations. “If people could see what I went through to get this image,” he says, “it makes it so much more special.”

For this shoot, Zikale was also trying to bring two sides of his work together. The original idea had been a solo story, but he wanted to introduce another presence. “London can feel solitary,” he explains, and bringing Ha Ho into the story created another layer without making the images feel crowded. It also meant Zikale had to occupy two roles at once: the person creating the shoot and the person appearing in it. “I had to allow myself on set to be the model, and be a creative director,” he says. For someone who describes himself as a part-time perfectionist and likes to be involved in every detail, that meant learning when to step back and trust the people around him.

And, as inevitably happens on a shoot, something goes wrong. The Dior pieces are caught up with Cannes Film Festival and do not arrive, leaving the team to figure out the looks all over again. “We were running around like headless chickens,” Zikale remembers. Fara, a friend and frequent collaborator of his, manages to pull the outfits together, while Zikale has to let go of what he originally pictured and trust the story will still come together. It is one of those moments that never makes it into the final photograph, but somehow becomes part of the memory of making it.

Once the camera is ready, Zikale deliberately lets Ha Ho go first. It gives him the chance to watch how Ha Ho moves, how the photographer responds to him and where the energy of the images begins to settle before stepping into the frame himself. For Ha Ho, working together comes down to listening as much as posing. When two people share a photograph, you become aware of the other person's timing and movement, responding to them rather than concentrating entirely on your own position. The more comfortable that becomes, the more room there is for something natural to happen between you.

Perhaps that is why the beginning of the day matters. The two have already spent a little time together before being asked to look as though they belong in the same image. The initial awkwardness of meeting someone new has had time to disappear, replaced by the quieter familiarity that comes from talking, helping each other and simply being around one another. By the final location, Ha Ho remembers feeling able to push the poses further and build on Zikale's ideas, while Zikale could move between the two sides of himself — the person shaping the photograph and the model inside it. So, while he says his instinct is to always edge toward as to not “fade into the background”, he is learning the right moments to step behind, too.

There is a strange contradiction at the heart of modelling: you are asked to be yourself while constantly adapting that self to whatever is in front of you. Zikale says, “It's a really weird medium because they tell you to be yourself, but you have to be yourself in a way that suits that city, or that location. So, finding that balance is always an interesting one.” But Ha Ho intuits that finding that balance can only start with truly knowing yourself. After twelve years, Zikale has moved between London, Paris, Milan and New York, learning to read different photographers, teams and environments. Ha Ho has found his own way of doing the same, treating unfamiliar places and people as part of what makes the work interesting. Neither of them seems particularly interested in standing still.

“Adaptability is the buzzword for this shoot,” Zikale says. Then, more simply: “Just keep moving, keep pushing.” Maybe that is what stayed with them after the camera stopped. Not knowing exactly what the day would ask of them, but being open enough to meet it when it did. They arrived as two models who had never worked together before. Somewhere between the coffee, the changing rooms, the missed clothes and the camera, they found their way into the same frame.