idenford
I think you are entitled to your opinion, as we all are, but I do think you are missing one or two tricks.
In business, the appearance of success is almost as important as the substance of success; much of the time you are selling to, and dealing with, people who neither appreciate your skills nor really understand what you are doing. The website is for clients, not other photographers, and the more status symbolism you can introduce the better; for a start, your client will not expect a cheap job...
Your remarks about the models strike me as more about yourself than the work; look at any agent´s website and all the fashion guys are pushing a common style of visual look - only the names are different. This is cyclical, in some ways, and illustrates how insular is the world of fashion photography AND its clients. You need only look at work from different periods to see how similar it always is within its time-frame - the look of the day is what makes the whole thing tick.
That is also one of the reasons why many fashion people find themselves moving on to other lines of photography after about ten years (if they are lucky) because they no longer fit the ´now´of the thing.
Whether or not one particular guy rings your chimes is always going to be a personal opinion - in mine, few American photographers manage to do so because, compared with their European counterparts, I feel they over-produce what they do. That said, I do feel the same is slowly happening in Europe too, with the unique, personal approach of the 60s, 70s and even 80s photographers being eroded and diluted by the ever-growing input of the TEAM. There was a time which I remember fondly, when you took a girl and went out into the street with her; she could and did do her own hair and make-up, the pictures belonged to both of you. Now, who is the creator? I remember hearing the late Helmut Newton make this same point: he remarked that in his prime they used to let you out onto the streets of Paris like mad dogs; you did what you did. Now, he said, it is all different, everything has become a production, everything is such a big deal, there is so much cost involved...
I´m glad I had my time when I had my time.
But you still have to understand the ethos of the moment.
Ciao and Merry Christmas
Rob C