"first you say making portfolio pieces under less-than-ideal situations or with less- than-million-dollar talent is a waste of time, then you seem to be suggesting that all of us work on our portfolios."(posted 8450 days ago)If you find yourself taking the same mediocre pictures over and over again with the same second-rate models, you are fantasizing about being a professional photographer - not working towards becoming one. Once you have the basics of a technique down, you need to start thinking how to get a "professional-looking" shot for your portfolio to show (another professional) that you can handle that technique. And you can't get a professional looking shot without professional quality help - whether you pay for it, or convince them to trade their time for yours.
"Then you say working as an assistant is a waste of your life, then you almost seem to be endorsing it."
I think it is a valid option if you're 23 - not 43. And not for more than a year. In that amount of time you'll lean all the basic technique you are going to from that photographer; you'll also get to know all his/her contacts; you'll have a reference, and a few shots for your portfolio, and yet you won't be pigeonholed as just an "assistant."
The biggest problem is that people who work as assistants think that it is a stepping stone like any other entry level job - when it's really just basic training. The creative arts of any kind are a type of show business. Skill and creativity are the basics that everyone in that field has. It's assumed you have them too. And if you do (and want to make it to the top), what you need to do is to promote yourself better than the other 99.9%.
"I think success in fashion photography is like success in anything else...work hard, make yourself known and if you are talented AND lucky AND in the right time AND in the right place then perhaps you will enjoy some success."
That's exactly right. 99.9% of the _talented_ people in a profession don't ever realize their potential. The young and naive ones think that they are going to make it to the top - and when they don't, and find out it takes a tremendous amount of work just to make ends meet, rationalize it the same way you do - partly because of our Capitalist- Protestant work-ethic which says "work hard and you will be rewarded" and partly because they think that "breaks" just happen.
It goes without saying that you have to be skilled (a much better term than talented), but you can make your own breaks (or, rather, maximize the opportunity for them). So would you rather maximize your chances or just rationalize why you aren't as successful as you'd like to be?