Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The 5-foot-11 Jacob Reinhard waited for his Southwest Airline flight to leave from Baltimore-Washington International Airport as his tan athletic build fit comfortably in an aircraft seat positioned for takeoff to Los Angeles.
That was in 2015, when Reinhard, only 20 years old at the time, started modeling through the popular social media app Instagram. The Howard County native who graduated from Mt. Hebron High School in Ellicott City and attended a local community college jumped at an opportunity to relocate to Los Angeles.
“The opportunities, I didn’t know anyone when I moved to LA, I just moved there with the hopes of doing modeling full time,” said Reinhard whose Instagram following started to grow when he came out as gay. “I got the opportunity and I decided to just do it.”
Today, Reinhard has more than 23,000 followers on Instagram, a feat that led to more modeling opportunities. He is back in Maryland now, taking occasional modeling jobs and attending Towson University, where he is completing a degree in Marketing.
“I think he was really good at using Instagram to his advantage to gain a platform,” said Dayva Frank, a lifelong friend of Reinhard. “He’s good at knowing what steps he has to take to reach a goal.”
The fluctuations of the modeling industry keep Reinhard busy and he is always on the lookout for upcoming opportunities. Besides Los Angeles, he also has lived in Miami and frequently visits New York City. Slightly less than one-third of the population lives in a different state than they were born, according to the Federal Reserve Board, a federal agency that researches topics in the American economy. Reinhard said not knowing anyone in Los Angeles was not enough to keep him from chasing his dreams.
Besides his mother, Reinhard said he enjoys support from his two sisters and friends. He said his mother supported his decision to become a model and to move to Los Angeles, where he lived for about a year. Reinhard stressed that he had to step out of his comfort zone to pursue his goal of modeling full time. He appeared in catalogues, clothing campaigns and music videos and quickly found a place for himself in the “City of Angels.”
Though successful, Reinhard said he left California and returned to Maryland in 2016 because he did not enjoy the culture in Los Angeles. The competition was tense, he said, explaining the environment was not compatible with his laid back, easy going personality. Reinhard said the decision to come back was difficult.
“I didn’t like the culture. I loved the weather, the opportunity and the food,” said Reinhard. “It’s hard to find the right people to trust.”
After returning to Maryland in 2016, Reinhard spent a lot of time in New York City modeling on weekends that next year. He said he has worked with the Artist Agency, which is based in Washington, D.C. Still, he wanted to finish college.
In 2013, he attended Howard Community College after high school but then left for Los Angeles. He enrolled at Towson when he moved back to Maryland. Now, he squeezes modeling between school work and a part-time campus job.
Stepping out and taking initiative has been Reinhard’s biggest weapon in the world of modeling. While in Miami for a family wedding, he decided to walk into a Front Management modeling agency to see what would happen. The modeling agency wanted to sign him that day. Again taking a leap, he moved to Miami in January 2018 for a three-month period. Again, Reinhard knew no one when he moved to Florida.
“That’s his personality he knows how to survive and make it in a new place on his own,” said Sam Janiszewski, a longtime friend and roommate of Reinhard. “That is just who he is, and he knows that and takes pride in his ability in surviving out of his element.”
“I don’t think he has changed too much” said Frank. “He’s basically the same friend to me through this whole process, which I think is a good thing.”
The biggest lesson that Reinhard said he has learned from modeling is that there are so many different body sizes. Everyone is different. No one should compare himself to others, he said.
“You’re not always going to be perfect,” Reinhard said, “you don’t always need to look perfect.”