Finding A Model Portfolio Photographer. Who do you trust? Consider the source and their motivation! Questions and answers for anyone considering starting a career as a model, and we expose the myth that you have to go through a model and talent agency in order to start your career, which is no longer the case. Career tutorials for models, photographers, and business. Independent Modeling, IndependentModeling.Com. Published in Tampa Bay, Florida.

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At the turn of the century, finding a reputable professional photographer was not difficult. Professional photographers who were in business were usually genuine because of the high cost of learning and practicing their profession. Professional photography cameras of the time used film and there were also development/ film processing costs involved. Many professional photographers also invested in dark rooms where they could develop their own film. This business overhead acted as a natural filter barring a majority of unprofessionals who wanted to use photography for unethical purposes.
This has changed.
With digital cameras rivaling film cameras in quality and the prices of these new cameras dropping to easily-affordable consumer levels, the market changed. Coupled with powerful consumer computers and easy-to-use inexpensive photo editing software, there was no longer a high cost to photography. In 2007, just about anyone can go to any retail store, buy a digital camera and cheap software for their computer, and claim that they are a professional photographer.
The photography market is flooded with amateur, aspiring photographers, many of whom doing it as a hobby or using it as a means to pick up attractive women. Some use photography as a way of scamming people or setting them up for a crime. Even more have no idea how to turn photography into a business or how to run a business, and offer their services for free. This false economy undermines the market for legitimate professionals, and makes it more difficult for those who have paid their dues and who have become professionals to make a living as photographers.
With all these guys with cameras running around doing photography free of charge, this should be good for models, right? Wrong. This new market is a minefield for models, and over 50% of the photographers in the market today are either amateurs or are running some sort of model scam.
No one works for free, and there are no free services from the goodness of one's heart, regardless of what they say. You really do get what you pay for. When it comes to model portfolio photography, any free offer of services are especially dangerous. The model puts themselves in danger and wastes a great deal of time and energy by working with photographers who misrepresent themselves or who don't have the skills that the model requires for their portfolio.
Time For Print (known as TFP or TFCD if the model obtains images on a CD instead of prints) offers are supposed to be a beneficial collaboration between established professionals who earn income in their profession. Professional collaborations are fine if the photographer and the model already have established portfolios and they have the professional skills needed to benefit the photography portfolio and the modeling portfolio. The problem is that the TFP term has been hijacked from it's original definition, and it now serves as a means to describe the collaboration between amateurs in an attempt to build their portfolios. Becoming a professional this way is not very safe or cost-effective. A lot of time is wasted learning bad habits as the blind, in essence, lead the blind.
If you need a professional portfolio, which you will need to book work, you are better off making it an investment and paying for it. Aspiring photographers should pay professional models as they learn their craft, and aspiring models, likewise, should pay a professional photographer for the modeling portfolio which they must have.
Before we get into the steps of finding a professional photographer, models, we will give you a basic rule of thumb to remember about risk assessment. Risk assessment must be used with evaluating any photographer, and another reason that you must become familiar with this process is that Independent Modeling will be teaching the businesses and photographers who book models into their jobs the process. Risk assessment is utilized to professionally evaluate any professional who you are considering working with.
The level of career investment demonstrated directly correlates to the potential professional risk posed as well as the level of professional accountability for their actions.

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UPDATED 06/22/07

POSTED 06/22/07