Modeling Portfoilo

[minatophase3]

I just received a call from a young lady that is looking to put together a modeling portfolio. She has never modeled before but wants to give it a try.

I have never done a photo shoot for a modeling portfolio and don't have a clue how to price it. I have been charging a location fee and then a set a mount per 8.5x11 sheet. Does this sort of pricing hold true for a modeling portfolio or is there a differnet format generally used?

Since it will be my first one (have another girl wanting the same thing) I am willing to give a bit of a price break in exchange for using her images on the modeling portion of the website I will be building.

Any input or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tim

[advdesigns]

Give the first a price break so she will tell her friends. (you can do this when you feel necessary in the fututre as well) I charge the sitting fee and my normal price for prints. But if i do give them a discount i give it to them in prints not my pay for my time.

You can also charge by outfit. I will let a model change twice in my standard sitting fee. Each additional outfit cost extra.

You cant go wrong with charging your sitting fee and handing them a form that has your enlargement prices on it. They will purchase, especially if the model's family is behind them. You can thow in an 8x10 with the proofs (included in sitting fee) to make them feel like they are getting something else free. Just make them feel good, it's all about marketing.

And make sure you do some sort of proofing! 15-30 4x6's will cost you $10 but show that you are a professsional. For some reason if you just show them the photos on the computer they think they are free.

Good luck,

JD

[advdesigns]

Bloo Dog your absolutely right about the contact sheet. I was still thinking about beach portraits as that is what I give them. About digging the free hole, I couldnt have said it better. When i started shooting models I didnt have any kind of model portfolio so i did some TFP work to build it up. The only problem with that was from that point on that's what they expected and that was what everyone they refered to me expected. It was tuff to break out of the cycle in that area.

adv

[NILOLIGIST]

WOW!! I love this thread. This is so true. I did that TFP/TFCD thing and boy is that a hard hole to get out of. I found that the only way was to start saying no. If I do a TFP/TFCD I do it because it is something new I want to try and I pick the models they don't pick me.

As a rule, I don't allow anyone to contact me for such services, it is always initiated by me.

My only advice is just say NO. I recently turned down a client that I had some bad dealings with. She contacted me to see if I would do a free gig for her and I quoted her a price that made her head spin. She said " I can't afford that" my reply is I know. She later called me back to get me to waiver on the price and when I was almost ready to give in because I wanted to do the gig I reminded myself that I have to break this cycle and I said NO. The next day a paying gig called me up.

My point is, if you can just say no, something else will come along but you have to make room for it by letting go the freebies and the freeloaders.

Have faith...

Thanks for a post that is interesting and informative.

NiL,

[BrandonSi]

I'm not quite there yet, but I'm definitely bookmarking this one for when I do get there. Thanks for sharing this info guys.

[minatophase3]

I'm not quite there yet, but I'm definitely bookmarking this one for when I do get there. Thanks for sharing this info guys.

Thanks to everyone for their input, it is greatly appreciated.

Tim

[tofuboy]

I followed up two weeks later and I found out that the low bidder was somebody's friend who worked in a one-hour lab in town who showed up with a 35mm camera with a pop-up flash. She walked around the convention and looked at the realtors' name tags and took the "headshots."

For $500.00 the state's largest real estate agency got candid party shots for their business cards.


Hopefully that agency got a good lesson of "you get what you pay for".

I find these stories rather interesting. It's the case of what came first, the chicken or the egg. I've been contemplating/planning out how to get into doing some photography for money, and figured I would start out not charging for time, but charging for prints. I can see how it would be difficult to get out of that 'freebie' hole once you got into it... although I never thought about that until this thread. Good stuff, keep it coming :)

[davidwegs]

Paid work is paid work. I do that for pay only.

If something comes up that I "need" for my portfolio and I can't pass on it, I will shoot for free (time) and give them (paid) proofs. Prints are extra as are permissions to reproduce for publication.

[PineCone]

my gosh.. i didn't realize the posts were since 2004.. nevertheless these are very interesting and still helping me out.. more power