Good/bad idea? Practice&Experience

[Rock31]

Was not sure where to post this question, looking for any advice you can offer!

I am still learning off camera flash and photography in general. My main interest is portrait photography. My main goal for getting into photography was to photograph my daughter as she grows up and my family in general.

I have no intentions in making this a career (except in my dreams) LOL, but if I can make a little money on the weekends to help fund future gear purchases that would be great. Now my problem, besides my daughter/wife I find it very difficult to get people together to shoot/practice on.

Now that the warm weather is here there are a few parks within 10 miles of me that get a ton of foot traffic all day long, families, couples, joggers, fishers etc. I was thinking of grabbing my gear and heading out to them one day a week or so. I would offer photographs to people free of charge, I get more time to shoot, and they get a nice photo. Good idea or bad idea? With each photo I would provide my contact info, web address etc in hopes that they like the pictures and may contact me for future paid work.

I don’t know how to go about getting them their picture, should I give them a card with a site address on it to retrieve their picture? But then you get some people who do not want their face online, am I even able to put their pictures on my site without consent? Option 2 would be to have them put their email address on a card and I will email everyone their shots later that night or the following day? I am trying to make this as easy and painless as possible for them.

Any help, advice, insight is greatly appreciated.

[Karl Johnston]

Sounds like an amazing idea!

What you will need is a clipboard and a model release to have the ability to use their pictures or print their pictures or even take their pictures.

Option 2 sounds like the best and the easiest way, also you can add a personal touch to it rather than go through the trials of dealing with them finding your website.

Search google for information about model releases and some sample copies for rough drafts; it's best to design your own suited to your needs, however.

Also check this thread:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=73103

[Keltab]

How old is your daughter? If she is in pre-school/school then maybe you can work with other families of kids in her class. That way you develop a portfolio from working with them, and you can use those images to drive business with other classes in her school. Maybe try a "photo party" that you host. The kids and parents come to your place (where you have some shots set up ahead of time) and you can get the posed images. Then set up some games and fun stuff for the kids to do and you can get them in motion. That way the parents have both types of images. And the kids have fun!

[Rock31]

My daughter is one, at the age where all she wants to do is run around. A few months ago it was nice and easy to get pictures of her but now the only pictures I get is if my wife is holding her or when I chase her around the yard with my camera. She loves to run around and now when she sees the camera she tries to grab it.

I asked my wife to get her two girlfriends who just had kids to come over and let me take some pictures for them, still waiting to get that together.