Asking Friends of Friend for impromptu shoots

Hi guys, I wanted to know if its alright to ask friends of friend to help me take portraits in an impromptu way but learn along the way with these shoots. I like doing portrait stuff. Also do I need to have some kind of an agreement signed by them just to be on the safe side not to cause any trouble for me & them at a later point of time. I am asking this because I am thinking of asking friends if any of their friends would be interested to pose for portraits. Thanks in advance

Presumably you just need some models to practice standard portraiture, not nudes? Go ahead and ask. Half of those people will be happy to pose for you. A quarter will politely decline, and a quarter will think you're a creep. If you're looking for nude models, you should be very skilled at making non-nude portraits first before even thinking about asking someone to model nude.

Make sure you're up front about what you're doing - that you're practicing with some new gear and new techniques, and it's quite likely that you'll wind up with an assortment of fantastic shots and terrible shots. Make sure they know up front what they'll be receiving for their time.

This is pretty common practice for new models and/or new photographers. It's referred to as TFP (time for prints) or TFCD (time for CD) - the model/friend gives you their time, and in exchange they receive prints of the photos, or a disc with the (finished, processed) digital images.

Thanks Nathan, I am not at all thinking of doing nudes & can't do nudes even if I am allowed in my country so that's out of question. As for the rest you did get my idea about what I intend to do.

I however would still like to know if I need them to sign any kind of an written agreement to be on the safe side??

A couple of ways to look at it.
In most of the US, you don't need a written agreement to take photos of people, and you don't need a model release (or even their knowledge and consent) to use the images in a non-commercial manner - even selling prints as art is not always considered commercial. However, to use another person's likeness in a commercial manner (advertising, product packaging, etc) then you need a model release.

Since I don't know what country you're in, I don't know whether this applies to you.

However, even if no money is changing hands, and even if you won't be using the images commercially, it's a fantastic idea to have a written agreement drafted up and agreed to by all parties, before the shoot. That way, everyone knows exactly what to expect, and when to expect it. Perhaps the model will expect to receive 200 photos on a disc at the end of a 1-hour shoot, but you expect to give her 6 edited images on a disc, a week after a shoot. Unless you discuss it beforehand (and write it down) then someone's expectations will not be met.

The vast majority of the time, you can get away without any written agreement. But when the day comes that you have a disappointed or angry model on your hands, you may wish you had taken the time to get that piece of paper.

Also, in the US (and most of the world), you retain the copyright to the image, but you allow the model or client to use the image, by way of a licensing agreement. Just because the other person appears in the image, DOES NOT give them any sort of copyright or legal rights to the image, unless you grant them a license to use it.

Great! Thanks once again for taking time to explain it all to me. I am in India so wanted to make sure if it might affect me in any way.