Finding a Quality Test Photographer
Video Transcript:
Finding a quality test photographer
Finding a quality test photographer can be a difficult task for both professional and aspiring models. Now test photos are used to start a modeling portfolio, put a composite card together and to round out and complete a professional models portfolio book. Even as a working model, you should always be testing. You will test less often when you have great tear sheets to use as your photos but a test once and a while can keep a professional model working more consistently.
To find a good testing photographer, I would first try to get a recommendation. Ask your agency for a listing of recommended photographers. Talk to your booker to see who they suggest. If you do not already have representation call a reputable agency in your area and tell them you are an aspiring model and would like to find a photographer. They usually will offer you some names.
For those professional models- when you go to castings- ask the other models who they have tested with. Look at their photos and see if you like them. This is something I do quite often and has worked well for me.
Try not to shoot more than once with one photographer, even if you like their photos. Every photographer has their own unique style that is easily pin pointed by clients and agencies. You will want to change up the style of the photos in your book, so your pictures do not all look similar.
Video Transcription
Cristina: Well, how do I find a photographer? How do I…do I just go to the internet or do I go to the yellow pages? Well, finding a photographer is difficult. Especially, finding a quality modeling photographer, even I, at this point in my career have a difficult time. You would think I know like all these photographers that I could just go get model testing done, but it is really not like that. It is still (even in New York) hard to find a good quality model testing photographer.
So, I say get a referral. Get a referral from a modeling agency. Get a referral from someone that you know and that you trust in the modeling industry. Once you get a referral, call them, make an appointment with them, sit down with them. Do not only see their portfolio book, but ask to see the last couple of modeling tests they have done, the entire test. Why do you think I ask for that? You want to look and see how all of those pictures turned out, because it’s going back to the book where I just told you put the best pictures in your portfolio book that is what a photographer does. They put the best pictures they have and they have ever taken in their portfolio book. And some of those pictures span years. I mean maybe they have been photographers for 10 years in the industry, and you are seeing a compilation, a 12-page compilation of the best work they have done over 10 years, and then all of a sudden you shoot, and it does not look that great. So, I want to know how many great shots another model got. I want to look at a whole test, and I want to say, “Oh my gosh, I see 20 pictures here that she could use and that is what I am going to get.” Because if you see a whole model test, and you see maybe one or two that that model has actually used, do not think you are going to be any different. Because let me tell you guys, it is not all looking pretty or having a look for modeling. It is just as important how good the photographer is. I have been to a lot of photographers that have made me look really nasty. You know, with improper lighting. It makes a big difference- a huge difference. So, you do not want to get a bunch of pictures that you cannot use. So, you want to make sure that you go to somebody that is going to produce the kind of work that you need to market yourself as a model.
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