Model Portfolio Checklist:

A Clear, unmanipulated head shot is at the heart 

of a good portfolio

A model’s portfolio is her most important asset, and should be compiled and constantly updated to present the owner as a competent, wholly professional and very employable commodity - a totally respected member of the model photography community.

Model Portfolios have constantly evolved over the years into a very streamlined and universally accepted formula, and every model, whether female or male, should do their utmost to comply with the well accepted conventions of the standard “book”.

Portfolios today can also exist as files on CD’s or DVD, or as pages on a website, but the traditional printed portfolio contained within a presentation folder is still the most valuable and useful possession a model of any experience level can possess.

It might be useful to note carefully, because seemingly many models, and far too many photographers who claim to provide model portfolio photoshoots, seem to misunderstand this important point: the collections of pictures appearing on Model Facebook pages, or on profiles on model social media sites, such as Modelmayhem, and Starnow, are NOT portfolios in the true sense which Industry Professionals expect. They are in fact simply collections of disparate pictures.

• A good portfolio should be highly focused, presenting the best of the best.
• It should consist of a minimum of eight images, and a maximum of twenty.
• It is not unknown for people in the industry to refuse to look at portfolios of more than 20 pictures.
• It should also provide the viewer with a strong idea of what the model is good at, and the direction she wishes to take in the future.
• It is not a collection of pics to illustrate her past history as a model.

What a Model’s Portfolio Should contain:

Not good photography, but Excellent photography, with excellent lighting, showing superb makeup skills, perfectly exposed and properly processed images, with accurate attention to detail.

Preferably colour images, however if black and white images are included, they should show an excellent tonal range and proper post processing. B and W should not be artsy farstsy crap, which might make the photographer look “creative”, but should first and foremost be about the model.

Colour and B and W versions of the same images should NOT be included.

Having stressed the importance of excellent photographs the whole portfolio is about the model, not the photographer.


Images to include without fail:

A good figure shot is essential

• One professionally shot image of the model’s face without makeup.
• At least one if not several headshots, the full head showing hair and with nothing lopped off by careless cropping out of frame.
• A bust shot, from between the bust and the waist upwards to the top of the head
• A three quarter figure shot, from thigh upwards to the top of the head
• These pics should be frequently updated, as the model, changes or grows older, changes hairstyles, gets teeth straightened, or other evident tweaks.
• Several pictures showing a variety of poses and clothing styles ...from casual to formal, and including beachwear. Bikinis, one piece swimsuits, shorts and blouses, jeans, slacks, dresses, skirts for girls and the equivalent styles for men.

Makeup for all portfolio shoots should be light and designed to enhance rather than disguise, and either professionally or skilfully applied specifically for photography: social or formal evening makeup does not photograph well.

Further pictures should show the type or genre of modeling you wish to concentrate on: for example a fashion model would have images of fashionable clothes complete with suitable accessories, a catalogue or advertising model would be shown presenting or demonstrating products, an aspiring television host would be photographed in a suitable set with broadcast legal clothing colours, etc


As Career Develops:

A model who has been successful enough to get paid work , should where possible include tear sheets from paid jobs she has completed and which have been published. Tear sheets should no longer be torn from magazines or wherever they appear, but high quality photographic copies of the pages should be made for inclusion in your portfolio, and any photographer who provided you with great folio pics, also has the expertise to do these quality copies for you.

If you are lucky, you may also be able to obtain outtake pictures from the campaign shoot to use in your folio, but do not ever expect to be able to use, or even get copies of the actual images used in the campaign, especially before the campaign is entirely completed.

Be aware though that amateur publications, photographs entered or taken as part of competitions
( such as swimsuit, or wet tee shirt comps and similar) are not suitable for use in your portfolio.

Neither are photographs which appear in vanity or exploitation online magazines, due to the very low level of acceptance, the non existent payments to models or any contributors, and the extremely poor overall quality of these “magazines”, they are not recognised by industry professionals as published work.

Remember if it is not PAID work, and it has not been published through normal channels, it is not really worth including in your portfolio. Be guided by photographers and artists when compiling their own portfolios: if it has to be explained it doesn't work.


Should NOT Contain:

• Nudity: Topless, full, or even “implied”
• Lingerie or sheer: although becoming acceptable in some quarters, the majority of industry professionals still frown on this kind of work in a normal working portfolio
• Zombies, sugar skulls, disaster victims or any similar “theme shoot” material where your identity is disguised or obliterated by makeup...your portfolio face should be a “blank canvas” to be considered for its suitability for a job, not a "work of art" advertisement for some “creative” makeup girl.
• Theme shoots may or may not be fun, but they are strictly amateur...consider just how many times in a publication or an advertisement you see a girl dressed as an ice-cream sundae pushing washing powder, or a horribly disfigured zombie as a featured cover girl?
• Any picture which isn’t quite up to the mark, but was included to make up the numbers.( Go out , do another shoot, and get a better picture)
• Bad photography, either or both technically or creatively, and posing which looks posed or forced.
• Photo-shopped images: no images should use photoshop tricks, screens, filters, over-saturation, HDR, or any of the multitude of “artistic”plugins. Photoshop correction should be limited to correcting tonal range, colour, and sharpness, and eliminating distracting background elements: skin blemishes, moles, freckles, operation scars should not be removed and figure altering manipulation is especially taboo.

If your photographer/s isist that any of these are "necessary" or "great for your folio". it is time for you to walk out and find a professioonal photographer who actually knows what s/he is doing, and has actually not only seen , but also photographed model portfolios in the past.

You would be surprised just how many have not!


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Interesting Links:
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10 Ways to Improve your Photography

A wink is as good as a nod.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increase your Credibility

  Appear More Professional

 

 

and become trooley awesome!

 

 

 

 

To be taken with a grain of salt, and a dash of vitriol.

NUMBER 1: stop pilfering other people's works for “inspiration”, because they are so awesome, then announcing to all and sundry that you wish to conspire with other equally imaginative creatives to blatantly copy them, or at least make an awesome derivative work from them, while of course clearing yourself of all the blame by adding the useless disclaimer: “No copyright violation intended.”
Far from using these as inspiration to learn from you will simply be compounding the poor technique and mistakes of the 20 or 30 generations of the awesome brain dead copyright violators since the original image was made, to reach the depth of awesomeness that you have found in the bowels of the Internet.

NUMBER 2: look at some good photography and study good photographers.  There are hundreds both from the past and present, and even if all you do is look at the work of Ansel Adams you will still be streets ahead of all the armchair experts who drop the only name they know all over Internet forms.

NUMBER 3: learn about lighting techniques and when and why they are used.  A good starting point for portrait photographers are Beauty, Rembrandt, Butterfly, and  Loop lighting, although there is a technique coming to prominence called “cheap skank ” lighting which in any of its many variations is guaranteed to affect even the most flawlessly attractive model.

NUMBER 4: study just some of the many more useful elements of composition and open your mind far enough to realise that you will not make your image instantly awesome by superimposing an imaginary tick tack toe gird across it.

NUMBER 5: refrain from trying to make that hugely oversized, ugly, designed-it-yourself logo an essential design element of your image.  Better still throw it away completely and use the tried and tested, conventional copyright cut line as a watermark.

NUMBER 6: limit the application of the “Reduce to Mud” Photoshop plug-in to a maximum of three times per image. No don’t Google for it: just learn  how to process properly!

NUMBER 7: search out one or two models whose beauty, personality, charisma, self respect and pride in their appearance actually make it worth taking your lens cap off for, rather than any person you come across in your desperation.  If a model herself is deluded about her ability or her prospects surely it is the photographer’s professional responsibility to tell her she has not presented acceptably or is possibly not even model material.
Be aware that “Snog, Marry, Avoid” is a satire, not a training film about what to look for in a potential model.

NUMBER 8: pay attention to details: garish, inappropriate makeup; ugly,broken or bitten nails; worn or chipped  nail polish; badly fitting clothes; unclean hair; awkward posing; unrelated, badly framed or poorly chosen background; skewed horizons; bony feet in “Minnie Mouse” shoes, etc.

NUMBER 9: show it little professionalism, and a serious approach to your work rather than hoping for the best from a Neanderthal Facebook grunt: “Wanna shoot…make woman look awesome”

NUMBER 10: have some kind of useful concept which some imagination can be applied to, and/or a viable useful purpose for the resulting images in your mind before the shoot.  If the best you can come up with is

a ) my Facebook friends will tell me it is awesome and I could be a professional. 
b) it will be awesome for your folio.
c) it will be awesome exposure.
Then the iconic phrase from the movie “The Castle” springs to mind: “Tell’im he’s dreamin”
d) “possible magazine submission – no pay” is also a notorious laughter maker these days too.

BONUS NUMBER 10: and possibly the best solution for so many: sell all your photo gear and take up stamp collecting, at least you will then be exposed to some well designed, and maybe even some truly awesome images.

Is Good Compostition still relevant?

Great care and thought seems to go into photographing landscapes, seascapes, trees, cars, sports, insects and wildlife, but  alot of contemporary photogaphy would suggest that by putting a human in front of the lens and all the conventions of composition seem to fly out the window.

The result, even when using the most accomplished and beautiful of models, is a round blob of a face, or a rigidly lifeless figure standing in the midst of an expanse of blandly lit studio, or a vast desert of sand and sky: DEAD CENTRE of the photo.

The centre of a picture has been called ¨dead¨ for centuries for a reason.

Even the occassional telegraph pole growing out of the top of the head,  or ear piercing, or neck slicing horizon would make the composition more interesting to look at.

Or possibly the use of that seemingly one and only, all encompassing rule of composition beloved and belaboured by ¨internet experts¨ the world over : The Rule of Thirds...even the name is an anathema to anyone with even a semblance of understanding of artisitc composition.

Maybe, improvement could also be made by a little less reliance on the current amateur jargon of photography where every shutter button push is ¨imaging¨ or a ¨capture¨, creating the impression that all a photogapher has to do is wait until something vaguely interesting passes in front of his lens, and then unthinkingly press the button.

Remember: people ¨take¨ a snapshot, but an artist has to ¨make¨ a picture.