Why Get Pictures?
Whether for fun, experience or to update a portfolio or comp card, print models need to shoot often. Pictures are the soul of a model’s professional life. Booking and shooting jobs is a good way to get pictures, but every print model needs to shoot “tests” as well to add variety to their photos.
Your Portfolio
What is a Portfolio?
A model’s portfolio is a book containing clear plastic sleeves that a model can slip her pictures into and out of. Originals
pictures are best, but everyone understands that they can get damaged or lost as a book is carried or sent around, so good
quality laser copies are acceptable. You may have only one or several different types of portfolios. A model may have a “fashion book,” a “commercial book,” and a “glamour book,” for instance, to show off different aspects of her abilities to different types of clients. The portfolio will be updated regularly to show your current look, as new pictures become available, and will include new tearsheets when you have them. A model will also include or take out pictures to “fine tune” it for a particular go-see.
Format
For beginning models a portfolio need have only ten pages (enough for 20 pictures) and it’s accepted that it may not be full. Only as you get excellent pictures and good tearsheets will the pages all be filled and you think about getting a bigger book. For the last decade or so in all major and most secondary and smaller markets the standard size for portfolio pictures has been 9”x12”. Lately some smaller sizes have been coming into use; your agency may approve a 6”x9” or even 5”x7” portfolio. Sometimes these smaller sizes are produced as “walk-around” versions to be used by the model at go-sees, while larger versions are maintained by the agency to send to clients. In some small market cities 8×10 is used for portfolios. Check with agencies in your area to find out the standard size expected.
Do You Need a Portfolio?
You may not. It depends on the category of modeling you do. History is full of models who spend hundreds or thousands of
dollars “building a portfolio” because they thought that’s what a model needed to do. They end up with something expensive, time-consuming and useless because they didn’t know what they needed. Sadly, modeling school students frequently fall into this category. Their school has them pay for shoots because . . . well, because “that’s what models do”, and it’s how schools make money. So the student ends up with a book full of bad or inappropriate “modeling pictures.”
A portfolio should be put together only after getting professional advice or doing a lot of research. For many models a
portfolio is not even necessary, especially at the beginning of their careers.
Aspiring Agency Fashion Models
For an unsigned fashion model most agencies will tell you not to put a portfolio together. They see all too many portfolios
brought in by models who have spent lots of money buying pictures. Typically the pictures make the model less attractive to them, not more. Virtually any pictures she has done prior to being signed by an agency will be thrown out. The first thing she should try is to get an agency with nothing more than snapshots. Only if she has diligently tried and failed with snapshots should she consider putting together a portfolio to take to the agencies. In that unhappy event, models should put together a book as described in the “self marketing fashion models” section.
Commercial Print Models
Here’s a truth that applies to the New York City commercial print market and a lot of other cities: Commercial print models
don’t need portfolios at all! They can get by with only composite cards. Yes, portfolios are nice to have, but at 90+% of go-sees in NYC the commercial model is never asked for her book. A portfolio isn’t necessary to attract the attention of a commercial agency (it might help, but it isn’t necessary). There is no reason for a commercial model to have a portfolio done before she gets an agent. It isn’t that commercial print models don’t have books – they usually do. But they are built over years and largely consist of high-quality tearsheets from work the model has done.
Spend money to get a portfolio only if your agency says you need one.
Other Types of Models
Promotional models do not need portfolios, just 8”x10” headshots. Art and Glamour models should have them, and the
shots should be of the type the model wants to do. Both “editorial fashion” and “commercial” shots could be out of place in a glamour or art model’s book.
Children
Unless a very good booking agency in your area tells you otherwise, children do not need a portfolio. It’s an unnecessary expense, and will be outdated quickly anyway.
