Thursday < A big day for me... desperately need advice :)

paulpippin29

TPF Noob!
Joined
Nov 2, 2008
Messages
184
Reaction score
0
Can others edit my Photos
Photos OK to edit
Short, well long story about this first:

This girl: (image for visual reference only)

05.jpg



Her name is Angela, and to date, she is my bread and butter model. My best pictures ever, are of her, hands down. Well, she's 20 years old now, but during the summer in between her sophomore/junior year of high school, she some how became connected with a small, but busy modeling agency in Los Angelas, CA. She flew out there, stayed the entire summer, hoping to live out her dream of becoming a model. She landed a handful of jobs while she was there, including some LA based publications (I'm assuming magazines), one commercial (clothing related), and various other advertisement type gigs. Well, at the end of the summer, she of course, had to come home, finish highschool, etc... and she never went back, which I'm not to sure why. I think she had some family issues, etc... but I don't know her well enough to pry into her life, so, I don't ask.

So... after a couple of months of no photo shoots, nor hearing from her at all, she calls me, out of the blue, and is filled with excitement, talking 90 to nothing about going back to LA. I of course, thought this was a great thing, and was very happy for her. I then asked her what sparked it all up again for her, and she said that she never lost interest, just wasn't the right time over the past few years, but now, she's ready to try again.

Well, she proceeds to tell me that she contacted that same agency again, wondering if they had anything for her, and they still had her old portfolio pictures from the highschool days, but wanted to see some updated shots of her. Well, she emails them a nice selection from the shoot that we did, and this agency, according to her, loved them <- I find this so hard to believe, but, that's what she said. She then proceeded to inform me that the agency wants, needs, and requires... a brand new, updated portfolio of her, which she will be bringing to LA, and supposedly, the agency requested that I be the photographer once again, as "they continuously complimented my work" as Angela said. Supposedly, they didn't offer her anything until after they saw the photo's, and not only did they offer her work, but they also volunteered to pay for the trip out there as well.

So, Angela decides that Thursday is gonna be the day to do these new photos. She wants to spend several hours, going to several different locations. She wants make-up touches done (I've secured a friend who's handy with make-up), outfit changes, hair up, hair down, smiles, no smiles, you name it, she wants it.

So here goes the questions:

1. How should I approach this? I want these people in LA to continue liking my work, so what sort of shots should I aim for here? I've never done a "portfolio" for anyone at all, so do things change as far as styles, etc... Do people look for certain types of images when looking at a portfolio? I mean, I know they look at the model, but what exactly do they really want to see?

2. How important is location? I'm thinking right off the bat that the background should NOT be very busy, and some of the places she's wanting to go, especially in the late afternoon/evening, are full of traffic, and other folks walking around, etc... She's really focusing on down-town, which has loads of old, historic buildings, etc... and I love that idea, but again, the traffic, etc... If we end up down there, and I'm sure we will, I'm gonna focus on alley's, brick walls, that sort of thing. Is that a logical way of thinking?

3. Image rights.... do I have any at all? Should I put my name on these images, and I don't mean a huge watermark going across the image, but perhaps a small line of text down at the bottom? There's a part of me that want's my name on these things really bad, just for the pure exposure of it all, but do modeling portfolio's typically have the photographer's name displayed?

4. If by some chance I happened to take a perfect, dead on, money shot, and it was just so good that the agency decided that they want to use it for something, what would that mean for me? Going back to image right's here I suppose.

Ok, I think I've covered everything, sorry for the long post, as always, but love to get my point across :) Look forward to the advice, and thanks for it in advance :)
 

Most reactions

New Topics

Back
Top