Photographers offering free shoots, is it norm?

smelltheglove

Hi all, I recently took pics of a friend and uploaded to flickr. A very very good looking girl who I had been trying to arrange to shoot for a while. Ended up being a spur of the moment thing in my kitchen with just a bounce flash. Anyway I always give her copies of her pics for bebo and she also set up a flickr to store her pics.

After setting up the flickr she received a few private mails from photographers offering to shoot her for free. I'm just wondering is this normal for photographers to do this? She is a young girl, only 20, and was a bit overwhelmed! When she asked me about it first I was thinking, maybe they dont think my pics are good enough but then after a bit I was thinking sure why would men be sending her private mails offering to shoot her for free, sexy pics!

stcstc

depends on the kind of stuff they offering to shoot

lots of ameteurs and pros will shoot models, where they arrange model for prints. ie the model gets prints of pics that the photog shoots

LeoB

Not so sure about this. Thread very carefully. I think for a start she should only make contact through a third party and ask them to send her their portfolio. I would have a list of questions for them and insist on bringing 2 friends. Also I would ask for a reference and a landline phone No where they can be contacted.

To me there are loads of beautiful Irish girls who would make real class models but I dont think if I spotted a lovely girl I would just ask her to pose or send an email asking. Maybe these people are just looking for a break and cant afford to hire a model. I dont think there is anything wrong with sexy pics. That is, how do I put this? Nice dress showing off some of the models assets but I am not into smutty stuff.

Without serious thought and planning I would give this a miss. If they were that impressed by her pics you should take some more for her.

smelltheglove

Thanks guys. We are defo going to go the studio root next time and she was kinda taken aback by the mails and will not accept any of the offers. There were Irish and english photographers, some even quite established. It is just the fact that this girl is a friend that I would hate her to be taken advantage of.

CabanSail

I can understand your caution, as there are a lot of weird people out there. There are also many genuine ones. The problem is to tell one from the other.

An Amateur can not usually afford to pay a model & so needs to find someone that will do it for the fun as well. Then you will get the tales, like I heard from one girl on Folio32, where she had a job & met an English Photographer who was in Dublin. The "Studio" he was using ended up being his Hotel room. She did get a copy of the shots (he was shooting jpg) they were all on a badly made bed, with direct flash from the pop up in camera flash. He was constantly asking her to show more skin etc etc. To me it sounded like she was lucky to get away from a guy who thinks that owning a DSLR makes him a Photographer & is a ticket to get attractive young women back to his room.

As others have said, if she is interested, then ask for a protfolio & references. Discuss the shoot prior to the event & take some friends along.

Borderfox

Sometimes Flickr brings the freaks out!! definitely something to be careful of.

stcstc

there are lots of sites where people will gets lots of requests of shooting for free etc

i have done a few from model mayhem for example


BUT you really do have to be careful

smelltheglove

I think one of the people who offered was on my contact list, I havent seen her since but her boyfriend had mentioned he thought one of the guys knew me. One was an english photographer saying that he has 6 years in the business.

I think we are just going to go get a studio and do it together as it creeped her out and I wouldnt want to tell her to go for it and something happen then.