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The older I get, the more I am thankful for the great gift of photography and the ability we have to take pictures of life’s most special and ordinary events. Perhaps I am aware of the value of pictures because my father was a photographer and so I was raised around cameras and pictures all the time. I’m not sure, I just know that I am convinced that everyone would do well to make pictures a more prominent thing in their life.

I talk to many people who have trouble remembering the details of their childhood or of some of the most significant events of their lives. This saddens me greatly because I do not think that it has to be this way. I think that regardless of whether or not you have a lot of pictures from your past, anyone can start now to take pictures and make memories of their life from this point forward.

How to Promote Yourself as a Freelance Model

If you would rather promote yourself …

Some models would rather promote themselves instead of listing through an agency. Nothing wrong with this but it does require more work on your part.

If your are signed with an agency, they promote the business, they talk to the clients in your behalf, they set up the shooting dates, they take the heat if you don’t make it to the session, etc.

But, there are many models who are “loners” in the pool of modeling and want complete control over who they work with and why.

If you are one of these models, read on …

There are several ways to promote yourself. I will try to mention some ways for you to promote your modeling talent and a step by step format to follow.

First things first ..

In self promotion, the first step to take is putting together a professional portfolio.

Once you’ve followed the portfolio guidelines from above, it’s a good idea to have comp cards and business cards made.

A) Business Cards – Your business card should have as much information on it as possible. It’s not expensive to have extra words listed and this way you can include things other than the name and phone number.

For best results and at just a little extra cost, I would suggest putting your photo (preferably a headshot) on the card. People don’t tend to throw away photos as quickly as they do just cards. Below the photo (or on your card if you choose not to include the photo) you should list ..

Your name, contact phone number, email and don’t forget to put your web address on the card
You may want to also include in bulleted form your attributes (i.e. height and weight), special skills and the type of modeling you specialize in (your modeling strength area)
B) Composite Cards – You’ll definitely want to get composite cards (comp cards) made to hand out to possible clients / agents and to leave with clients or photographers you work with. A comp card is one of the least expensive pieces of printed promotional material but packs a big punch in saying, “I’m a professional model”.