Model releases - photographers & models

This is a special post that should be of help to both photographers and models. I will address both parties individually.

Photographers

Please hear me and heed my warnings for your own good. Always get a proper model release. Get one for every shoot you are a part of. This is the only protection we have when posting work. It doesn’t matter if you are posting online or in print you need a model release. I personally recommend a Getty release. Getty releases are built proof and come in a lot of different languages. I have in recent years gone away from paper releases and have an app on my phone called the Easy Release. I believe the app is by Getty and is also the best in the business. You can fill out the release, snap a photo of the models ID and send a copy to the model all from a few clicks on you phone. It is one of the most convenient applications of technology I have found. I am not sponsored by, nor do I receive any money from them for recommending this. You can get the Getty release and the app by going here. https://contributors.gettyimages.com/article_public.aspx?article_id=1834

Models

Really we figure study artist love you guys. We would do anything in our power to help you in a second. I wanted to state that right away. We know many of you are very young and carefree and don’t think too much about the future. You really need to start thinking about your future and how working with us can change your life later on down the road.

Most of us photographers ask several times if you would like to use an alias for your photos. The reason we do this is so someone wanting to perform a little research on you doesn’t discover your stint as a figure study model 10 or 20 years ago. This can be very embarrassing for you as well as the person doing the research. It can have major effects on your life and livelihood. A large number of employers are doing online searches today to check out potential employees, be careful. If I or another photographer captures a great photo of you we may not be willing to remove it from our portfolio. Some images are just too strong to let go. I and many other photographers will try to work with you to the best of our ability, such as changing the name on the photo but once it is online we lose a lot of control of the photo.

For me personally, if I find another person’s photo that I really like I will share it with other photographers in my circle of online friends. They may agree the photo is really good and share it with their friends. This goes on and on until the photo is all over the Internet. Once this happens it really does not matter if we change the name of the image or even take it down, it’s out there. Most likely the strongest ranking of the photo will be on the photographers own website/stream and so by changing the name or removing the photo, many of the large search engines will stop putting it on their first page but you never can tell. We never want to cause you any trouble and have your best interests at heart. As visual artist we love to share our work and enjoy looking at others work. Please consider all of what I have said if you are considering modeling.

I hope this finds you all well and gives you a little food for thought,

JW Purdy