UltimateAppeal wrote:
NOTICE that the OP is in the UK. It would be best for people from the UK to answer the question as laws in the US are different.

Just saying...

Even more odd that they want a release, not generally something I see from U.K. photographers...

AJScalzitti wrote:

Even more odd that they want a release, not generally something I see from U.K. photographers...

The photographer I know tends to do it to cover his own back, and he uses the images for projects towards his Master's degree so maybe it's a requirement, not too sure.

Yoshimi Robot Battle wrote:
I have a friend who is an under 18 model, a photographer I know wants to work with him but says he must have a chaperone with him who can sign a release form for him. What are the specifics regarding this?

Does it have to be a parent/guardian or other family member or does any adult over 18 count?

Don't think "chaperone".  I can be a "chaperone" for someone under 18.  But that doesn't mean the courts would recognize me as having the authority to sign off on them having an abortion, acquiring birth control, having some kind of surgery or medical procedure.

It will vary from state to state.  So if your friend (or you or the model) really want specifics, then consult a lawyer.  But the basic rule is that it should either be a parent, or another adult that the parents have indicated in writing that they have given power of consent to for the purposes of this shoot.  B/c it's not just having an adult to sign the form.  Let's suppose the model says "what if you shoot me with my back facing the camera and I'm topless?  A nice implied nude that shows nothing."  Or maybe a very provocative fashion pose with a really short skirt or no bra with nipples showing through fabric?  And then parents say "we didn't consent to THIS type of pose."

The simplest answer is to get someone who has the authority to direct the life of the teenager.  That's usually a parent.

Ed

Yoshimi Robot Battle wrote:

The photographer I know tends to do it to cover his own back, and he uses the images for projects towards his Master's degree so maybe it's a requirement, not too sure.

In reality, a photog using a release in the UK kinda uncovers their back, to the best of my understanding.

Yoshimi Robot Battle wrote:
I have a friend who is an under 18 model, a photographer I know wants to work with him but says he must have a chaperone with him who can sign a release form for him. What are the specifics regarding this?

Does it have to be a parent/guardian or other family member or does any adult over 18 count?

Parental consent is required for under 18's in the UK. Minors cannot sign a valid release!

London Fog wrote:

Parental consent is required for under 18's in the UK. Minors cannot sign a valid release!

Thanks that's all I needed to know

Yoshimi Robot Battle wrote:
I have a friend who is an under 18 model, a photographer I know wants to work with him but says he must have a chaperone with him who can sign a release form for him. What are the specifics regarding this?

Does it have to be a parent/guardian or other family member or does any adult over 18 count?

Model releases are not required in the UK.

Whether the photographer needs parental permission to photograph him is another question entirely!




Just my $0.02

Ciao
Stefano

www.stefanobrunesci.com

Small Fruit Pits wrote:

Yoshimi Robot Battle wrote:
The photographer I know tends to do it to cover his own back, and he uses the images for projects towards his Master's degree so maybe it's a requirement, not too sure.

In reality, a photog using a release in the UK kinda uncovers their back, to the best of my understanding.

Of course it depends on the terms and conditions built into that "release" but in general you [SFP] are correct. It can limit the use of the images rather than the other way around, and, if it does frame some limitation in it's wording, it can do so in minor or major ways.

TO ANSWER TO THE OP's QUESTION STRICTLY IN UK TERMS

1) A release may not even be necessary, but if the photographer chooses to use one or some other form of document that might or might not prove to be an actual contract but that must have some level of legal force [enforceability].

- THEN -

A) It is NOT merely a "parent" that should, or even can, sign but a parent [or someone else] specifically with legal parental responsibility. Parental responsibility, in a legal sense, is NOT automatic even if the biological parenthood is factual.

Example: a woman and man are never married and on the birth of the child the father is not named on the registration of birth, then the mother, by operation of law, will have SOLE parental responsibility and the father will have none, and no associated rights either. A second intervening party, e.g. the other biological parent, or someone not a parent  e.g. a grand parent, can also acquire, but only through the courts, parental responsibility.

B) Another way to deal with this is that a / the parent or other party WITH parental responsibility can appoint an agent for the purposes being discussed. They are not signing on behalf of the minor but rather on behalf of the person with parental responsibility who appoints them as an agent for the purpose. That appointment of agency needs to be in writing. An actual model agency would generally be appointed as such an agent to act on behalf of the parent, but the law does not limit that kind of arrangement only to model agencies.

What we are not, NOT, NOT talking about here is a mere chaperone or escort.

Studio36

As an aside: My wife and myself are actually in such an agency arrangement with a single mother neighbour. She has a young son and also an abusive ex BF to whom she was never married who does not have, and has never acquired, parental responsibility, though he is the biological father. She has appointed, in writing, my wife and I to collect her young son from school should she become unavailable through illness or accident. The father actually showed up at the school once wanting the boy, the school [rightly, properly, and correctly] refused outright to release the boy to his father.