Karen Engel Photography wrote:
I recently had a model make this statement which was quite odd - "I know with TF's Its usually I get the proofs as well"  (where "get" means they are given the files)

Has anyone ever actually done this - or practices this?  Was this just BS - or is someone out there giving away all the files for an entire TF shoot???

For us - for quality control reasons we never release any unfinished images.  Anything less, only makes the model and us look unprofessional in our opinion.    This also (would) open up the door to hack editing jobs - (we also have a clause prohibiting altering the images we do provide, as well as clauses forbidding the copying of proofs, previews, tests and samples etc. that we provide via online gallery).

It's stated up front in a sample TF agreement document and pre-shoot instructions we give each model.  I had to go on to point it out and explain it all again.    If all this seems draconian - I've caught models stealing proofs and doing hack jobs on them in the past...

Hi Karen:

In today's cameras are everywhere society, it seems like people are exposed to so many pedestrian photos, that they hardly recognize professional quality work.  Editing software comes with a basic Apple computer, and, my understanding is, that Apple's Photo is about to get much more sophisticated this Fall, bringing it line with what Aperture did.  It is easy to edit anything to one's taste, which supersede professional standards. 

All you can do with the model is make it clear what you are going to give her and the two of you can come to an agreement or pass.  From the model's perspective, which is often stated here, a TF shoot frequently ends in the delivery of images that the model neither wants or can use.  If the model isn't given some say in what he/she receives, it seems the incentive to shoot TF would be reduced.  I certainly do not want to process hundreds of photos prior to getting the model's opinion on what she can use.  Black Z Eddie's method would probably solve the problem somewhat.  Another important process which you can employ is to only use models with a high degree of professionalism and ethics.

There is not valuing your work as a photographer, and then there is not valuing your work as a photographer.  Some would see it to be a case of not valuing your work as a photographer to give out lots of proofs or lots of images.  Possibly true.   Some do not value their work enough to demand that someone is held to the letter of the contract, and some do not value the work enough to spend the $50 bucks to register their work with the copyright office. 

If you use a contract that specifically spells out that the copyrights belong to the photographer and that licensing fees are required for additional use, and that images may not be altered by the client, you may also want to insert language that makes it clear that any violation of the agreement would include that the customer pays for any legal fees and damages, and set a contractional minimum damage at a ridiculous figure like $10,000.00 (US) per image or use or both.  Contracts, like dogs, get much more intimidating when they have big teeth.  Such an agreement may not hold up in all jurisdictions, but that is where competent legal advice become important.  US copyright law, will be up held in your jurisdiction and registering images is beneficial to the photographer or creative person.

Furthermore, if you read "The Copyright Zone", you will see stories relayed by the authors about unlicensed use of photos.  The authors contact the offender, who then takes the unauthorized use down and the offenders expect that to be sufficient.  The authors, particularly the attorney, disagrees.  There are damages.  The question I pose: does a photographer value their work if he/she is unwilling to pursue a claim against infringement?   Is my work valuable if it isn't worth the effort of protecting my livelihood by defending it?  Much more if I fail to take action against the most egregious and obnoxious violators of the contract?  Everyone needs to make their own business decisions and those reflect the value they place, not only on their work, but also the word of mouth advertising they will receive.

Karen Engel Photography wrote:
Has anyone ever actually done this - or practices this?  ...is someone out there giving away all the files for an entire TF shoot???

Yes, some people do it regularly.

Karen Engel Photography wrote:
For us - for quality control reasons we never release any unfinished images.

If you have a policy, and that policy works for you, perhaps just find people who are in agreement and work with them, and don't worry about how or what other people do.

Jarrett Porst wrote:
I felt I needed to get the point across up front. 


My TFP shoot policy: 
I’m Jarrett Porst, stated as the Photographer.  Photographer shoots RAWS, won’t give them up unless there's a price to pay.  Photographer stores all raws on private storage drives.  Images made available may be transferred on a storage device of photographers choice that is provided by the client or image access will be made available via DropBox links.   Photographer will provide imagery on all changes up to three variations that we collaborate on.  Photographer has the last look on all edited images. Photographer carries rights to all images.  No images of Client or any brand Client is representing will be posted/released without Clients documented consent or Clients authorizers documented consent.  Due to the nature of TFP, credit and endorsements are always - always welcome and reciprocated.  I’m a fair negotiator, discussions are always open.


Thoughts?

It is good to explain what you want and are offering up front.  Is this what you print out and hand to people?  It isn't clear to me.  It is an ineffective use of plain English which reads poorly to mimic legalese.  Your paragraph creates uncertainty and questions and if your intention is to get credits, you leave a gap a truck can drive through.  It is not specific as to what the other participant in a TF shoot can expect or who is the client?  It seems you are offering TF to commercial clients.  It seems you are creating liability for yourself.

I would be happy to give you a more specific teardown if it would  help.  Even then, no matter what, I would strongly recommend an attorney review anything anyone uses as a standard contract.

Mike Collins wrote:
For those who remember, when we shot 35mm for models, and it was usually black and white, we had no fear of giving them an actual contact sheet.  Really wasn't much they could do with them.  Images were small but they could at least see what the pose and expression was.  Even if they needed a lupe. 

So make a digital contact sheet.  PS still has that feature though I think you may have to add it from Adobe's site. Contact Sheet II.  File>Automate.   But just make them a digital contact sheet where the images are no more then say 2x3 and low res.  Just enough so they can see them but not be able to make them any bigger without seeing pixelization.  Or better yet, print them out.  Give them an actual "contact sheet".  Then it's a printed item and makes it really hard for them to do much with them.

If you set the prefs to 4 across and 5 down and the ppi to 150, when viewed at 100% the images are about 2" x 3".  Big enough for "proofs".  You can then make the sheet a PDF if you want.

I use to shoot some pre-schoolers portraits for a friend of mine every year..  That is exactly how I sent her the proofs.  Made the contact sheets and then emailed them to her.  She printed them and sent them to the parents to view.  They have the file numbers under each shot so ordering was easy.

I think this is what I will be doing. I don't like to send out unedited images but I do want to give the model the choice of what they want because their tastes aren't the same as mine.

Ionalynn wrote:
I found a great solution to the whole "proof" issue.

Do all the proofing SAME time as the shoot!

We all have computers, laptops, & the like.

Do the shoot, load all the images into whatever image viewing program you use, & let the model choose their favorite images.
If they choose 20 images and you only agree to give them 2, then it is very easy to go to those 20 & do a A vs B comparison untill you get to the 2 favorites.
If you are paranoid the model will choose images that you hate, then while they are changing into street clothes, you can go through the set first & delete anything you don't wish the model to see.

At the end of the day, the model has seen (all the images), you both agree on how many have been chosen and both of you know what ones you get to retouch. DONE!

No need for dvd's, proof sheets, emails back & forth.....

If she NEEDS more images, cash is Queen!

This is a great and solution.
These days a majority of photographers has a laptop loaded with Lightroom or a similar tethering software. This is where you can rate frames as you go.
Communication is key here if editing styles are in play, discuss what post work can and will be done on selected images.
Once a final selection is made per agreement, it could be a good idea to state that upon delivery they may also receive a digital proof sheet for any future additional images the model wants to purchase.

Mike Collins wrote:
For those who remember, when we shot 35mm for models, and it was usually black and white, we had no fear of giving them an actual contact sheet.  Really wasn't much they could do with them.  Images were small but they could at least see what the pose and expression was.  Even if they needed a lupe. 

So make a digital contact sheet.  PS still has that feature though I think you may have to add it from Adobe's site. Contact Sheet II.  File>Automate.   But just make them a digital contact sheet where the images are no more then say 2x3 and low res.  Just enough so they can see them but not be able to make them any bigger without seeing pixelization.  Or better yet, print them out.  Give them an actual "contact sheet".  Then it's a printed item and makes it really hard for them to do much with them.

If you set the prefs to 4 across and 5 down and the ppi to 150, when viewed at 100% the images are about 2" x 3".  Big enough for "proofs".  You can then make the sheet a PDF if you want.

I use to shoot some pre-schoolers portraits for a friend of mine every year..  That is exactly how I sent her the proofs.  Made the contact sheets and then emailed them to her.  She printed them and sent them to the parents to view.  They have the file numbers under each shot so ordering was easy.

Just tried the 4 by 5 and the images were too small for enought detail. With a dancer they need to see facial expression and hand placement. At 4x5 it falls apart and even I could not judge the expression when zoomed it. I found the 4x4 just works. Or perhaps 4x5 at 300ppi

Am I doing something wrong with the settings?

edit

4x4 at 300ppi works well for me to edit images. Feels like back in the day with a loupe. I can look at 16 images and quickly tell which are good, and there is enough detail that I can enlarge to see if, expression, hands and feet are working.
PITA is the first edit to get rid of the crap, then move the remainder to a folder and then get PS to make the contact sheets. Takes longer but seems to give better results, at least this time.
Tried to set it up in bridge, and cannot get it to be the same. It seems like it should be doable in bridge.
"Light Table" in the Output Module kind of works, but does not feel the same.

Lost Coast Photo wrote:
Very rare, and not for just anybody. I don't really want less than my best out there. The few exceptions have been for a few newer models I'd worked with more than once and who wanted to study thumbnails to see what poses worked and which didn't. These were people I was mentoring to some extent, they wanted to learn, and they understood about not posting anything without prior discussion. I'd already given them better images to post.

Ironically, it's the newbies who sometimes ask. The really experienced models usually have hard drives full of images gathered a few at a time from a lot of photographers, and the last thing they need is another 500 images to try to keep track of or find time to look at. They tend to be happy with just a few.

prove it is very rare. what metric are you using?

seriously. just because you don't do it why assume that others are the same. wedding, headshot, boudoir, fashion test photographers have been doing it for literally decades. personally I do a technical edit pass, then a creative edit pass to compact a shoot to 60-70% and then output proofs to web gallery or zip. I don't find the value in spending the time to narrow more than this. I retouch requested images and my selects depending on the project.

Shot By Adam wrote:
Go look on craigslist and you'll see casting calls that look just like this:

Internationally published photographer is coming to [your city] and is looking to do a photo shoot with a local model for publication submissions. I will provide you with all the photos s immediately after the shoot on CD or Flash Drive for your efforts.

...Or something to that effect. Of course if you get a glimpse of their portfolio it's filled with GWC images and nothing else. This mentality of turning everything over after the shoot is something that noob models ask for and noob photographers provide.

That's been my experience as well. At the other end, I've had well-experienced models ask me to NOT give them everything, please only the couple best, and only after editing, as they neither have the time to wade through all the out-takes nor the critical eye to pick out the very best from the lot, which they consider our job as the shooter. Also, the real pros amongst shooters recoil in horror at the thought of anything except their very best escaping "into the wild." You can, in fact, determine rather quickly who you really need to shoot with based on their skill and experience by determining their expectations on this particular score.

Dan Howell wrote:
snip

wedding, headshot, boudoir, fashion test photographers have been doing it for literally decades. personally I do a technical edit pass, then a creative edit pass to compact a shoot to 60-70% and then output proofs to web gallery or zip. I don't find the value in spending the time to narrow more than this. I retouch requested images and my selects depending on the project.

For you time is money.

I tend to go one extra step. On personal stuff.

Second creative pass to narrow down to 20 images (or so) Which I send to the model for them to choose 5 for final. Depending on my mood I will also give them copies of my personal choices.

For agency models that i get from the agency, it is more work since there are going to be 3 sets of choices.
What I like. What the model likes.  And what the agency likes.
Not necessarily all the same.
I accept that as part of MY working with agency people.

And as Mike says, that has been my experience as well. Experienced models have so many, that all they need or want is perhaps one good one from each look (set). They may want unfinished 5 from each set, so that they can choose the one that suits them best, to be finished.

When discussing this, it needs repeating again.
The photographer wants the best that sells the image or their talents.
The model wants the best that sells them.
The customer wants the best that sells the product.

This should go without saying, but it often needs saying.