I wonder what models look for in an ‘out of the blue’ shoot proposal? In another place, the ‘What’s yer rates’ brigade get short shrift, and rightly so. Over the years, I’ve developed a template for a shoot proposal which gives a summary of the proposal as a series of seven bullet points, covering—amongst other things—levels, location, duration, usage, and fee. A separate paragraph on each follows. In effect, the model can just read the summary (if she wishes) and decide whether to reject the proposal there and then, or read on for the rest of the details.
This approach has seemed to work well in the past and at least one well-known model has commented favourably on the approach, saying that all of the information she needed for an informed decision was there in the proposal. No game of email ping-pong developed over the proposal itself. We may have needed to correspond over dates, venue, and travel, but that’s it.
Over the past month, I sent proposals to five models on AF. Of those, I now have one shoot booked (and very quickly indeed), and another where I’m waiting on dates. Of the remainder; nothing. The proposals have been read but there’s been dead silence from the models. I assume that they’re not going to reply now and there’s not going to be a shoot. I accept that this happens in the photographic industry, but I wonder what models look for in shoot proposals; what do you want to know up front, do you want them long and full, or do you want to play email ping-pong?
AdultFolio accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for the content or accuracy of authors comments.
