Tampa Bay models on Tampa Bay Modeling.Tampa modeling portfolio photography services, Tampa model testing photography services, modeling portfolio books, modeling composite cards, comp cards, zed cards, and services for professional modeling career tools. These services are not free, and require an investment into your modeling career!Tampa Bay Modeling features, articles, tutorials, interactive tutorials, anecdotes, stories, tools, paperwork, and more.Risks for models, modeling scams, and protecting the integrity and the marketability of your modeling career.Tampa Bay modeling scams.Tampa Bay Modeling model job board section for model Go-See information and casting.Tampa Bay Modeling resources, including career tool links, contracts, vouchers, scam fighting agreements, forms, and other tools.Tampa Bay Modeling contact information and our monthly modeling mail bag for the answers to your questions.  
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First modeling portfolio picture of a Tampa model on Tampa Bay Modeling. All portfolio photographs, unless otherwise noted, by C. A. Passinault, lead photographer for Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design, as well as Director of Tampa Bay Modeling. C. A. Passinault is a top photographer, as well as a modeling expert.Second model photograph on Tampa Bay Modeling. Click on the image for an anecdote of the modeling shoot which produced this picture.In this third picture, you can see why the Tampa Bay area is one of the best in the world for modeling portfolio development work. Photograph by Tampa photographer C. A. Passinault.Image four of our online portfolio of another Tampa model. This photograph, if we are not mistaken, was taken on location in the Tampa Bay area. The best modeling portfolio photographs are location shots.This is another great picture. This is the fifth model photograph on Tampa Bay Modeling. Pictures featured in our thumbnail array may not be the same as those of models which are in our featured model section, but often, they are one and the same.Unmatched in any Florida modeling market. The quality of this image is excellent! Photograph by C. A. Passinault, our resident photographer and modeling expert.Another top Tampa model gets their look on. The best models can obtain a wide range of looks, as you can see when you look at other pictures of this model!Is it any wonder why more and more companies and art directors are booking independent models without going through an agency? Proof that you can be a professional model, with a lucrative career, without being dependent upon an agency to find and book modeling jobs!Another awesome photograph of a Tampa model by modeling photographer C. A. Passinault, lead photographer Aurora PhotoArts, and director of Tampa Bay Modeling.For modeling portfolio work in the Tampa Bay area, nothing beats location work. Studio photography is not nearly as cost effective, or appropriate, for modeling portfolio work.Keep in mind that this picture, for a modeling portfolio, was taken by a qualified modeling portfolio photographer, C. A. Passinault, for a specialized, professional market, which is modeling. A wedding photographer or a portrait studio will not be able to give models what they need for an effective modeling portfolio, as you have to know what you are doing!This is the 12th picture in our Tampa Bay Modeling online portfolio. Yet another Tampa model shows a marketable look in their portfolio. The best models are capable of the most looks, and are not locked into a single look!Agency model or independent model? It doesnt matter, anymore, especially in Tampa Bay. Professional models like this one can be booked without going through an agency, saving both the model and the job agency fees.Modeling portfolios need at least six looks, and by looks, we mean different looks. A composite cards needs at least five, on average, with a headshot on the front, and four different looks on the back of the comp card. This Tampa model is demonstrating a marketable look right now, in this photography. Picture by C. A. Passinault.
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Standards have dropped in the Tampa modeling industry 1. Standards have dropped in the Tampa modeling industryStandards have dropped in the Tampa modeling industry. By C. A. Passinault.
Agency TFP and dumping the modeling portfolio market 2. Agency TFP and dumping the modeling portfolio market
The difference between TFP and professional collaboration 3. The difference between TFP and professional collaboration
Amateurs pretending to be professionals 4. Amateurs pretending to be professionals
Studio training wheels 5. Studio training wheels
Stumbling in the light 6. Stumbling in the light
The aftermath 7. The aftermath

By C. A. Passinault, Director of Tampa Bay Modeling

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The difference between TFP and professional collaboration

Models, remember EVERYTHING that an agency tells you, as well as their unsolicited “advice”. If it changes, or contradicts itself, at the very least, can you trust them? Additionally, if they don’t know what they are doing, what can they do for your career?
You know what the model should do? In our opinion (do not take this as advice, as models assume all liability if they do any of this), the model should tell the agency “Fine. You screwed up by referring me to a TFP photographer who didn’t give me what I needed. I certainly got what I paid for. Why should I trust your referral to another photographer this time when you already screwed up, especially now that I have money to lose as well as time, like the time that I already lost doing TFP? Also, how do I know that you aren’t making money off of this? I don’t! You should know what you are doing, too! How can I trust in your credibility when you have already given me bad advice? This is what I am going to do. You already represent me. I hardly book any work from you now, even with you trying to book me work. I’m going to go out, invest in an effective portfolio from a professional modeling portfolio photographer who is NOT connected to ANY agency, and you are going to just have to work with the portfolio and the composite cards that I give you to work with. You already said that I am marketable, so you should be able to sell me regardless of what you have to work with, and the portfolio that I will invest in will certainly be better than the garbage from TFP, so you should have no problem booking me into work using what I give you to use. Additionally, I am hereby serving notice that you will work hard for me to find and get me modeling work, because I will be finding and booking work on my own, too! You will have no choice but to find the work before I can because you will lose money if you are cut out of the deal as the middleman. Also, if I can book work on my own with my portfolio and you cannot do the same with those same tools, what good are you? Isn’t the agency supposed to be better at this than I am? You do have connections, and I’m paying you, with commission from the jobs that you book me into, for turning your connections into paying work! Market me. Find work for me. Book me. Make sure that I’m paid, and you will get paid. You work for me! Do your job, or I’ll go around you and you will lose money!”
So, are the agencies setting up models for a later sale by first setting them up for a fall by referring them to useless TFP, while burning the portfolio photography market in the process? It’s an interesting question, and it needs to be considered.
Although I am not presenting this as fact, the bottom line is that if it is supported by the logic presented, and it makes sense, it has the same credibility of being a fact even if it is not a verifiable fact, especially since it has the potential to become reality; thus, it could become fact. Hey, that’s how ideas, good or bad, become fact. I’m smart like that, as with my experience, I can figure these things out. You still have to consider the possibilities, now, don’t you?
Then again, this is only a theory, as I never bothered to send undercover models to the agencies to find out IF they were really doing this, but it makes sense (and I pray that, if agencies are not already doing this shady tactic, that they do not read this and get any ideas). I also have to consider that the booker may have told me about referring models to TFP photographers just to tell me what he wanted me to believe; he could have been lying to me. Still, if he was telling me the truth, agencies are basically telling models that portfolio services are not worth investing in, and that they you don’t have to pay for an effective modeling portfolio, which is bad advice in any career; it is spreading the misconception that paying for such services is not worth it, and regardless of if it is intentional or not, it is dumping the market and ripping out the bottom of the business of the photographers who are actually qualified to do these services. That is, qualified photographers who don’t know how to adapt to the unethical manipulation of their market (I do know how to adapt, because I know what I am doing, and still book work regardless of what anyone else says or does).
Sure, I was one of the few photographers who was actually booking work with my modeling portfolio photography services, although my headshot photography shoots were doing much better, but I couldn’t help but wonder how many shoots were lost because of the misconception in the local industry that modeling portfolio services had no value anymore. To some, everything had to be free. Fortunately, most were finding out the hard way that obtaining modeling portfolios and other career tools for free was a false economy, because even if they were represented by an agency, there isn’t a whole lot that an agency can do with a weak portfolio. So, the models were left wasting a lot of time on useless portfolios which were exactly what they paid for, and wondered why they were not booking any work. This, of course, discouraged them, and set them up for the possibility of a sale or a referral to a sale by a professional portfolio photographer connected to the agency.
Economy or not, the standards for modeling in Tampa Bay had declined. Sure, that economy had reduced my bookings, but the thinking of my target market was changing. As a result, I also had a lot of people wasting my time. It was obvious that things were never going to be like they were in 2003 and 2004. The market had changed, although not, as some thought, because of my efforts with the independent talent movement. The independent modeling and talent movement, however, proved to be a rather convenient scapegoat, especially when people were ignorant about what was really going on.
I explained to the booker that what he was describing, with models working for free, was NOT independent modeling. It was the freebie mindset of the industry which was maintained by amateurs, and something which I had absolutely nothing to do with.
I still could not believe that agencies even humored TFP, let alone referred models to it. Thinking about TFP, and of how it has been transformed by a market crowded by amateurs from its original meaning to something quite different, however, made me wonder about the standards of the industry as a whole, and how they had truly fallen. That is, if it could be believed to begin with. It was even more disturbing, too, if agencies were feeding models this misconception. Why would an agency refer a model to something if they did not believe in it? If they are doing that, they are either lying to the model or do not know what they are doing!
Who were we kidding, though? I knew, and the agencies knew, that no professional photographer would ever shoot themselves in the foot by doing TFP with a new model who was in the market for what they were in business to do, which is selling modeling portfolios to models who need a portfolio. That is not how you stay in business. Any “professional” who does this, or says that they will do this, is either lying, or does not know what they are doing, and either way their credibility is gone. They can’t do a thing to help any aspiring model.
You also cannot collaborate with anyone who is not experienced enough to enter into a professional shoot which is mutually beneficial for all parties. If the model is professional and usually gets paid, and the photographer is professional and usually gets paid, there is a good reason to collaborate, they can make the time to collaborate, and if it does not conflict with any paid work, then, basically, their pay cancels each other out. Those situations are rare for any professional, however, and are the exception to the rule. Most professionals are simply too busy booking paid work and doing that work to collaborate with anyone often, and they will NOT do it if the other party needs what they are in business to do! Speaking as a photographer, if a professional model cannot give me results in a shoot that I am not already getting from models who pay me for a modeling portfolio, is there really any reason to collaborate when I can use the time to book more paying work?
TFP, or Time For Print, used to represent a collaboration between established professional photographers and models. It was something for professionals who were not in the market for what the other was selling. As a result, there were few conflicts with the business of the professionals, and far more benefits.
With digital photography and social media, however, TFP was hijacked and perverted to simply mean “free shoots”. It was seen by amateurs as the way to build a portfolio. As a result, aspiring models who fell into the TFP trap ended up with portfolios which did not enable them to compete with real professional models, and which did not book them any real work, which would be paid jobs. Since no professional photographer would “give away the store”, in a sense, to aspiring models who needed what the professional photographers were in business to do, the aspiring models did TFP with amateur photographers, sleazy photographers with hidden agendas, and with so-called “photographers” out to scam them.
Aspiring photographers, like the aspiring models with TFP, ended up shooting with “models” who did nothing for their portfolios, and largely wasted their time.
I smiled. No professional would work for free, especially when it conflicted with what they were in business to do, and especially if they knew what they were doing. Those who did TFP, which had become free shoots done in order to “build” a portfolio, really did get what they paid for, and, as a result, crippled the marketability of their careers.
Hey, if they find out the hard way that they cannot compete with real professionals with professional, relevant, effective portfolios, they deserve it.
Like any business, or any career, you truly only get out of it what you put into it. Professionals have no choice but to invest in their careers. I did, and I still do. Amateurs will remain amateurs because they refuse to do what they have to do.
Amateurs helping other amateurs does not work. You do not learn anything. You waste your time. You learn bad habits. You take risks which could end your career before it had a chance to begin. If you practice mistakes, you will only perfect mistakes. Amateurs helping other amateurs in TFP are like the blind leading the blind. In order to learn and work toward becoming a professional, an amateur need the help of a professional.
Also, these amateur models needed to know that pictures are forever. Once those pictures are out there, nothing can undo them. Those mistakes truly last forever, and photography really does need to be respected for the power that it really has. Photography can be like a loaded gun, and amateurs get hurt when they do not know what they are doing.

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