When should you start to charge models?

Question:I am an amateur photographer I suppose, I've been shooting for about four years, but seriously for about three. My passion was nature photography but I just started working with models...I'm told I'm good. I have no idea haha! I just do photography because I lov e it.

I have no idea when I should charge models, I'm just building my portfolio but it's getting expensive. You can view my work on model mayhem: http://www.modelmayhem.com/GeneMarie
or on myspace: myspace.com/genemariearts if that will help with your answer as in...you need more experience don't charge...thanks in advance for answering.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I am an amateur photographer I suppose, I've been shooting for about four years, but seriously for about three. My passion was nature photography but I just started working with models...I'm told I'm good. I have no idea haha! I just do photography because I lov e it.

I have no idea when I should charge models, I'm just building my portfolio but it's getting expensive. You can view my work on model mayhem: http://www.modelmayhem.com/GeneMarie
or on myspace: myspace.com/genemariearts if that will help with your answer as in...you need more experience don't charge...thanks in advance for answering.

Part of the answer requires you to do some research into what other photographers are doing in your area. You can probably do some searches on photographers in your area and come with some photography sites with rates. You can also search for photographers in MM, many have their external web site linked from their MM profile page.

Then - decide your strategy. Since you are just beginning to charge, you need to consider whether you should discount your rates to buiild up clients.

Good luck to you. One of the things you need to remember is that having a great portfolio will make more models want to work with you, so you may need to spend more time on that aspect of your business.

The other thing to remember is the models tend to be young & not making a lot of money - therefore don't have a lot of discretionary cash. Don't be disappointed if you don't make it big quick. Very, very few photographers can make a living shooting only models. There is a lot to running a photography business.

I may be missing the point of your question, but the way it usually works is that the photographer PAYS the models.

In some cases, the models may want photographs done of them, in that case, the model pays the photographer, but, the images are the model's