Model Mayhem and Trade Work: reasons why professional photographers should never work for free.

The internet has created a strange and multifaceted world in which photographers can seek out work. There is no shortage of online directories which allow for creative authorities to network with and contact photographers and talent. Interestingly most of these directories also allow for unrepresented individuals to create free accounts and contact each other directly. A couple of the major sites include:

• Model Mayhem
• OneModelPlace
• ModelURL

The presence of untested amateurs in “professional” marketing and work-seeking networks has good points and bad points.

For amateurs and aspiring professionals, sites like Model Mayhem are excellent ways to quickly find people with whom to build a portrait portfolio. And many of them are willing to work for free!

Free?

Yes...but no. Nothing is really free. Read on.

On sites like Model Mayhem, free work is offered under the guise of a working agreement known as “TFP,” or simply “TF.”

TFP stands for “Trade for Print,” and is a blanket term used when photographers and talent agree to work in trade. The photographs are taken, and the final edits are distributed among all parties involved as prints or image files for use in their respective portfolios.

For photographers, it looks like an ideal system for producing personal and artistic work without paying a model or collaborators. It is an easy way to produce work, but it is unfair to all parties involved, especially photographers who want to earn a living through photography.

When a photographer offers his or her services for free, it de-values the work of every other photographer in their community. For photographers who try to make a living from their work, their job becomes twice as difficult when other “professionals” offer free work on a regular basis.

Speaking from direct experience, models see no reason to pay for professional portfolio work when other people with big, expensive-looking cameras will give them the same thing at no cost. Not all photographers who charge are necessarily better than those who work for simple love of the art, but when the professionals and non-professionals advertise in the same place, a negative trend develops.

When a lot of photographers within the same community are all working in trade at the same time, aspiring models, whose portfolios might otherwise be a near-limitless source of income for many photographers, tend to assume that because some photographers work for free, that it is unnecessary to ever pay for work at all.

Professional photographers are a valid part of their local economy. They are service providers. The best photographers, both in the sense of artistic value and client relations, usually float to the top and are the first choices in their cities. Nevertheless, like every other service provider in the current economy, it is hard to make a living when "friends with cameras" work down the street for little or nothing.

Many horror stories have been recounted of photographers taking advantage of models. This is a very real problem. However, if a photographer allows him/herself to be a dispenser of free images, they are allowing other people to take advantage of them.

If you are a photographer who operates as an artist rather than a businessperson, and photography isn't your source of income, you have the option to continue calling it trade and working as you do. As much as I might not like it personally, it's your prerogative. But be prepared, because you will lose money.

When no one gets paid, photographer or model, no one truly benefits. And on top of that, the photographer ends up doing all of the actual work.

Models who habitually trawl the internet in search of "TF to grow my port" tend to not take things too seriously; they don't view photography or modeling as a business. Instead, it is a weekend activity with the prospect of "getting discovered." Furthermore, inexperienced models needs to be told how to stand, look and communicate to the camera.

In the end, the photographer will spend time coordinating the shoot, taking the photographs, thinking for the model, editing the photographs and delivering them to the model. And the photographs might not go any further than the model's Facebook page.

These are things of which a photographer needs to be aware of when working for no cost.

Working in trade is working at a loss to one's self, and to the photographic community at large.