Fashion Model For Product Photography: How To Hire model?
Updated on March 6, 2023 in Photography by Nishant Shrimali
In this article, you will learn the right way to hire a fashion model for product photography without disappointing your clients or making any mistakes. But here’s a heads up for you on the following topic.
The norms of “Model” have changed around the globe in the last decade. Brands are more focused on conveying the right message through their products than actually sorting down the body type they would be having in the product.
More or less, fashion brands are leaning towards normal people to become a people’s brand.
And with all this, it is getting hard to actually hire a fashion model for product photography, which can actually represent the product. Hence, here is the ultimate guide to hiring a fashion model for product photography that will help you go through this complex process in a few simple steps.
Why Hire Models for Product Photography?
You might too come across this question again and again. But having a face to represent or just to idealize the product, makes people trust your product more.
Here are some benefits that you can expect when you hire a fashion model for product photography.
Showcasing the Right Emotions
Some brands wish to convey joy, fun, loving, or even crazy emotions. Whereas some showcase power, hard work, and stillness. In order to actually let the people connect the product with these emotions, you can hire a fashion model for product photography.
Ease of Comparison
When you hire a fashion model for product photography, it brings that special human touch to the frame. It answers the questions like
- The size of the product in real life
- The tone of skin it suits on
- The quantity of the product
- The use of the product
- The versatility of the product
All these can be easily answered with a model on-board within just a few images.
Convincing to Buy
If the product is just kept on the shelves, it’s hard to actually imagine it in use. Rather seeing people using it tends to make other people more accepting towards buying the product.
Better Creative Flexibility
Unlike mannequins, models can actually get along with your theme and showcase the product in the most distinctive way that you wish them to. If you are into showing versatility in eCommerce, fashion models can raise the scale indefinitely.
Bringing in New Touch
After all, they will be seeing the product from the eyes of normal people. And if you are working with professional models they could help you with new ideas and experiments that you both can attempt for better results.
How to hire models for product photography?
Firstly, if you are an eCommerce owner, the best thing you could do is to onboard a professional model-product photographer. It will help you at every stage of this hiring process.
There is no more denying that when you hire a fashion model for product photography, you can actually expect a higher quality of return in the work. But how shall you do that? Here’s the ultimate guide to hiring a fashion model for product photography, explained in just a few steps for you.
1. Understanding Your Product
The first step here would be knowing about the product from the perspective of the audience that’s going to buy it. Keep these 2 key points in your mind.
Need of Model
Not all products that are sold on the internet, need to have a model in the image. If you think that a model could steal focus from the product, you shall drop the idea. In the following scenario, the model should complement the product. If this remains unchecked, hiring a fashion model for product photography wouldn’t be a good idea.
The Budget of Your Project
To be very clear, the fashion model for product photography has a price tag that not every eCommerce can or shall pay. On average, you can expect $6000 for a project. Again the rate can vary exponentially based on the location, project, product type, and people who you hire for modeling, make-up, fashion model product photo editing, and the photography crew.
2. Short Listing the Models
After you are on board with the fact that you need to hire a fashion model for product photography, here are some shortlisting filters that you shall apply before you start looking for the models who would be interested in your project.
You can shortlist your range of models based on these four factors.
Based on the Target Audience
It is crucial to know what demographic of people would be using the product. You need to prioritize the models that are from that same demographic. The demographics could be age group, gender, locality, work they do, and the most common places, likes, or dislikes they may have.
For example, if your product is about the skincare of men, decide the age group you would be targeting. Once done that, hire the model from that similar age group and gender to build a connection between your target audience and your product.
Based on the Past Experience
This filter is a very crucial point to remember when you hire a fashion model for product photography. A model with more experience in the same niche of the product will more likely bring his own game and understanding to the project. This is a good signal as you are more likely to waste time on describing the next pose, which you might have to do with the beginner.
Based on the Budget
Models are the artist and hence have a price tag that not every eCommerce can run through, especially if they have no investment backing them up. The tariffs will vary from one fashion model to another.
Hence before you hire a fashion model for product photography, get a quote with their pricing and terms of working. This includes the time they are ready to devote to your project; the past experience; and the additional costs of traveling, food, stay (if the project requires traveling).
Remember that an experienced model will surely pay off in his or her work, but the return on investment depends on your project.
If you are an established brand, then you can go with some highly experienced fashion models. If not, then you could with macro-influencers or the new faces in the fashion industry, which will cost you way less than the experienced one.
Based on the Brand Preference
If you are a photographer working with a brand, then it might be possible that brands have their own preferences sorted out according to their own target audience.
In this case, if you believe you have a better way of building a connection with the audience then you may bring that in concern to the brand.
If you are good with brands input, then you can move forward to creating the theme of your product photography.
3. Creating and Conveying Your Theme
Once making sure of the budget and the requirement of the model, the next step would be creating a theme to photograph the product. It is very essential to know what end result you wish.
This includes the place at which you will execute the shoot, the message that you will be conveying, and the audience that will be using the product.
Once you know what you are looking for, then it would be much easier to hire a fashion model for product photography.
Moreover, a model would also ask for the theme of the shoot as he or she would likely know about what you are expecting from them and are they going to pull off that shoot.
4. Contacting Models
There are mainly two ways through which you can contact the fashion model for product photography that you are planning.
Direct Contact
This is by-directional where either you can look for the models and reach out to them through mail or if you believe that people would be happy to join your eCommerce, then you can create the requirements on your hiring page so that people looking for the same work can contact you.
Contacting through Agencies
This is the most common and easy way to contact fashion models. You can contact an influencer or model agency to find you models who would be interested in working with your brand. Agencies already have a bunch of models in contact and they could do this work at a faster pace.
Remember to contact a bunch of models who you think would be interested in working with you on the project.
5. On-boarding the Contract
This contract is known as Model Release Forms. With the above steps, you now know how to hire a fashion model for product photography. But your work doesn’t end here. Along with the verbal contract you need to have a legal contract backing you to eliminate any further explosion rights to use those images.
Here are few important points that must be mentioned under the contract.
Pay-out & Working Hours
Always make sure that you have decided the pay-out and the terms of working on the project. The terms can include the niche of photography and the working hours of the model.
In addition, ensure that you add every detail in the contract related to the product photography which can ensure that there are no false accusations in the future.
Right to Use Images
Another important contract that you must take care of is the right to use the images. It is very important that you have the right to use the model’s images for the brand. Be clear with all the places where images can be used.
In case both you and the model can’t be on the same page for the right to use the image, negotiate the terms or drop the hiring for the project. It will save you legal trouble in the future.
Conclusion
Hiring a model for product photography is the first step. It is then followed by professional photography, editorial photo editing, and website optimization. As you can see, presenting your products in the best light can really be time-consuming—if not working with experts.
PixelPhant is an eCommerce photo editing service that is working with photography studios to ensure that their product and fashion photos look consistently stunning. Take a free photo editing trial today, and experience our services first hand.
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