Hi all,

I need to find a site that has some high quality, high end fashion images that i could retouch and use for my portfolio.

Most of my clients are not allowing me to use their work in my online portfolio, which is understandable....so i need a good resource of higher end images.

Anybody have any links or idea? Better yet, if you are a photographer and have some left overs from fashion shoots or high key portraits, would you care to part with them and allow me use of them for my portfolio?

Thanks in advance gang

Hi there,

I had a similar problem and my solution was to find a model-page where people could enlist and show their profiles. I asked them politely if they want some images retouched, showed them some examples and offered them to do it for free if they let me publish their photos.

Worked just fine :)

I may also have some photos you could use, pm me about what you need and your email so I can probably offer some.

Patrick

I too have the same problem. Then the photos that people have said ok to end up being really low quality and don't really show what I can do. All the great touchups I've done or restorations end up being the ones I can't show on my webpage. I am just starting out so a lot of stock photos are too pricey. Hope you find some and if you find a good website please let me know :)

I'd be interested too, so I'll watch this :)

I am lucky though - my dad has copyright as photographer on a lot of images and I have been given permission 'to use as if they were mine', as well as having some of my stuff on his website too, and flogging it to the models, lol. So perhaps a photographer might also be a place to try? Someone who doesn't necessarily want retouches or only ever does the absolute basics in post-editing, but will let you use some too? Someone doing TFP for models might not be so worried about what you do.

models on the other hand might be bound by said photographers, and retouching their images, received via the model, might make the photographer grumpy (heard this story from a photographer on a shoot I was make up for recently - this scenario had the model doing it).

Or, do as I do, and make friends with a model who thinks you're a genius, and take the pics yourself? lol Ok, the friendship isn't quite based on that, lol.

I bought a basic range 5mp camera recently, and am using that to get some pics I can play with, and have total and complete control over. But I would also like to have a bigger range than the one model at my disposal, and my dads photo technique.

Another place to look might be on model/photographer sites where you might be able to put the call out for images in a forum like this.

I have the same problem... I have lots of good samples printed for my paper portfolio, but I can't publish them online. I use parts of images from those photos I can't use... this way I have my portfolio and models/photographes can't get really upset because the sample shows only eye, lips... or other little part ;)

Offer to retouch images for free and in return you get the use of the image on your website. Also - what I plan to do soon - is put the photographer's details on your site or next to the image, perhaps even with a link to their site.

I've tried that, but so far the fashion photographers that I've approached said they don't release their photos. They said they don't like their photos to leave their studio. I can understand since that is their bread-and-butter.

You need to find up-and-coming fashion photographers, ones who are doing TEST shots. They find models for free or for a low rate and the models get their images done for nothing as long as the photographer can use them in his portfolio. As he builds this up he can go to the model agents and get better and better models. These are the people, just graduated, that you need to find.

Have a look at this website to see what I mean by "testing":
http://www.whoistesting.com/

Thanks for the tip. My original intent was to use photographs from known photographers. Guess I don't have enough clout yet.