Yesterday, I did a shoot with a model who also does the occasional nude session. Since I don’t do nudes, I asked her what she did to protect herself from having the photos used in whatever way the photographer saw fit. Her reply was interesting.

Like me, she uses ModelMayhem as a place to find new people to work with. Any site like that unfortunately attracts a certain amount of less than noble characters, who get off on taking pictures of naked girls. Her first line of defense, she said, is a pre-written contract, much like the model releases I use for iStockphoto. Hers states that every and any use of the nude photos, including re-sale, must be approved by her on a case by case basis. This may seem harsh, but given the circumstance, I think it sounds fair enough. Her reasoning is, that she doesn’t want her pictures popping up where ever down the line, without having some say in it.

For some photographers, this document is a showstopper (it wouldn’t work for stock images, for instance). Others don’t care. They have no interest in re-selling beyond the original agreement, made when the shoot was first planned. Some of these photographers don’t care about the contract, simply because they just want the photos for themselves. That’s when the second line of defense comes into play: If you want to shoot nudes, you have to pay for it.

This is on top of the contract.

With this combination, she has successfully scared off the creeps and she continues to have better and better shots taken to boot, as more respectable nude-photographers notice her. For me, this was very interesting to hear about, and it reinforced my belief that not shooting amateur nudes is the right policy. Especially when working time for print.

Rasmus Rasmussen is on loan from iStockphoto, where he is part of the image inspection team.

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