Hire models for photoshoot work, without mis-booking it

You need two or six people, in a specific city, on a specific date, who look right for the product. The slow way is to post a casting call and read the applications. The fast way is to search on the criteria you already know and email the handful of people who fit.

Write the brief as filters

Before you look at anybody, write down the things that are actually non-negotiable:

• Category. Commercial, fashion, fitness, beauty and parts, hostess, promotional, influencer, art. Most briefs are commercial even when they are described as fashion.
• City. Where the shoot happens, unless you are paying for travel and accommodation, in which case say so up front.
• Physical range. Age band and height band, honestly stated. Narrower is faster but a band that is too narrow returns nobody.
• Date. Which becomes an availability filter rather than a question you ask fifty people one at a time.
• Budget per person, per day. Including what you want to do with the images afterwards, which is the part that most often gets forgotten and most often causes the argument.

What to have ready before you email anyone

1. The client or brand name, and what the product is.
2. The shoot date, the call time and the expected hours.
3. The location, or at least the city and the type of location.
4. The usage: which media, which territory, what term, and whether you need exclusivity.
5. The fee you are offering, and your payment term in days.
6. The release you will ask them to sign, available in advance rather than on the day.

A model receiving that email will answer quickly, because it is obviously real. A model receiving "hi, are you available for a shoot" will answer slowly or not at all, because most messages of that shape are not real. The quality of your brief is the main thing you control about your response rate.

Why usage belongs in the first email

The fee and the licence are two different purchases. A day of someone's time for images that live on your own website for a year is a different product from the same day with the images running as paid advertising across three countries in perpetuity. If you ask for the second and pay for the first, either you will be renegotiating later or you will be using images you do not have the rights to. This guide, written for the other side of the table, is the clearest way to see how a professional builds the number you are about to receive.

Shortlisting without wasting anyone's afternoon

• Shortlist from published data, not from messages. Category, city, age, height, rate range and availability are all on the card before you contact anyone.
• Contact more than you need, but not many more. Six for two places is reasonable. Forty is a casting call by another name.
• Tell the people you did not book, promptly. It costs one email and it is the difference between being a client people reply to next time and being one they do not.
• Keep the option and the confirmation clearly distinct, and confirm in writing.

What a directory changes

Searching Maxgirls is free and needs no account, because the search itself is not the product we sell. The profiles are reviewed by a person before they are public, so a shortlist is not full of stolen portfolios, and photographs a model marked 18+ arrive blurred at file level, so the site is safe to open at work with no age gate to click through. If you are booking regularly, a Booker seat adds saved shortlists per project, side-by-side comparison, contact export and seats for the team.

Start here: search the directory, or read how hiring works end to end and how this compares with posting a casting call.