Find a Photographer to Collaborate With — and Grow Your Book

How it works with CLOS

You do not need an agency, a booking platform or a friend-of-a-friend to start working with photographers. Matching, planning and shooting all happen inside CLOS.

01

Create your profile

Open the CLOS app, tap the plus button and choose Find New Collaborators. Add your photos, measurements or portfolio links — whatever shows a photographer what you bring to a shoot.

02

Browse photographers and match

Look through photographer profiles and portfolios, like the work that matches the images you want in your book, and skip the rest. A mutual like opens a chat where you agree the concept and terms.

03

Get shot from wherever you are

Join the virtual room from your phone. The photographer directs the session and controls the camera remotely — you pose, and the full-resolution results land in the cloud for both of you.

Judge photographers by their portfolios before you collaborate

The classic ways models find photographers — Instagram hashtags, forum listings, word of mouth — all share a problem: it is hard to tell who is serious, and awkward to say no once a conversation starts. Discovery keeps the decision visual and mutual. You see each photographer’s actual portfolio before you like, and nothing happens unless both of you opt in. No pressure, no obligation, and the people you match with have already decided they want to shoot with you.

That mutuality also filters out the time-wasters. A photographer on Discovery is not answering a cold pitch — they made a profile to find people to photograph. When you match, you are both already halfway to a booked session.

Find photographers for your portfolio — no agency needed

A modeling book grows one collaboration at a time, and most of those collaborations are trades. In a TFP (time-for-print) shoot, you give your time, the photographer gives theirs, and you both keep the finals — which makes it the cheapest way there is to fill a portfolio with professional images. New faces use TFP to build a first book; experienced models use tests to add range between paid jobs. Whatever the arrangement, settle it in chat before the shoot: how many images, who edits, and where each side can publish them.

The files hold up, too. CLOS captures full-resolution photos straight from the phone’s sensor — with RAW and Apple ProRaw available on Pro — so a trade shoot delivers the same retouch-grade material a studio session would.

Work with photographers anywhere

If you live outside a major market, finding photographers for portfolio work nearby is the hard part — and it used to end the conversation. With CLOS it does not: the photographer runs the session through a virtual room, directing your phone’s camera with remote camera control while you pose from your own space. Prepare like you would for any session — light, background, wardrobe — and our help guide on how models prepare for virtual shooting walks through the setup.

Shooting remotely also keeps a first collaboration low-stakes: no travel to a stranger’s studio, no cost sunk into a session that might not click. You match, you shoot from home, and if the collaboration works you do it again — or take it in person.

Who uses this

• Aspiring models building a first portfolio without agency representation or a budget for paid shoots — see CLOS for models.
• Freelance models adding new genres and looks between bookings.
• Models outside major markets who have run out of local photographers to work with.
• Content creators and influencers who need professional images and a photographer who gets their aesthetic — see remote influencer collaborations.
• Models preparing for castings who need clean, current digitals — see how agencies run virtual casting sessions.