I’ll be honest and say that I don’t necessarily have many close people around me. Nor do I have a huge portfolio that would make people interested to pose for me. This means I’m kinda just alone when it comes to photography. Yet, I want To experiment with portrait photography to learn and make myself a portfolio. I can’t really take pictures of myself either considering I plan on using an old 1970’s film camera when it comes to portrait. Though, I do have a digital one with remote control functions, but that one won’t be nearly as immersive. What are your suggestions?
Just ask random people. Say “Hey I’m learning portrait photography and I thought you are really interesting because of XYZ” offer to send them the picture. Everybody won’t say yes but a pretty high percentage will.
Pay for a model.
Offer free sessions on social media. You’ll get a decent amount of responses. People eat free things up.
You could always ask people in public? You’ll get a lot of no’s but someone will say it yes eventually.
I would suggest to book sessions with professional models. This enables you to focus on your gear and lighting while the model already knows their posing and maybe can even help with finding good compositions. If you’re just getting into working with people maybe there’s a workshop you can attend in your area? I would say if you have to direct everything even the posing because your model might not be super confident in front of the camera will lead to frustration and bad results which hinders you to get better fast. Definitely a worthwhile investment!
Offer free shoots in your local community Facebook groups. Keep the guidelines clear - you choose the place (choose a safe, public place like a park), the time (just before sunset is good), the duration, and they must agree for you to use the photos in your portfolio. They get copies of the photos in return.