Why Tearsheets are Just as Good as Money

Money is always good, I'll always stress that, but when it comes to other important assets to a model's career, tearsheets are gold. If you are ever offered a modeling gig that is willing to give tearsheets instead of pay, take it!

Tearsheets are important because they show legit proof that you have been booked for a particular gig and that it has been published. This type of payment is often better than money because it is a quick way to build up your resume and portfolio. Clients tend to take a model more seriously when they see that he/she has a good collection of tearsheets. As opposed to a really nice image from a photo shoot, a tearsheet contains all the elements that show it has been published: text, captions, logos, etc.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what a tearsheet is, it is literally a copy of an image that has been torn out of the actual publication. While seeing a piece of paper with a torn side may sound unappealing, having a portfolio filled with tearsheets is a very good thing to have. Sometimes models and photographers end up getting tons of copies of the magazines, brochures, etc. of the work they have appeared in. Because it can be annoying to tell someone to look through the table of contents to find the page you're on, it's much easier to tear out the actual page.

For those who do modeling online and have appeared on websites, online galleries, and advertising banners, you don't actually have anything to tear out. A good alternative to including online work in your portfolio as a tearsheet is to simply print out the actual web page. Depending on what kind of options your computer has, you can set your printer to print the entire page that shows it is currently on a live site and not something you just photoshopped. Try to print online modeling images on good photo paper.

Below are two of my own tearsheets (which I need to get more of since I barely have any tearsheets in my own portfolio):

JET Beauty of the Week (you can literally see the page where it was torn out):



This one is for an online clothing company. Notice how it is just the image and the logo? For me to print this out properly for my portfolio, I would print the actual page from the website with all of the other online elements, since the image as is looks like it could easily have been put together in Photoshop, and you never want anyone to doubt that the work you've done isn't legitimate:



So when it comes to gigs with tearsheets, definitely go for it!