Building a Portfolio
If you want to send some photos to Nuts or ZOO, or to an agency, or to enter competitions such as "Page 3 Idol", you definitely DO NOT need to have a portfolio. You can just send them a digital image by E-mail.
If you do want some big glossy photos of yourself, then most reputable photographers will let you have a set of photos on a CD without charge, and you can get the prints done yourself from off the CD quite cheaply.
Girls do need to be wary of rip-off and scam photographers, who may offer girls 'free' photoshoots, and then ask for considerable sums of money before images are handed over. Some scam photographers may also claim that images 'need to be retouched' before they can be handed over, and there is a fee for that. That is just another rip-off.
You can get reprints and enlargements done from many branches of stores such as Tesco, Sainsburys, and Boots. You can just take in the CD. At Tesco, prices, at the time of writing, were: 10"x8" enlargements £1.20 each; 6"x4" reprints 18p each.
Full details of Tesco's photo services are here:
Tesco Photo Services.
Tesco also provide a range of novel photo gift ideas, such as greetings cards, calendars, even printed books, made up from your photos, details here:
Tesco Gift Ideas (For example, an A4 size wall calendar made from 12 of your photos costs around £15).
You may be able to print on your own computer. To get good quality results you need to buy some high quality photographic paper. Printing high quality prints on your own computer can be an expensive way to do this, when you consider the cost of photographic paper (around £10 per pack), and the cost of print cartridges (around £20).
There are also lots of photographic labs who have websites where you can E-mail or upload digital images, and they will produce high-quality prints on photographic quality paper, and post the results back to you, often within 24 hours. 6"x4" prints done this way should cost around 10p each. Big glossy A4-size enlargements (12"x8") should cost around £1 each.
You can find a list of labs here:
Google: Photo Labs UK.
In a survey on The Gadget Show, PhotoBox was recommended.
If you want a posh case to put your prints in, you can get a simple plastic wallet to hold A4 prints, from Sainsburys for around £2.
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