Keeping Your Exotic Photography Portfolio Fresh
If your current portfolio has transparent pages, examine it from time to time for scratches. Maybe only one or two pages need replacing. Nothing says 'yesterday's news' more swiftly than scratched plastic pages.
Even if you are now only photographing your spouse or girlfriend, put your best recent work forward always, and you'll make a habit of improving as you go along.
How often should you change your portfolio's images? Well, at least bear in mind the old saw about being remembered by the worst image in your portfolio. It's still true. Look through it occasionally, and if you see an images that looks a little dated, don't pass on the opportunity to best yourself and go for it. If you are an active, growing artist in the exotic photography field, I would say the majority of your images should be less than a year old. It's also tempting for some photographers to keep adding pictures to the portfolio, but resist the habit. Your business could suffer from the contrast of years between the older and newer pictures.
In fact, if you haven't any images to swap, question whether you are still growing in skill in this area. Don't let the bright new talent speed by you. In fact, if you are a professional, you should also offer an online portfolio as well.
While you might also have a digital version of your portfolio to display on a laptop, nothing can ultimately make as brilliant an impression as a top drawer portfolio of your best photographs to share one-on-one with a potential client. Consider that most clients that make the decision to try your work will want to buy prints, so show them the glossy formats in which your models are likely to appear.
By the way, templates do exist on the Internet for signed model release forms, and that signed form should accompany each image in the portfolio, whether it is a physical book or part of a website.
I find paging through my portfolio fun, and I look mine over several times each week. I enjoy swapping out old pictures for new, but it is not a set of hard choices for me to make. Why is not hard to choose? Almost of my old techniques and models enjoys an afterlife in an older portfolio book. Some new enthusiastic clients enjoy seeing my old work.