Sunday Media / Portfolio
Model portfolio photography for the four seconds that decide whether you get seen
A book has two halves and most people only shoot one of them. The digitals prove what you actually look like with nothing added. The editorial frames prove what you can do in front of a camera. Submit only the second half and a booker cannot tell what they would be hiring. Submit only the first and there is nothing to imagine.
Based in Guelph, ON. Shooting across Southern Ontario. Every fee, including travel, insurance and any studio or permit costs, is discussed and agreed in writing before anything becomes binding.
Placeholder image. Swap this for your own portfolio work before the page goes live.
Agencies decide in four seconds. Give them four unmistakable frames.
Picture the other side of the submission. Somebody is sitting with an inbox of a few hundred applications and a scroll wheel. They are not reading your caption. They are looking at the first image, and then either the second one or the delete key. Four seconds is not a marketing figure invented to scare you. It is roughly how long it takes to answer one question: can I tell what this person looks like, and can I tell what they do in front of a camera.
Almost every book that fails, fails on that question rather than on the person in it. The photographs are often beautiful. They are also heavily retouched, shot at the same angle in the same light, cropped so you cannot see a jawline or a waist, and styled so hard that the model has disappeared underneath a concept. A booker cannot cast from that, so they move on, and the model concludes they were not right for it. Usually they were. The book just did not say so.
This page is about fixing that. What a book is actually made of, what digitals are and why they are not bad photographs, how many looks a session realistically supports, how to pose when nobody has ever taught you, and how to tell a real opportunity from the industry’s oldest scam. Sessions here run from 30 to 150 minutes depending on the package you choose, and the longer end is where a full first book gets made.
This is a guide, not a pitch. Everything below is what we would tell you over a coffee whether you hire us, hire somebody else, or shoot your digitals against your own bedroom wall with a friend and a phone. Take it, use it, and get the book made properly.
Thirty minutes to two and a half hours
Sessions run anywhere from 30 to 150 minutes depending on the package you choose. The short end is one setup and one look, which is exactly right for a clean set of digitals or a single strong addition to an existing book. The long end is two or three setups, up to four looks, movement work and the time it takes for you to stop concentrating and start moving properly.
Digitals first, always
We shoot the digitals in the first fifteen minutes, before hair moves and before anything gets styled. They are the honest set, and they take almost no time because their whole job is to be plain. Once those are safely made, the rest of the session is free to be as constructed as you want it, and nothing you do afterwards can compromise them.
Two exports, two jobs
Files come back in two forms. Digitals arrive clean, unretouched and correctly sized for submission. Editorial frames arrive fully finished, at full resolution and print ready. One set is evidence and one set is argument, and putting them in the same folder is why so many books read as confused.
The two halves of a book, and why they are not the same photograph
This is the single most useful distinction on the page, and almost nobody arrives knowing it. A model portfolio is not one set of nice pictures. It is two deliberately different sets of pictures that answer two different questions, and an agency will ask for both.
Digitals, sometimes called polaroids or Polas, are the plain ones. No makeup or close to none, hair down and natural, a plain fitted top and plain bottoms, a plain wall, even light, no retouching whatsoever. They exist so a booker can see your actual face, your actual proportions, your skin and your posture with nothing added. They feel deeply unglamorous to shoot and they are the reason people get called in.
Editorial frames are the other half. Styled, lit, shaped, moving, retouched to a normal professional standard. They exist to prove that you can do something with a camera pointed at you rather than merely stand near one. This is where personality, range and taste live, and it is the half that gets shared.
Submit the second half alone and the booker cannot tell what they would be hiring, because good lighting and good retouching hide a great deal. Submit the first half alone and there is nothing to imagine. Send both, in that order, and you have answered every question they were going to ask.
Digitals, and how to get them right
- Plain fitted top and plain fitted bottoms. Black, white or grey. Nothing loose, nothing branded, nothing that hides the line of the body.
- Hair down and as it naturally falls. No styling, no product, no heat. If it is usually up, send one frame with it up as well.
- Little or no makeup. Clean skin, groomed brows, nothing corrective. Blemishes are fine and are not removed.
- Barefoot or plain flat shoes, and no jewellery except something you never take off.
- Even, flat light. A north facing window or an overcast day outdoors both work perfectly.
- A plain, uncluttered background. A white or light grey wall is ideal. No patterns and nothing behind your head.
- Face straight to camera with a neutral expression, one smiling, one profile each side, full length front, full length back, three quarter turn, and a close beauty frame.
- Zero retouching. Colour corrected and straightened only. Retouched digitals defeat the entire purpose and experienced bookers spot them instantly.
Editorial frames, and what they need to prove
- Range. Not one look photographed nine ways. A booker is reading how far you can travel, so the frames should not all feel like siblings.
- Movement. Walking, turning, hair in motion, weight shifting. Stillness in every frame reads as somebody who has to be posed by hand.
- Distance. At least one full length, one three quarter and one close frame per look, because different clients crop differently.
- Light you can name. Soft window light, hard shadow, backlight, colour. Variety in lighting is variety in the book without needing more clothes.
- A face doing something. Commercial work needs warmth, editorial work needs stillness. Show both rather than picking a side too early.
- Restraint in the edit. Skin keeps its texture, jaws and waists are not reshaped, and nothing arrives looking like a different person.
- Fewer, stronger images. A tight set of frames beats a long scroll every time, and the weakest image is what gets remembered.
Digitals get you in the room. Editorial frames decide what happens once you are in it.
If you only have time or budget for one of the two right now, shoot the digitals. They are the cheaper half, the faster half and the half that agencies actually ask for first. Editorial frames are worth building over several sessions with different photographers, which is also how a book stops looking like it was made in one afternoon.
Ask them what they want before you book anything. Agencies are specific and they are not all specific in the same way: file dimensions, how many frames, whether they want a stats card on the first image, whether they want the digitals in colour on a white wall or standing on a grey seamless. Five minutes of asking saves an entire session of guessing. Forward whatever they send us and we will shoot to it exactly rather than to a general idea of what a book looks like.
Seven setups, and what each one proves
This session is studio first and that is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation. Digitals need flat, honest, repeatable light, and a room where nothing changes is the only place you can guarantee it. Weather does not get a vote, a passer by does not walk through the frame, and changing between four looks takes seconds instead of a drive.
But a book made entirely on one backdrop reads as a test shoot, and clients notice. So the useful version is a studio block for the honest frames and the controlled light, then somewhere with real texture in it for the frames that need air, scale and a bit of weather. Everything below sits within about twenty minutes of Guelph, and the whole set is reachable across Southern Ontario.
Read these as setups rather than as destinations. Each one gives your book something the others cannot, and a strong first book usually needs three of them rather than all seven.
White wall and daylight
A plain light wall, flat even light, and nothing else in the roomThe least interesting setup on this list and the one your book cannot go without. Digitals are shot here because everything that makes a photograph flattering is exactly what has to be absent: no shaping, no falloff, no clever angle, no background doing half the work. A booker is reading your face and your proportions, and any of those things gets in the way.
It is also the setup you can honestly reproduce yourself. A north facing window, a white wall, a friend holding a phone at chest height, and you have usable digitals. That is not us talking ourselves out of work, it is the truth, and knowing it means you can refresh your digitals the week your hair changes rather than waiting for a session. What a studio adds is consistency, correct colour, a full length frame without distortion and a set that all matches.
Flat and even from the front. A north facing window, a large diffused source, or full overcast outdoors.
What you actually look like. Face, proportions, posture and skin, with nothing added or removed.
Every submission, every agency, every update. This is the set you resend whenever anything changes.
Wide lenses close up, which distort proportions, and shooting from above, which quietly flatters and misleads.
Colour seamless
Paper backdrops, controlled light, and a full length that goes edge to edgeThe most commercially useful setup in a studio and the fastest way to make one look feel like three. A roll of seamless paper swaps in about a minute, and a change of background colour changes the entire temperature of a frame without you changing clothes. It is also the only place you get a genuine full length with clean space above and below, which is what clients crop into for e commerce and lookbook work.
Colour is a decision worth making deliberately rather than by whatever roll is loaded. Grey and off white keep the attention on the person and suit almost any wardrobe. Deep saturated colour reads as commercial and campaign work. Black gives you drama and hides the body outline, which is useful for a face frame and unhelpful for a full length. Pick two, not five, so the set still looks like a book rather than a paint chart.
Whatever we build. Soft key with a fill for commercial, one hard source for something with edge.
That you can hold a full length frame, and that you read well against colour rather than only against texture.
Commercial frames, e commerce style poses, movement work and anything a client needs to cut out.
Colour bouncing off the paper onto skin, and picking a shade that fights every outfit you brought.
Hard light and shadow
One bare source, a defined shadow, and nowhere to hideSoft light flatters everybody, which is exactly why it tells a booker very little. Hard light does the opposite. A single undiffused source cuts a real shadow, brings out bone structure, and produces the most editorial frame you will get indoors. If your face has architecture in it, this is the setup that says so, and it is disproportionately represented in the books that get people signed.
It is unforgiving in both directions, and that is worth knowing before you ask for it. Texture in skin shows, and so does every millimetre of a chin position. This is the setup where posing actually matters, where a two centimetre turn changes the whole frame, and where we will talk you through it rather than leaving you to guess. Bring it into a session as one setup among three, not as the whole afternoon.
A single bare source high and to one side, or direct midday sun, which is free and does the same job.
Structure, stillness and control. That you can hold a precise position and make it look like nothing.
High fashion and editorial submissions, beauty frames, and any book that reads too soft overall.
Shadows landing in the eye sockets, glasses glare, and a jaw angle that works for one side only.
Window light
A big window, a plain wall, and light that costs nothing to buildThe most flattering light available indoors, and the reason so many strong portfolio frames come out of an ordinary room. A large window is a soft source with real direction in it, so a face gets shaped rather than flattened, and the falloff across a wall gives depth that a flat studio setup has to work for. It is warm, it is natural, and it photographs skin better than almost anything with a plug on it.
The limitation is that you are borrowing the sky, and the sky changes. A bright direct patch of sun through glass is hard light with a rectangle in it, and a solid grey afternoon is soft and even and lovely. Both are usable, they are simply not the same frame, so this is the setup we shoot in a block rather than returning to two hours later. It is also the one to copy at home for digitals, which is worth knowing.
A large north facing window on an overcast day. Indirect, soft and consistent for hours.
Warmth and approachability. This is where commercial and lifestyle frames come from.
Beauty frames, natural looks, digitals, and anybody who freezes under studio strobes.
The sun swinging round mid session, colour cast off a painted wall, and mixed light from the ceiling.
Brick and storefront
Downtown Guelph, Elora, Fergus, St Jacobs, Galt, any main street with old stone on itEvery book needs frames that look like they happened somewhere, and Southern Ontario is unusually good at supplying them. Old limestone, painted brick, iron fire escapes, a red door somebody repainted decades ago. Texture behind a person does most of the work of making a frame feel like a campaign rather than a test, and one downtown block gives you six backgrounds without moving a car.
The two problems are people and light. Sidewalks are busy from about eleven until six, and a narrow street of tall buildings will be in hard shade on one side and blown out on the other. Sunday mornings are the quiet secret. So is the last hour before sunset, when low sun comes straight down the street and lights the whole block like a corridor. Public sidewalk needs no permission. Standing in a shop doorway or a private courtyard means asking the owner, and they usually say yes if you ask before you set up rather than after.
The last hour before sunset down the length of the street, or open shade under an awning at any time.
Public sidewalk needs none. Doorways, courtyards and private frontage mean asking the owner first.
Street style, denim, outerwear, walking frames, and anything that would look overdressed in a field.
Parked cars, sandwich boards, patio crowds, and coloured light bouncing off a painted wall onto skin.
Concrete and glass
Parking structures, campus architecture, underpasses, glass frontage, loading baysWhere a book gets its modern commercial frames. Hard lines, flat planes, repeating verticals and a total absence of anything decorative, which puts every bit of attention on the figure and the clothes. A parking structure in particular is one of the most reliable free studios in the country: a concrete ceiling makes the top light directional, the open side acts as a giant softbox, and the ramps give you clean geometry from any angle.
Access is the thing to sort in advance rather than on the day. Most parking structures, campus buildings and business frontage are private property, and a session with lights and a bag of clothes is visibly different from somebody taking a photograph on a phone. Ask, get a name, and pick a weekend when the building is quiet. Where the answer is no, the underpass, the loading bay and the retaining wall are public and give you most of the same look.
Open shade under a concrete deck, or low sun raking across a flat wall in the last hour.
Assume private and ask. Parking structures, campuses and business frontage all have an owner.
Tailoring, sportswear, sharp silhouettes, and any book that needs a harder, cleaner register.
Green light bouncing off tinted glass, moving traffic, and security who were not told you were coming.
Open field and horizon
Wellington County, Puslinch, Ariss, Erin, Grand Valley, any quiet concession roadThe frame with air in it. Nothing behind you but grass and sky, low sun coming through from behind, and a background so empty that the entire photograph is about the figure standing in it. It is the setup that gives a book scale, and it is almost always where the single image somebody prints large comes from. Long grass at chest height in late August does something no studio can imitate.
One rule that is not negotiable. Farmland is somebody’s income. We ask the owner, we never walk standing crop, and we stay on the headland or the roadside. A cut hay field in September, asked for politely, is one of the best backdrops in this county and it costs nothing but a phone call. The other thing to plan is parking, because a concession road with no shoulder is a hazard rather than a venue.
The last forty minutes before sunset, shooting into the sun through the grass. Nothing else compares.
Ask the landowner every time. Roadside allowance is public, the field behind the fence is not.
Wide frames, flowing fabric, movement, outerwear, and anything you want printed at wall size.
Ticks in long grass, wind with nothing to stop it, mud at the gate, and no washroom for miles.
How to choose, without overthinking it
Digitals first, every time
Whatever else the session does, the plain white wall block happens in the first fifteen minutes. It is the half agencies ask for, it takes almost no time, and it is the only part that cannot be improvised later in the day.
Three setups, not seven
A first book needs the honest set, one controlled studio look and one setup with real texture in it. Seven setups inside one session means every one of them gets twelve rushed minutes.
Vary the light, not just the wall
Two backdrops shot in identical soft light read as one setup. One soft and one hard, in the same room, reads as two completely different photographers. Light is the cheapest variety in a book.
Ask about access in week one
Parking structures, campus buildings and private frontage all say yes far more often than people expect. They just want notice and a name. Sorting it early costs one email and saves the location.
Keep travel inside ten minutes
Studio plus one outdoor setup within a short drive is the sweet spot. Anything further and half the session becomes a car journey with your clothes on hangers in the back.
Have a rain plan on day one
Decide the backup when you book rather than when the radar turns green. On a studio first session that plan is simply staying indoors and adding a fourth look, which is why this session type is so weatherproof.
Our photographers already know these spots. They know which stretch of downtown Guelph is quiet on a Sunday morning, which parking structures will take a phone call and which will not, where the light lands on a concrete deck at half past six in September, and which country roads have somewhere safe to leave a car. Tell us the kind of work you are aiming at and we will tell you which three setups your book is missing. We are also building a full Photoshoot Locations guide for Southern Ontario, with maps, parking notes, permit details and the best hour for each spot.
Four looks is plenty. Nine looks is a problem
The most common mistake in a first book is quantity. Somebody arrives with a suitcase, nine outfits and an ambition to use all of them, and the session turns into a changing room with a camera in it. Every look gets fifteen minutes, nothing is explored, and the book comes back looking like a clothing catalogue with one person in it.
Here is the maths. A look needs roughly twenty to thirty minutes to produce frames worth keeping: a few to settle, a full length, a three quarter, a close frame, some movement, and enough repetition that your face stops concentrating. Changing costs five to ten minutes on location and about two in a studio. Work backwards from your session length and the number lands somewhere between one and four.
The other half of the maths is what each look is for. Do not bring four outfits that all say the same thing. Bring outfits that each prove something different, so that a booker scrolling your book can see range without you having to write a word.
The digitals uniform
Not really a look, and the one that comes first. Plain fitted top, plain fitted bottoms, black or white or grey, hair down, minimal makeup, bare feet or flats. Fifteen minutes, done, and every agency asks for it. Treat it as the entry fee rather than as part of your creative day.
The clean commercial look
Solid colour, good fit, nothing branded, nothing distracting. Denim and a plain top, or simple tailoring. This is what most paid work actually looks like, and it is the frame a client uses to picture you in their campaign. Unglamorous, and the most bookable set in the book.
The editorial look
Shape, texture, drama, something with an opinion in it. A strong coat, a heavy fabric, an unusual silhouette. This is the frame that gets shared and the one that says you understand what you are doing. One is enough. Three is a costume department.
The specific look
Whatever matches the work you are actually chasing. Activewear if that is the market. Swim if you are comfortable and it is relevant. Tailoring for commercial. Nothing if none of it applies. This is the only look that should be chosen with a target in mind rather than by taste.
Order them by risk
Safest first, boldest last. Your face relaxes over the first twenty minutes and your posture improves with it, so the look you care most about should not be the one you are wearing while you are still finding your feet. Hair and makeup should build in the same direction, from natural upward, never back down.
Photograph the whole thing the night before
Every look laid out on the floor, complete, including shoes and anything going on your wrists. Send the photo to your photographer. Missing pieces get found now rather than in a car park, and we can tell you which two are fighting each other before you have driven anywhere.
Less than you think, in one direction
Digitals need close to nothing. Groomed brows, clean skin, hair down and dry. That is the whole brief, and doing more actively damages the file.
For the editorial looks, keep it recognisable. The photograph exists so somebody can picture you on a job, and a face buried under a full glam application is a photograph of the makeup. If you are working with an artist, book them for the second half of the session and shoot the digitals before they touch anything.
One thing worth saying plainly. Hair and makeup can only be added during a session, never removed, so the running order is always natural first and built up from there. Reversing that costs twenty minutes and a sink.
What does not earn its place
- Anything with a visible logo or slogan. It dates the frame and it makes the image unusable for any brand that is not that one.
- Tight repeating patterns, small checks and thin stripes. They shimmer on camera and print badly.
- Costumes and themed outfits. A book is not a lookbook of characters, and a booker cannot cast from a concept.
- Anything borrowed that does not fit. Ill fitting clothes photograph as ill fitting clothes, not as an aesthetic.
- Heavy fake tan, or a first spray tan inside a week of the session. It photographs orange under studio light and it ruins the digitals.
- New shoes you have not walked in. Sessions cover more ground than people expect, even studio ones.
- More than four looks. Past that, every single frame in the book gets shortchanged and nothing is properly explored.
If you are building a first book with no agency and no clear market yet, three looks is the right answer and two is perfectly respectable. Digitals, one clean commercial look, one editorial look. That set answers every question a first submission raises, it fits comfortably inside a mid length session, and it leaves you room to add a specific look later once you know what kind of work is coming in. Books get built over years, not in one afternoon, and nobody signed to anything got there on the strength of look number seven.
Read the submission page before you book the shoot
Every agency publishes what it wants and almost nobody reads it. The requirements are usually on a single page, they are usually specific about file sizes and frame counts, and they usually contradict whatever advice you got on social media. That page is the brief. Everything on this website is general good practice, and a named agency’s own instructions beat all of it.
What follows is the shape you can expect, so that when you open a submission page you already know what you are reading. It is also, deliberately, a section about protecting yourself, because this is the one photography category with a genuine scam problem attached to it and nobody warns new models early enough.
What almost every submission asks for
- A small set of digitals, unretouched, shot recently. Frame counts vary and are usually somewhere between four and ten.
- Front, profile both sides, three quarter, full length front, full length back, and a close beauty frame.
- Your stats. Height, bust or chest, waist, hips, dress or suit size, shoe, hair colour, eye colour, and sometimes inseam.
- Date of birth, and for anyone under eighteen a parent or guardian’s name and signature on the application.
- Your location and whether you can travel, plus whether you hold the documents to work where they place people.
- Contact details that are yours, not a manager’s, unless you already have representation elsewhere.
- Sometimes editorial frames or an existing book, and sometimes explicitly not, because they want to see you before anybody styled you.
- File format and size limits, which is the requirement most people ignore and the reason plenty of submissions never open.
Six questions before you sign anything
- Is there any fee at any point, for photographs, for training, for a website listing, or for joining. Ask it directly and get the answer in writing.
- Am I free to work with other agencies, in which markets, and for how long does this agreement run.
- What commission do you take, when am I paid, and how long after a job does payment usually arrive.
- Who owns the images from any test shoot you arrange, and what can each side use them for.
- What kind of work do you actually book, and can I speak to a model currently on your roster.
- Can I take this contract away and have somebody else read it before I sign. A real agency says yes without blinking.
Shortlist the agencies first, then shoot
Pick four or five real agencies whose rosters look like work you could plausibly get, and read every one of their submission pages before booking anything. Their requirements will tell you exactly what to shoot, which is much better than shooting a book and then hoping it fits.
Measure yourself properly and write it down
Not estimated, not last year’s number. Have somebody measure you with a soft tape, in the plain fitted clothes you shoot digitals in, and write the figures down. Height in the morning without shoes. Getting caught out on a stat at a casting is avoidable and it costs trust immediately.
Shoot the digitals to their specification
Same day, one setup, fifteen minutes. If two agencies on your list want different things, shoot both versions while you are already standing there. It costs almost nothing in session time and it saves an entire second booking.
Build the editorial half around the gaps
Look at your shortlist and work out what kind of frames their models have that you do not. That is the brief for the rest of the session. It is a far more useful starting point than a mood board of images you liked.
Submit exactly as instructed and then wait
Right file sizes, right frame count, right subject line, no extras, no long letter. Then leave it alone. Most agencies take weeks and many never reply at all, which is not a verdict on you, it is a volume problem on their side.
Refresh the digitals whenever you change
New haircut, significant change in hair colour, a real change in shape, or six months passing. Digitals are a current document rather than a portfolio piece, and an out of date set is worse than none because it makes you look different in person.
A real agency makes money when you work. Anybody who makes money the moment you sign is running a different business.
This is the single most reliable test in the industry and it has not changed in decades. Legitimate representation takes a percentage of what you earn, which means their incentive is to get you booked. An operation that charges you for photographs, for a course, for a listing, for a portfolio package or for a joining fee has already been paid whether or not you ever work a day.
What to walk away from
- Any request for money, in any form, at any stage. Photographs, training, a listing fee, a joining fee, an administration fee.
- An insistence that you must use their photographer, or a small named list of them, and cannot bring your own digitals.
- Being scouted in a shopping centre and asked to attend an audition that turns out to be a sales presentation.
- Pressure to sign on the day, an offer that expires this evening, or being discouraged from taking the contract home.
- Guarantees of work. Nobody can promise bookings, and anybody who does is selling something else.
- Vague answers about which clients they actually book, or a roster that is impossible to verify anywhere else.
- Any suggestion that nudity, private shoots, or removing a chaperone is required to be taken seriously. It is not, ever.
- Communication only through a messaging app, no verifiable business address, and no contract on paper.
Non negotiables for any shoot
- Bring somebody. A chaperone, a friend, a parent. Any photographer who objects to a chaperone has told you everything you need to know.
- If you are under eighteen, a parent or guardian attends, full stop, and signs everything. No exceptions and no reasonable person will ask for one.
- Shoot in a real studio or a public location. Not a hotel room, not a private residence you have never been to.
- Tell someone the address, the name, the start time and when you expect to be finished, and check in when you are done.
- Agree the shot list and the level of undress before the day, in writing, and know that you can stop at any point without justifying it.
- Read the release before you sign it. Understand what the images can be used for and for how long.
- Search the photographer’s name properly, ask for two references from models they have worked with, and contact them.
- Trust the feeling in the first five minutes. Leaving costs you a session. Staying when something is wrong can cost far more.
Most submissions do not get a reply and most models who work now were turned down repeatedly first. Agencies build a roster like a casting director builds a cast: they are not ranking humans, they are filling gaps, and a no very often means they already have three people with your look on the books this season. It is worth resubmitting in six months with updated digitals, it is worth applying to agencies of different sizes rather than only the largest, and it is worth remembering that plenty of steady, well paid work is booked directly by clients who never involve an agency at all. None of that is a consolation prize. It is just how the industry actually works.
Four seasons, four different books
A studio first session is genuinely weatherproof, so unlike most sessions on this website the season does not decide whether the shoot happens. What it does decide is two things: what the outdoor half of your book looks like, and how well the timing lines up with when agencies are actually reading submissions.
Both matter more than people expect. A book full of heavy coats submitted in April is answering a question nobody is asking, and a set of digitals shot in August under a deep tan is a different person from the one who turns up to a casting in February.
Spring
April to early JuneA good time to rebuild a book. Skin has recovered from winter, tans have faded to something neutral which is exactly what digitals want, and the light gets long enough for evening outdoor work without demanding a nine o’clock finish. Wardrobe sits in the useful middle ground where a jacket makes sense but nothing has to be heavy.
It is the least reliable weather we get, which barely matters on a studio first session and matters a great deal for the outdoor half. Wind is constant, the ground stays wet well into May, and a forecast three days out means very little. Treat a grey day as a gift rather than a setback, because overcast light is the most forgiving portrait light there is and spring supplies plenty of it.
New green, wet pavement, transitional layers, and the clean light of a clearing sky.
Fresh digitals on neutral skin, denim, light outerwear, and rebuilding a book that has gone stale.
Mud, wind, blackflies in the last week of May, and a forecast that changes on the morning.
A studio anchor with the outdoor block as the bonus, and shoes you can change out of at the car.
Summer
Mid June to early SeptemberThe easiest season to schedule and the one with two traps in it. Golden hour runs until nearly nine at the end of June, long grass is at its best in August, and everything outdoors is available. Swim and activewear frames only really make sense now, so if that is your market this is the window.
The first trap is the time of day. Because everybody is free all afternoon, most summer sessions get booked for two or three, which is the harshest light of the year. The fix costs nothing: book the last two hours of daylight. The second trap is specific to this session type. A strong tan line under a plain white top is visible in every digital, and a deep tan makes your digitals a poor match for how you will look at a casting in October. If the digitals matter, shoot them before the tan or keep an eye on the lines.
Long grass, warm skin, bare arms, and a sky that goes orange for forty minutes.
Swim and activewear frames, movement outdoors, wide field frames, and flowing fabric.
Overhead sun at three, tan lines under plain tops, mosquitoes near water at dusk, and heat on a collar.
A late start that feels wrong and looks right. Half past seven in July is the sweet spot.
Fall
Mid September to late OctoberThe best season for this and it is not especially close. The sun sits low and warm from about three in the afternoon, so the usable outdoor window widens rather than narrowing and you are not chasing a forty minute slot at the end of the day. Skin has settled out of summer, tans have faded to neutral, and outerwear finally photographs as clothing rather than as a costume.
It also lines up with the industry calendar better than any other window. Agencies come back into full swing after the summer, submissions get read, and a book delivered in early autumn has months of runway ahead of it rather than landing in the quiet fortnight at the end of December. The only cost is the calendar. These dates book out first, so six weeks of notice is normal rather than cautious.
Low gold light for hours, turning colour, knitwear, tailoring and a coat that finally makes sense.
Everything. Digitals on neutral skin, outerwear, editorial frames, and submitting while inboxes are open.
Sunset near half past six by mid October, cold hands in the frame, and every good date being taken.
Booking six weeks out and holding a second date in case the outdoor block gets rained off.
Winter
November to MarchThe most underbooked season and, for a studio first session, close to ideal. Nothing indoors changes, dates are easy to get, and fresh snow outside is a clean white backdrop the size of a county plus a giant reflector throwing soft light straight up into a face. Winter frames are often better lit than summer ones and almost nobody has them, which is exactly why they stand out in a book.
Golden hour lands near quarter past four in December, so the outdoor block happens in the afternoon and everyone is warm again by six. We shoot it in short bursts: ten or fifteen minutes outside, back inside to warm up, out again. It is also the right season to shoot digitals if you tan easily, because your skin is at its most neutral and that is the version of you that walks into a casting in February.
Clean white, bare branches, breath in the air, and light bouncing up off the snow.
Studio work, outerwear and tailoring, neutral skin digitals, and getting a date at short notice.
Red hands inside ten minutes, ice underfoot, salt on boots, and a four o’clock sunset in December.
Short outdoor bursts, a warm room to return to, and the studio carrying most of the session.
On this session, you will be asked to pose
On most portrait sessions the honest advice is that nobody will pose you. This one is different, and pretending otherwise would not help you. Posing is the skill being photographed here. A client is not hiring a face, they are hiring somebody who can put a garment in the right shape, hold a position while a light gets moved, and change what they are doing on a one word instruction. That is a learned physical skill and almost nobody has it the first time.
Which is the useful news. It is learnable in an afternoon to a level that transforms a book, and most of it is six or seven small mechanical adjustments repeated until they stop requiring thought. What separates somebody who photographs well from somebody who does not is very rarely their face.
The first ten minutes will feel stiff and self conscious. That is universal and it is not a verdict. Those frames are the warm up and they are not the ones we keep. Scroll on, and the three rows below will move with you.
Placeholder frames. Replace with your own portfolio work before launch.
Eight adjustments that do most of the work
- Weight on the back foot, front knee soft. Standing square to a camera is what turns a person into a passport photo.
- Space between the arms and the body. A visible gap at the elbow is the whole difference between relaxed and rigid.
- Chin slightly forward and down. It feels wrong from the inside and it fixes everything under the jaw.
- Lead with a shoulder, not with the chest. Turning the torso a few degrees off axis narrows the frame and adds shape.
- Hands need a job and a shape. A pocket, a sleeve, a lapel, hair, a hip. Flat palms and splayed fingers read as tense.
- Long neck, dropped shoulders. Almost everybody raises their shoulders when a shutter fires and almost nobody notices.
- Breathe out before the frame. Held breath shows in the shoulders and the mouth every single time.
- Move between frames, do not hold. A tiny change on every click gives us fifty usable variations instead of one repeated ten times.
Where most books actually fall down
- Commercial work wants warmth and a real smile that reaches the eyes. Editorial work wants stillness and almost nothing. Learn both and switch on request.
- A mouth smiling while the eyes stay flat is the one expression that never looks like a person. Smile with the eyes first and let the mouth follow.
- Look slightly past the lens, then back into it slowly. The frame caught on the way back is nearly always the strongest.
- Soften the jaw between frames. Clenching is invisible to you and completely visible at close crop.
- Practise a neutral face in a mirror until it stops feeling like sulking. Most people’s resting face on camera is tension, not neutrality.
- Small movements read big. A two centimetre chin turn changes a whole frame, which is why direction sounds so fussy.
- Blink deliberately when told to. Blinking on your own schedule is where half of a shoot’s rejected frames come from.
- Ask to see the back of the camera two or three times. Seeing what an instruction produced is how the adjustment becomes yours.
What to do in the two weeks before
Fifteen minutes in front of a mirror, three or four times, is worth more than any amount of scrolling. Find which side of your face you prefer, find where your hands go when you are not thinking, and find the difference between your commercial expression and your editorial one so you can produce either on cue.
Then film yourself. Ten seconds of video, phone propped against a lamp, moving slowly through positions. Watching it back is uncomfortable and it is the fastest feedback available to you. You will immediately spot the raised shoulder, the flat eyes, and the one angle that is doing all the work.
What to skip: memorising poses from an image search. Copied poses look copied, because the body arrives at them from the outside instead of moving into them. Learn the mechanics above and the poses appear on their own.
The instructions we actually use
- Walk away from me, turn on three, and keep walking toward the lens.
- Shift your weight onto your back foot and drop the shoulder nearest me.
- Put your hands in your pockets, then take one out. That is the whole adjustment.
- Look at the corner of the room, then come back to me slowly on my count.
- Same position, different face. Give me warm, then give me nothing.
- Push your hair back the way you actually do it, not the way you think looks good.
- Take up more space than feels normal. Now half of that.
- Do the last thing again, but slower and smaller.
If you have a side you prefer, a scar you would rather keep out of frame, a feature you are self conscious about, or something about your body you do not want emphasised, say it in the first two minutes. It is not vanity and nobody will make it a thing. It changes which side we work from and how we light you, and it is far easier to handle at the start than to fix afterwards. The same goes in the other direction: if there is something about yourself you actually like, say that too. Most people never do, and it is the single most useful sentence you can give a photographer. You can also stop, take a break, or decline any specific frame at any point, and you never need a reason.
One outfit exists to disappear. The rest exist to be seen
Wardrobe on this session is doing two opposite jobs, which is why generic advice about what to wear to a photoshoot does not work here. The digitals outfit is designed to vanish. The looks are designed to say something. Trying to make one outfit do both is the most common reason a first book reads as neither honest nor styled.
The digitals uniform is the same for everybody and it is not a matter of taste. Plain, fitted, solid colour, nothing branded, nothing loose. Fitted matters because a booker is reading proportions, and an oversized shirt tells them nothing except that you own an oversized shirt. Black, white or grey, because colour casts onto skin and skin is the point.
The looks are where the choices live, and the useful filter is simple. Every piece should either fit you properly or be pinned to fit at the back. Fit is the entire difference between clothing that photographs as fashion and clothing that photographs as clothes somebody happened to be wearing.
Coordinate the palette across all of it so the book hangs together, and bring more shoes than you think. Shoes are in every full length frame and they are what ruins the most otherwise finished looks.
For the ladies
- Digitals: a plain fitted top or vest and fitted jeans or leggings, in black, white or grey. Add one frame in a plain fitted dress if you have one, and one in swim or a fitted two piece only if you are comfortable and the market calls for it.
- Hair down and natural for digitals, plus one frame with it up so the shape of the face is fully visible.
- Commercial look: solid colour, easy fit, denim and a good knit. This is what most paid work looks like and it should feel almost too simple.
- Editorial look: texture and shape. Heavy fabric, a strong coat, an unusual silhouette. Texture beats pattern on camera in every case.
- Bring a belt and safety pins. Pinning at the back to sharpen a fit takes ten seconds and changes an entire frame.
- Two or three pairs of shoes minimum, including one you can walk a street or a field in, and one that is purely for the frames.
- Nude and seamless underwear for anything fitted. Visible lines are the most common fixable problem in a first book.
- Do your own makeup for digitals, minimal and clean. If you are booking an artist, book them for after the digitals rather than before.
- Nails sorted or bare, never half grown out. Your hands end up near your face in more frames than you expect.
For the gentlemen
- Digitals: a plain fitted tee and fitted jeans or plain trousers, in black, white or grey. Many agencies also ask for one shirtless frame, and that request is normal, expected and always your decision.
- Fit at the shoulder is the fit that matters. Everything reads from the shoulder line down, and no amount of styling rescues a jacket that is wrong there.
- Commercial look: a plain shirt or a good knit in a solid mid tone. Not white on a bright day and not black against a dark background.
- Editorial look: tailoring, outerwear, or something with real weight to it. A coat that holds its shape photographs better than anything soft.
- One layer you can remove. It doubles the looks and covers you when the temperature drops after sunset.
- Haircut five to seven days before, never the day before. A fresh cut photographs sharp and slightly severe for about four days.
- Tidy the beard line yourself or leave it entirely. Half done is the only version that shows on camera.
- Iron everything, then hang it in the car. Cameras find creases that mirrors politely ignore.
- Clean shoes and matching socks. You will be photographed full length repeatedly and it is always the shoes.
What to skip
- Visible logos and slogans. They make an image unusable for every brand that is not that one.
- Neon and hot fluorescent colours. They bounce coloured light straight onto the chin and neck.
- Thin stripes, small checks and tight repeating patterns. They shimmer on camera and print badly.
- Anything bought that week and never worn. New clothes look like a costume because they move wrong.
- Sunglasses in anything that could be mistaken for a digital, and hats in the honest set.
- Heavy fake tan, or a first spray tan inside a week. It photographs orange under studio light.
- Elastics on the wrist and jewellery you forgot you were wearing. Both show in every frame.
- Anything you would need to keep adjusting. If it needs constant fixing it will be wrong in half the frames.
How to actually pack the bag
Lay every look out on the floor the night before, complete, including shoes, underwear and anything going on your wrists. If a look is missing a piece, you will find out now rather than in a studio. Photograph the layout and send it to us. We will tell you which one should be first and whether anything is going to fight the setup.
Hang everything rather than folding it, bring a bag for what comes off, and bring the boring kit: safety pins, a lint roller, a brush, clear elastics, blotting papers, deodorant that does not mark, a mirror, water and something to eat. Studio changes take seconds, outdoor changes take ten minutes and a certain amount of dignity.
Bring a printed or screenshotted stat card too. Height, bust or chest, waist, hips, dress or suit size and shoe. Half of getting a book used is having the numbers ready when somebody asks.
Take whichever list is useful and ignore the rest, with one exception. The digitals uniform is not a style choice and it is the part worth following exactly, because it is the part being read by somebody deciding whether to meet you. Everything after that is taste, and some of the strongest portfolio frames we have made were somebody in their own clothes standing against a plain wall in ordinary window light.
Different light is the cheapest range a book can buy
Everybody tries to add range to a book with clothes, which is expensive and slow. Light does it faster and for nothing. The same person in the same plain top, photographed in soft window light and then under a single hard source, produces two frames that look like they came from different photographers on different jobs. That is exactly the range a booker is scrolling for.
So it is worth being able to name the light you are standing in, both so you can ask for it and so you can spot when a shoot is fighting it. Here is what each part of the day gives you, including the two most people think are bad and are not.
Morning
The first two hours after sunrise, and the reason to consider itMorning light is golden hour running in reverse, and it comes with something evening does not: empty locations. Downtown Guelph at eight on a Sunday belongs to you. A parking structure is quiet. Campus grounds are clear. If a setup on your list gets busy, morning is the shortcut almost nobody takes, and for a session involving clothing changes and equipment that matters more than it does for a single portrait.
Two differences worth knowing. Morning light is cooler and cleaner than evening light, which suits sharp commercial and tailoring frames and slightly undersells warm nostalgic ones. And skin is at its most settled early, before a day of heat, so beauty frames often come back better in the morning than at any other hour.
Busy streets and structures, beauty frames, tailoring, and anybody who genuinely functions early.
Clean, cool and quiet. Editorial rather than nostalgic.
Dew on grass, cold hands in frame, and a face that has only been awake for forty minutes.
Your setup is impossible at any other hour, or you want the street to yourself.
Midday
Eleven until three, bad for portraits and useful for thisFor most portrait sessions this is the worst light of the day. Overhead sun puts hard shadows into the eye sockets and under the nose, and it makes people squint, which changes the shape of a face in a way no editing fixes. If somebody books you at one in the afternoon for a soft flattering portrait, they have made a mistake.
Fashion is the exception, and it is worth understanding why. Direct midday sun is free hard light, and hard light is the register a great deal of editorial work is shot in. Used deliberately, with the sun placed rather than endured, it gives you graphic shadows, saturated colour and a genuinely contemporary look for nothing. The rule is that it must be chosen, not tolerated. When it is not the plan, we move into open shade, which is soft, even and completely usable at any hour.
Deliberate hard light editorial, graphic shadow work, saturated colour, and open shade portraits.
Bright, hard and modern when chosen. Harsh and accidental when it is not.
Squinting, shadows under the eyes, and dappled light through leaves, which is worse than full sun.
Open shade, a north facing wall, or committing to the hard light properly instead of half fighting it.
Overcast
The grey day everybody wants to rescheduleDo not reschedule. A solid grey sky is a softbox the size of the horizon and it is the most forgiving light that exists. No squinting, no hard shadows, even skin, and every direction works equally well, which means we can shoot anywhere on a location rather than chasing one good angle. It is also the single best natural light for digitals, because flat even light is precisely what that half of the book requires.
Two things to know. The window is much longer, so a grey day can be shot at two in the afternoon as well as at six, which is enormously useful when a session has four looks to get through. And the tone is quieter, so frames come back moodier and more editorial than golden hour ones. If you want warm and glowing, a grey day will not deliver it. If you want an honest photograph of a face, it is the best light on this list.
Digitals outdoors, beauty frames, editorial colour, and anybody worried about how they photograph.
Calm, even and slightly cinematic. Colours read deep rather than bright.
A flat white sky, so we keep it out of frame or use it deliberately.
The window is all day, so four looks fit comfortably instead of racing a sunset.
Golden hour
The last ninety minutes before sunsetThe sun drops low enough to come at you sideways instead of downward and everything improves at once. Skin warms, hair lights from behind, fabric glows at the edges, and shadows lengthen into something worth having in frame. For the outdoor half of a book this is the light people are picturing, and there is no substitute for it.
It moves fast, which is the only thing to plan around. In late June the good light runs from about half past seven until nine. By mid October it is finished by seven and in December it is over by half past four. That is why a four look session cannot live entirely inside golden hour: we shoot the digitals and the studio work first, then move outside so the look you care most about lands inside the window rather than after it.
Field frames, flowing fabric, movement, outerwear, and every image you plan to print.
Warm, nostalgic and slightly unreal. The look most people arrive picturing.
How quickly it goes, a treeline that cuts it short, and mosquitoes near water in summer.
Ending outdoors rather than starting there, with the best look saved for the last forty minutes.
Blue hour
The twenty five minutes after the sun has goneAlmost everybody packs up when the sun disappears and leaves the most distinctive light of the day on the table. For roughly twenty five minutes afterwards the sky is a deep even blue, streetlights and shop windows come on, and the balance between the two produces frames that look nothing like anybody else’s book. In a submission of near identical portfolios, that is worth a great deal.
It only works downtown or somewhere with light of its own, because in an open field blue hour is darkness with a nice colour. This is where the boldest look earns its place: neon, a lit doorway, a wet street, headlights. It is the natural end point of an evening session and it costs nothing except staying twenty minutes longer than planned.
Street and storefront frames, the editorial look, and the one image that surprises everybody.
Cinematic and grown up. The opposite in temperature to golden hour.
How short it is, and how cold it gets the moment the sun is down in October.
Ending the session here rather than starting it. Keep one look back for it.
Studio light
The only light that does not care what time it isEverything above is borrowed from the sky and comes with a clock attached. Studio light does not. It is the same at nine in the morning as it is at nine at night, in January as in July, which is the entire reason a portfolio session is built around it. Four looks in controlled light is a comfortable afternoon. Four looks chasing a sunset is a scramble that shortchanges three of them.
It also gives you something no natural light can: repeatability and precision. Flat even light for the digitals, then a single hard source for structure, then a soft key with a fill for commercial warmth, all in the same room within a few minutes of each other. That is three visibly different registers with no travel and no weather, and it is the fastest way to give a first book genuine range.
Digitals, full length frames on seamless, hard light editorial, beauty, and multiple looks in one block.
Deliberate. Nothing in the frame is accidental, which is the point of it.
Everything looking the same if the lighting never changes. Ask for two setups, not one.
Starting here regardless of the forecast, then going outside if the weather earns it.
Change the light before you change the clothes. It is faster, it is free, and a booker reads it as range either way.
Sunset in Southern Ontario moves by about four hours between June and December, so the same session starts at seven in July and at three in the afternoon in December. Tell us the month and we will tell you what time to arrive, which block happens indoors, and which setup will still have light on it by the time we get there.
On this session, who holds the camera decides whether the book works
Technical ability is table stakes. Almost anybody advertising portraits can expose a frame and put it in focus. What separates a book that gets somebody signed from one that gets ignored is whether the photographer understands what the images are for, which is a completely different skill from taking a nice photograph. A portfolio is a working document aimed at a specific reader, and plenty of beautiful photographers have never shot one.
So look at their work in full. Not eight hero frames on a feed, an entire portfolio delivery from start to finish. A highlights reel proves somebody can produce one good frame in an hour. A full set proves the digitals are clean and unretouched, the looks are visibly different from each other, the full lengths are undistorted, and the retouching is restrained. That is what you are actually paying for.
Then check the things that only matter on this session. Ask whether they shoot digitals to agency specification, ask what their retouching policy is, and ask about usage. Over editing does real damage here, because a photograph of a slightly different person gets you called in and then costs you the job when you walk through the door. Removing a temporary blemish is normal. Reshaping a jaw, narrowing a waist or smoothing skin into plastic is not, and it is worth saying out loud what you are and are not comfortable with before anybody starts.
Usage is the other conversation nobody has early enough. Understand who owns the images, what each side can do with them, and whether there are any restrictions before you sign a release. This is normal professional territory and any decent photographer will answer it plainly. If somebody is vague about it, that is information.
One more thing worth saying directly. If you are under eighteen, a parent or guardian attends and signs, always, and any professional will expect that rather than resent it. At any age, bringing somebody with you is completely normal on this kind of session and nobody reputable will have a problem with it.
At Sunday Media you are working with a small team of seasoned photographers, which is deliberate. Small means the person you speak to is the person who turns up, they have read your agency’s submission requirements before the day, and they have stood on enough Southern Ontario field edges and concrete decks to know where the light will be at seven o’clock in October before anybody gets in a car.
Four things and we are ready
The submission requirements from any agency you are aiming at, a photo of the looks laid out, your current stats, and three or four reference images of the register you want rather than the poses you want copied. That is everything we need to arrive already knowing the plan.
Anything we should be careful with
A side you prefer, a scar, a feature you would rather not emphasise, anxiety about being looked at, an injury that limits movement, or a level of undress you are not comfortable with. Say it early. It changes how we work, it is never negotiated on the day, and nobody else ever needs to know we were told.
The questions worth asking
- Can I see a full portfolio delivery from start to finish, not a highlights grid.
- Do you shoot digitals to agency specification, and do you deliver them unretouched.
- What is your retouching policy, and what will you not do to my face or body.
- How many looks and setups does the time I am booking actually allow.
- What does the release cover, who owns the images, and what can each of us use them for.
- When do sneak peeks arrive and when does the full gallery arrive.
The day before
Almost everything that makes a session feel rushed was decided the day before, and on this one there is more to decide than on most, because four looks and two exports have to come out of a single afternoon. Half an hour of preparation buys you a session where the only thing left to do is turn up and be photographed.
The day before
The day of
Eat a real meal, arrive early, and give yourself the first ten minutes to feel awkward without deciding it means anything. Here is the whole list.
Session day checklist
You did it. Now the good part.
It is done, the awkward first ten minutes turned out not to matter, and there is a bag of clothes in the back of the car in no particular order. Almost everybody says the same thing walking out: that was far less painful than expected, and far more physical. Go and eat something.
Then keep an eye on your email and whichever channel we have been messaging on. Your photographer will be in touch, and the first thing to arrive is always the fun one.
Sneak peeks
A small handful of finished frames sent straight to you. Enough to know how it went, enough to change a profile picture, and enough to stop the group chat asking. The rest is worth waiting for.
The digitals, delivered separately
Your digitals arrive as their own download, unretouched and correctly sized for submission. Colour corrected and straightened only, because retouching them defeats their entire purpose. They come separately so you can forward them without accidentally sending a booker a folder of finished editorial frames instead.
The full gallery
The complete finished set, delivered to your private gallery on our website, at full resolution and print ready. Exact timing varies with the package you booked and the season, and your photographer will tell you the date to expect.
How to edit down without wrecking it
- Fewer, stronger. A tight set beats a long scroll, and a book is judged on its weakest image rather than its best.
- One frame per idea. If two images are doing the same job, one of them is diluting the other.
- Lead with your strongest full length or your strongest close frame, never with the third best of anything.
- Check the set for range rather than for favourites. Different light, different distance, different register.
- Ask two people who will be honest, and ignore anybody who only ever says they love all of them.
- Keep the digitals separate and unaltered. They are a document, not part of the edit.
Where the book actually goes
- Agency submissions, exactly to the specification on their page, with the digitals attached as asked.
- A simple online portfolio with your stats and contact details on the first screen, so nobody has to hunt for them.
- Direct approaches to local brands, studios and photographers, which is where a great deal of steady work actually comes from.
- Casting platforms, where an up to date set of digitals matters more than a beautiful editorial frame.
- Credit everybody in the frame: photographer, stylist, hair and makeup. It is standard practice and people notice when it is missing.
- Refresh the digitals whenever you change, and refresh the book roughly once a year so it never reads as historical.
How to open your photos
Your gallery is private and it lives on our website. Everything you need is in the delivery message: a link, and an access code that looks something like this.
Please do not share your access code with anyone.
It is the only thing standing between your photographs and whoever it gets forwarded to, and on this session that matters more than most, because a portfolio set contains fitted and full length frames that were made for a specific professional purpose. Send agencies the files rather than the gallery code. If you want somebody to have proper access, tell us and we will arrange it. If you think the code has gone somewhere it should not have, message us and we will reset it the same day.
Fun tutorial: take our easy to use gallery for a spin before your own photos arrive. It is built in house, and the code above is a working demo key. Tap the access code to copy it, then use it on the Your Gallery page.
Go to our website
Open sundaymedia.ca on any device. Phone is fine for looking, a laptop is better for downloading and for resizing files to a submission specification.
Open the menu and choose My Gallery
It is in the main navigation at the top of every page.
Type in your access code
Exactly as it was sent, capitals included. That opens your session and nobody else’s.
Download, request edits, or order prints
Inside the gallery you can download the full resolution files, download the digitals set separately, ask for edits on specific frames, and request prints made from the set. If a download will not open or the digitals folder is missing, message us and we will sort it out.
Whatever you decide, shoot the digitals and stop guessing.
Use this page even if you never speak to us. And if you would like us there, send the submission requirements from the agencies you are aiming at and the looks you have in mind, and we will handle the setups, the light and the running order.
Every fee is discussed before payment. Travel, insurance and any studio, permit or admission costs are agreed in writing before the binding contract, so nothing on your invoice is ever a surprise.
Model PortfolioModel PortfolioNice one. Want this list to go?
You just checked your first box. We can hand you the whole list as a file, so it lives on your phone instead of in a browser tab you will lose by Thursday.