A photographer reached out to me through social media asking me to shoot with him sometime. Although I’d love to have a shoot for myself, does this seem sketchy? He’s taken photos for friends i know and they said he seemed cool and laid back. They also mentioned that he took a while to send them their pictures and wouldn’t respond before sending them. Anyway, just wanted to hear some thoughts on this.
All the descriptions sounded pretty common especially if the photographer is starting out, building their portfolio. Everyone have to start somewhere and most starting cannot afford to pay models. (including taking a while to send photo back.)
There are things you can do to safe guard yourself: check their portfolio, use image-search on their photos to check if it is really theirs, Google their name, ask for the IG etc of other people they have photographed then contact those people to ask about their experience.
And try to insist on bringing a friend to observe the shoot. If the photographer refused, don’t go.