Digitals in Modeling: The 7 Shots Agencies Ask For, With Examples

Nearly every agency submission starts here, and almost nobody gets told how. The instruction usually arrives as one line — “send digitals” — and the applicant either sends selfies or spends money on a photographer, and both answers are wrong. This guide is the shot list, the framing, the phone setup, and the eight things that get a set deleted before anyone reads your height.

What are digitals in modeling?

Digitals are plain, current, unretouched photographs of you, taken on a phone, that show an agency your face and body with nothing added. They are also called polaroids, snaps, or agency snapshots — the polaroid name is a leftover from the era when scouts carried instant film to open calls and stapled the prints to a measurement card. The format changed. The purpose did not.

The purpose is verification. A booker looking at digitals is answering one question: what does this person actually look like before anyone helps them? Every choice in the format serves that question. Natural light because studio light sculpts a face. No makeup because makeup changes bone structure. A plain wall because a background competes. Fitted clothes because loose clothes hide the line an agency is measuring you against. Phone camera because a phone lens at a normal distance renders you more or less as a client will see you in a fitting room.

This is why digitals are deliberately, almost aggressively unflattering — and why trying to make them beautiful is the single most common way to fail. An agency that signs you from digitals is signing what it saw. An agency that signs you from a retouched image and then meets you has wasted a casting, and it remembers.

Digitals are also the cheapest thing in this industry: they cost nothing. Anyone selling a beginner a “digitals package,” a “test shoot” required before submission, or a paid photographer to produce them is selling something agencies do not want. The FTC’s guidance on modeling scams is blunt about upfront fees, and this is the exact point where they get charged.

What shots do you need for digitals?

Seven. Agencies vary at the margins, but this set covers every list we have seen, and anything an agency adds is usually a variation on one of these frames.

Shot	Crop	What it shows the agency
1. Full length, front	Head to feet, small gap above and below	Proportion, posture, shoulder-to-hip line, real height
2. Full length, back	Head to feet, from behind	Back line, shoulder width, natural stance when not performing
3. Profile, left	Head and shoulders, 90° turn	Jaw, nose, chin projection, neck length
4. Profile, right	Head and shoulders, 90° turn	Facial asymmetry — every face has some, and clients need to know
5. Three-quarter	Head to feet, body 45° to camera	How the body reads turned, waist depth, how clothes will sit
6. Waist up, front	Crown to waistband, arms visible	Shoulders, arms, torso proportion, the comp-card crop
7. Smile, close up	Head and shoulders, relaxed smile	Teeth, smile shape, commercial and catalog bookability

Frames 1 through 6 are neutral: relaxed mouth, eyes straight to the lens, arms hanging naturally at your sides with a small gap so your body outline stays readable. No posing. Frame 7 is the only one with an expression in it.

The hairline running across each frame marks camera height — where the phone lens sits. On the full-length frames it is at your chest, not your face and not the floor. A phone held at eye level shortens your legs; a phone on the ground stretches them and makes your head small. Chest height is the setting that lies least, which is the whole point.

Two crop notes people get wrong. On the full-length frames, leave a small margin above your head and below your feet — a cropped foot makes the frame unusable, and agencies will not ask you to reshoot. On the profiles, turn your whole body, not just your head; a head-only turn tightens the neck and changes the jaw line you are trying to show.

Once you have the set, it is submission-ready as it is: your digitals are exactly what our Get discovered application asks for, and they are also frames one through four of a beginner portfolio.

How do you shoot digitals on a phone?

About twenty minutes, start to finish, with a window and a bare wall.

Stand at 45 degrees to a window

Daylight only. Shoot in the hour or two after sunrise or before sunset, or any time on an overcast day — flat cloud is the best free softbox there is. Turn every lamp in the room off so you are not mixing warm bulb light with cool daylight. Stand two steps back from the window, angled roughly forty-five degrees to it, so light wraps across your face instead of hitting it flat or slicing it in half. Never shoot with the window behind you.

Put a bare wall behind you

Plain white, grey, or beige, with nothing on it. Stand at least three feet off the wall so your shadow falls behind you and out of the frame. A door edge, a light switch, or an unmade bed in the corner all read as carelessness, and carelessness is a signal about how you will show up to a casting.

Put the phone at chest height on a timer

Prop the phone on a stack of books, a shelf, or a small tripod, held vertically, four to six feet away, with the lens at your chest. Use the ten-second timer or ask someone to press the button. Turn the flash off. Turn beauty mode, skin smoothing, and every filter off — check your camera app settings, because some phones apply smoothing by default and will quietly ruin the set. Use the main lens, not the ultra-wide, which bends edges.

Wear fitted, plain basics

Women: a fitted tank or crop top with skinny jeans, plus a simple one-piece or bikini set if the agency asks for a swim frame. Men: a fitted plain tee with jeans. Solid colors, no logos, no prints, no jackets. Barefoot or plain flats. If you are between sizes, wear the tighter option — the clothes are there to show your line, not to flatter it.

Hair back, makeup off

Clean skin, no foundation, no lashes, no contour. Hair down and flat or pulled back off your face, dry and unstyled. Bare or clear nails. Take off jewelry, watches, and hair ties on your wrist. If you are thinking “but I look tired” — that is the version of you a client will meet at 7 a.m. on a shoot day, and agencies would rather know.

Take three frames of each, keep the sharpest

Work the list in order so you do not lose track. Three frames per shot gives you a choice without giving you a project. Then pick one of each on a real screen, not a phone thumbnail, checking that the eyes are sharp and nothing is blown out or crushed. Export full-resolution originals. Do not crop, straighten, brighten, or “just fix the exposure a little.”

What do agencies reject digitals for?

These are auto-rejects. Not “a booker weighs it against your potential” — the set gets closed and the tab moves on, because each one destroys the specific information the format exists to carry.

Mistake	Why it is an instant no
Filters or retouching	It removes the only thing digitals were meant to prove, and raises the question of what is being hidden
Full makeup	Contour and lashes change the bone structure a booker is trying to read
Harsh shadows or direct sun	Midday sun and phone flash carve black hollows and blow out skin; nothing is readable
A busy background	Bedrooms, kitchens, posters, and mirrors compete with you and read as thoughtless
Baggy or layered clothing	Hoodies and coats hide the body line, which is most of what the full-length frames are for
Sunglasses, hats, or heavy jewelry	Anything covering the face or hairline makes the frame worthless
Group shots or cropped friends	If the booker has to work out which person you are, you have already lost
Old photos	A picture from last year is not evidence about you now, and everyone can tell

A ninth, less obvious one: screenshots and messaging-app copies. Sending images through a chat app that recompresses them, or screenshotting your own photo to crop it, drops resolution to a fraction of the original. Attach the files or use a shared link.

How often should you refresh digitals?

Every two to three months, and immediately after any change to how you look. That means a haircut, a color change, a noticeable weight change, new braces or braces coming off, a tan, or a visible tattoo or piercing. If you are signed, your agency will ask on its own schedule and will usually want fresh digitals before a big market trip or a season of castings.

The reason is unglamorous: agencies submit your digitals to clients, and a client who books a look that no longer exists blames the agency. A four-month-old set from before a bob haircut is not a small inaccuracy — it is a wasted casting slot, and it is the kind of thing that quietly ends a working relationship.

The upside is that refreshing costs nothing and takes twenty minutes. Keep the same wall, the same window, and the same seven-shot order, and the sets stack up as a genuinely useful record of how you photograph over time.

Digitals vs portfolio vs comp card

Three different objects doing three different jobs, and beginners routinely try to make one do all three.

	Digitals	Portfolio	Comp card
What it is	7 plain phone frames, unretouched	6–12 finished images showing range	One printed card, 5.5 x 8.5 in, 4–5 images
Who makes it	You, at home, in 20 minutes	You plus photographers, over months	Your agency, or you, from portfolio frames
What it costs	$0	$0 with TFP, up to $800 per shoot	$30–$100 for 50–100 cards
When you need it	Before you apply anywhere	When you start pitching or get signed	After you sign, or for in-person castings
What it answers	What do you look like right now?	Can you be photographed?	Can a client hand you to their team?

Order matters. Digitals come first and never stop being required — signed models refresh them for their whole career. The portfolio comes second, built from free TFP shoots and agency tests once someone is directing you. The comp card comes last, cut out of a portfolio that already exists, and buying one before you are signed is buying a leave-behind for castings you are not attending yet.

If you only do one thing today, do the seven shots. They are free, they take one window and one wall, and they are the only asset that every agency on earth will ask for.