January marks, among other things, the beginning of a new seasonal cycle in international modeling with Ford’s annual Supermodel of the World finals. Giselle from the Philippines is one of the candidates to this year’s competition to be held in Montenegro. She is one of the several girls chosen or handpicked from all over the world these past several months to vie not just for the “supermodel” title but also for a worldwide modeling contract with Ford’s international modeling agency.

One of the essential components to this competition is the model’s photographic portfolio. And many photographers play a big role in producing it from which, in part, the models will be judged. Through the years, I noticed that the process of photographing a model for a portfolio has become so much more involved than it used to be. The necessary images are now so specific and so particular, and it needs to meet certain criteria.

In conceptualizing the shoot and in creating the look, for instance, a model’s photographic portfolio is now more than ever thoroughly focused on the physical assets of the models than on photographic styling and other factors. In image after image, portfolio photographs must clearly show the model’s physique in terms of commercial viability as well as versatility in being able to project a variety of looks that fashion houses and brands are looking for today. In these portfolio images, the model must be able to showcase her physical assets in a way that will turn the fantasies of fashion into reality.

In order to meet the exacting needs of models for a professionally done portfolio, many photographers such as myself depend on an arsenal of cutting-edge digital tools in producing the final images for the book.

In creating the images for Giselle’s portfolio that I contributed, for instance, I had to use many of Aperture’s tools and features to effectively manage, select, and perfect the shots, in much the same way that I would use these tools and features when doing commercial photography work.

The workflow process in Aperture with the new 15-inch MacBook Pro is so fast and streamlined that I was able to completely focus on producing the kind of location-based images needed for her book even under a very tight deadline.

Since the photographs were needed right away, Aperture allowed me to quickly create several versions from out of 17 selects that I then posted in a private gallery. From there, the model’s agent can take a look, compare and assess, and then download the ones that will work best, along with the images created by other photographers, when putting together the final set of portfolio images.

All post-production work that I’ve done on the portfolio was conducted on a separate location, and coordination was done online. By the time Giselle and her party left for Montenegro, she was already clutching a couple of the printed portfolios, ready to be shown to the judges during the week-long Ford Supermodel of the World competition.