I never liked the idea of paying talent agencies- though the practice existed locally for so long.
I remembered there was once a 'reporter' who once called my uncle's enterprise wanting to 'interview' him and write up about his company for a 'business' magazine. In the end, we found out only on the day that a 'fee' is required- USD 8,000. Mind you that my uncle's company is just a small private limited and this magazine is some 'ulu' (not heard of) magazine that I myself am left in a daze upon hearing it. :what:
Then again there used to be a time tons brokers and MLM people abused the job classifieds pretending to job offers with enticing offers of 'work at home', 'make $10,000 within a month' thingy in the classifieds. When you go for the interview, they'll pretend to interview you then ask if you got minimum $3,000 to start up the job (or invest). These people are plain miserable and wicked in the sense that you are already out of job and they are trying hard to con you of your last dollar. :angry:
Thank God these people are banned at least from the Straits Times.
So the pinicle of this is that people will pay you if they think you are good and has the potential for them to invest in. Never pay a single dime to people who claim you're good or have the potential and yet still ask you for money.
As for the photoshoot and portfolio thing, we can always do in reputable photo studio who really specialise in this field. I seldom believe a all in one specialisation as in talent agency cum model agency cum photo studio cum video procduction cum animation specialist thingy unless the profile of company is so big that it can host so many specialisations.
Just to add, there's no lack of talents in our neighboring countries. Their monetry expectations are lower than locals. So if some locals claims that you got talents in modeling, you must be cream de la cream de la cream....