Modeling terminology mostly describes three things: where a booking stands (casting, go-see, option, confirmation, book out), what a client may do with the pictures (usage, buyout, exclusivity), and how your relationship with an agency works (mother agency, exclusive representation, deal memo, advance, statement). The glossary below defines each term in plain English, notes where the definition comes from, and gives the question worth asking the moment an agent or client uses it.
How the vocabulary follows a single booking
Most of these words make more sense in sequence. An agency suggests you for a job, or a client asks to see you at a casting or go-see. If the client is interested, it places an option on your dates. If it goes ahead, the booking is confirmed, you receive the details and a call time, and you work the job, sometimes after a fitting. The client then pays for the shoot and for the usage it bought, the agency collects that money, takes its commission and any agreed costs, and pays you with a statement.
Some of these steps now carry legal weight. New York's Department of Labor, on its Fashion Workers Act definitions page, counts time at castings, fittings, photoshoots and showrooms as modeling services, along with the use of a digital replica, and it defines deal memo and exclusive representation in law. The British Fashion Model Agents Association (BFMA), the UK trade body for model agencies, keeps a broader model glossary that most of the industry definitions below draw on, alongside the published client terms of two agencies. How the money moves once a job is done is covered in how modeling agencies work.
Booking-status terms: from casting to confirmation
These words tell you where a job stands. The gap between an option and a confirmation matters most, because only one of them is a commitment from the client.
| Term | What it means | What to ask when you hear it |
|---|---|---|
| Casting | An appointment where the client looks at you, your book and sometimes your walk or how clothes sit on you before choosing models. | Is this casting for a specific job, and who is the end client? |
| Go-see | A meeting to show a potential client your book and yourself in person, often with no particular job attached yet. | Who am I meeting, and is it at their studio or office during working hours? |
| Call-back or recall | A second casting that narrows the shortlist before a decision. | Has anything about the rate or usage changed since the first casting? |
| Option, hold or provisional booking | A client's provisional claim on your dates. It is not a job until the client confirms it. | Which dates are held, for which client, and when does the hold lapse? |
| First and second option | Shorthand for queue position on a date: the first option has priority, and a later option moves up if the first is released. | If a second client wants the date, will you ask the first to confirm or release it? |
| Confirmation | The client has committed, and the agency sends the confirmed details of the job. | Can I see the confirmed rate, hours, usage and cancellation terms in writing? |
| Book out | Telling your agency you are unavailable for a period so clients cannot be offered those dates. | How much notice do you want when I book out time? |
| Call time | The time you must be on location and ready to work. | Does the call time include hair and makeup, and is travel time paid? |
| Fitting | A session before a shoot or show where clothes are fitted and altered. The BFMA glossary notes it is often included in the day rate. | Is this fitting paid separately, and does it count toward my booked hours? |
| Cancellation | A confirmed job called off by the client. Published agency client terms, such as Storm's and Priscillas', set what the client still owes depending on how late it cancels. | If this job is cancelled late, what am I paid and when? |
Two sets of published agency terms show how options work in practice. Storm Management's client terms and conditions say provisional bookings are automatically cancelled if the client does not confirm them within 24 hours of the proposed booking, and they treat a booking confirmation as including emails and instant messages. Priscillas Model Management's terms and conditions say that if an option has not been confirmed and a definite booking arrives, the agency may take the definite booking. Other agencies set different rules, so ask yours how long its options last and how a clash between two clients is settled.
Picture and rights terms: usage, buyouts and exclusivity
These terms decide what a client can do with the pictures, and so a large part of what a job is worth. The BFMA glossary describes usage as payment for each medium a photograph appears in, varying with time and region, and a buyout as payment for using the images that is often negotiated on top of the day rate.
| Term | What it means | What to ask when you hear it |
|---|---|---|
| Usage | The media, territory and period a client has paid to use the images in. More media, more places or more time usually means a bigger fee. | Which media, which countries and for how long? |
| Buyout | A payment for an agreed package of uses, sometimes folded into the rate. An extra buyout can follow when a client extends use after the job. | What exactly does this buyout cover, and how would an extension be priced? |
| Worldwide buyout | The widest grant, covering every medium and market for the agreed term. | What is the end date, and what happens to the images after it? |
| Exclusivity | A client's right to stop you working for competing brands in a category, for a period, in named countries. BFMA notes that wider exclusivity commands a higher fee. | Which brands or categories am I blocked from, where, and until when? |
| Syndication | A publisher's or photographer's right to reuse pictures across other titles or countries. | Has syndication been negotiated and paid for, or excluded? |
| Model release | A document giving permission to use photographs from a sitting. BFMA advises talking to your agent before you sign any form on a shoot. | Has the agency approved this release, and does it match the booked usage? |
| Behind the scenes | Video or stills captured during the job for the client's own channels. | Is behind-the-scenes footage part of the booked usage or an added fee? |
| Unrec | Short for unrecognizable: you will not be identifiable in the final images, as in some e-commerce work. | Will my face appear in any version, including outtakes and cut-downs? |
| Digital replica | New York defines it as a computer-generated or AI-enhanced representation of a model's likeness, not including routine retouching or color correction. | Where is the separate written consent covering scope, purpose, pay and duration? |
| Test shoot or TFP | A shoot where model and photographer work for each other's portfolios instead of a fee; TFP is commonly expanded as time for prints. BFMA notes the photographer's rights to use the work are limited and should be agreed with your agent. | Who may use these images, where, and does my agency know this photographer? |
AI rules are moving into booking paperwork. New York's Fashion Workers Act requires a model's clear written consent, separate from any representation agreement, before a digital replica is created or used, and that consent must set out the scope, purpose, rate of pay and length of use. Storm's client terms bar using a model's likeness for AI training or avatars without express written consent, and Priscillas' terms say its models' images may not be used to train AI models and that any AI processing of them needs explicit prior written consent. If a client mentions a body scan, an avatar or an AI version of you, read our AI digital twin licensing checklist before you agree to anything.
Agency relationship terms: mother agency to statement
These words describe who represents you and how money and authority pass between you. They are the terms most worth pinning down in writing.
| Term | What it means | What to ask when you hear it |
|---|---|---|
| Mother agency | Usually the agency that scouted you, often in your home country, which decides which overseas agencies to place you with. | Which agencies will you place me with, and who looks after me day to day abroad? |
| Placement agency | The agency in another market that books you while you work there. | Will I sign with the placement agency directly, and for how long? |
| On stay | A spell working in another city through a placement agency that your mother agency arranged. | Who pays travel and accommodation on this stay, and how is it recovered? |
| Mother agency commission | A commission share paid between your mother agency and the local agency. The BFMA glossary says it does not cost the model any extra commission. | Can my statement show how commission was split between the agencies? |
| Booker | The agent who manages your bookings, your chart and much of your day-to-day career. | Who is my booker, and who covers for them when they are away? |
| Model chart | The booker's calendar of your confirmed and possible work. | Can I see my chart, including options that have not confirmed? |
| New face | A model at the start of a career who is still building a book. | What development happens before you put me forward for paid jobs? |
| Exclusive representation | New York defines it as an agreement that stops a model being represented by anyone else for similar work, for a set period or area. | Exclusive for which kinds of work, in which territory, and until what date? |
| Deal memo | A plain-language summary of a booked job: scope, rate, payment term, usages and expenses. New York requires one, showing total pay, before work starts. | Will I receive a deal memo for every job before I start work? |
| Advance | Money or costs the agency pays up front and recovers from your later earnings. | Is each advance itemized and approved by me in writing first, and is interest added? |
| Statement | The record of what was received for your work, from whom, and what was deducted before you were paid. | Does each statement show when the client paid and every deduction taken? |
| Power of attorney | Authority for the agency to sign agreements in your name. In New York it must be optional, revocable at any time and cannot cover a digital replica. | What exactly can you sign for me, and how do I withdraw that authority? |
Each of these terms gets a fuller treatment elsewhere in this series: exclusivity, power of attorney and advances in the modeling agency contract clause checklist, commission and upfront charges in what modeling agencies can legally charge, and what happens to options, bookings and statements at the end of a contract in how to leave a modeling agency.
Portfolio terms: digitals, book, comp card and tear sheets
These are the materials agencies and clients judge you on. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in its occupational profile of models, describes a portfolio as a collection of a model's previous work and a composite card as the best photographs from it together with body measurements, both typically taken to castings.
| Term | What it means | What to ask when you hear it |
|---|---|---|
| Digitals or polas | Plain, current snapshots without heavy styling that show how you look right now. BFMA notes agencies often take them in-house before a shoot. | Which angles and clothing do you want, and how often should they be refreshed? |
| Book or portfolio | Your edited selection of professional images, now usually held digitally. | Who chooses the images, and who pays for prints or hosting? |
| Comp card, sedcard or zed card | A card or file with at least two photos, your name, agency details and measurements, left with clients like a business card. BFMA says agencies issue them after signing you. | Is the comp card a cost you will recover from my earnings? |
| Tear sheet | A page from a published magazine or campaign, kept in your book as proof of published work. | Can I have digital copies of published tear sheets for my own records? |
| Editorial | Photographs that illustrate a magazine story or fashion idea, in print or online. | What is the rate, and is use limited to that publication? |
| E-commerce | Product images used to sell goods directly from a web page. | Which retail sites, for how long, and will I be recognizable? |
Submission photos are not the same thing as a book. When you first apply, agencies ask for simple, recent snapshots rather than a paid professional shoot; what to send and where is covered in how to get signed by a modeling agency. Anyone who insists you must buy a portfolio package before an agency will look at you is following a familiar script, and the warning signs are collected in modeling agency scam red flags.
Official words that change from country to country
Regulators use their own vocabulary, which matters when you search for your rights. Great Britain's employment agency regulations speak of work-seekers and hirers rather than models and clients, and they list photographic or fashion model among the occupations where agencies may charge fees only in limited ways. New South Wales calls agents and managers performer representatives and counts models as performers, while Queensland calls them private employment agents and gives models and performers their own information statement, as Creative Workplaces' guide to NSW and Queensland performers and agents explains.
New York uses model management company, and its Department of Labor's Fashion Workers Act FAQ says a social media agency that connects a brand with a model or influencer to promote a product is treated as one. Knowing the local label helps twice over: you find the right regulator's page faster, and you notice when a contract borrows a definition from the law.
Limits of this glossary
Agencies, markets and unions use some of these words differently, and contracts often define terms their own way, so the definition inside your agreement beats any glossary. These entries draw on a UK trade association's glossary, New York's statutory definitions, a US government occupational profile and two agencies' published client terms, all checked on October 2, 2026. Those are real limitations: none of the sources covers every market, and published terms change.
This is general information, not legal advice. When a term affects your money or your rights, such as exclusivity, usage, advances or power of attorney, ask the agency to explain it in writing and have a lawyer who knows entertainment contracts review the agreement before you sign.