It seems to me there are two primary criteria for "too old to model":

1.  Clients don't want to hire you for what you want to do.  That age will vary a lot, depending on the person and what they want to do.

2.  You look at the pictures and decide, "It's over.  I don't want to take pictures looking like that."  Again, the age at which that may happen varies widely.

Mo? When you're 93 and have a hard time getting out of your rocker would be about the time to call it a day! Til then, you keep shooting. The nice thing about the artistic genre as opposed to glam is that there really isn't a set age factor.

However, please realize that my cut off with you will be 89, and I'm sticking to it!

I don't see an age limit for modeling and I personally don't care what the model's age is, as long as she has the qualities I'm looking for.

The industry (clients/photographers) will tell you when it's time to hang it up, when they stop calling.

thanks for the reminder to do it cuz I love it and until i'm ready to be done.

JEBKA wrote:

When you are dead, it's probably a good time to quit

I take it you haven't seen much of Joel-Peter Witkin's work?   

I actually prefer models over 25.  Less drama, better reliability, and they've lived enough to be more interesting people.

I think you can actually go longer in the more alternative genres... fashion agencies like to get them really young, because it's more years of bookings and they don't really want to carry a lot of people who won't work all the time. 

But a friend of a friend worked well into her 40s doing those headless lingerie shots you see in the newspapers and magazines all the time, and she worked a lot.  It's similar with nudes or fetish or some other things, you can work as long as you want to and can stay in shape and look good.  For art, there are even fewer limits; I've done art nudes twice with women in their late 50s, with excellent results.

In a more general sense, age is as much in the head as it is in the body.  I've watched many a 30-year old decide they're "old" and then they fell apart physically within a year or two after that... the body followed the mind.  Yet I ran my first of 5 marathons at 39, and can still outrun most 20-somethings.

As an extreme example, once I worked with a man in his early 80s who was hard to keep up with, both physically and in conversation; he was in better physical and mental shape than most 30 year olds, and as a result he was essentially ageless.  While with him, he was just a fascinating human being, no one thought much about his age until later.

Kevlar Vest Girl wrote:

I would love to shoot erotica and figure studies with an 80 year old woman. God... can you imagine the pictures I would get.

To each their own.

You two guys call yourselves photographers?

Cool... he provoked a reaction from a few of you, and he didn't even need to take the photo.   

gpmcguire wrote:

As Bob was just testing the bounds of realistic content -- are you disregarding 80 year-olds just for erotic work (even though there probably is a market for it) or for figure work or just photographic work in general?

Is AARP going to put a sprite 20 year-old in their ads? Are those same sprite 20 year-olds going to be the faces of the Flomax, Viagra or adult diapers ads? Did Bob use twenty somethings for his bankers?

There is a serious market for older models out there, maybe not for the nude bondage stuff, but its there.

-very well said Glenn, I was trying to formulate something along these lines, but you put it much better.

gpmcguire wrote:

As Bob was just testing the bounds of realistic content -- are you disregarding 80 year-olds just for erotic work (even though there probably is a market for it) or for figure work or just photographic work in general?

Is AARP going to put a sprite 20 year-old in their ads? Are those same sprite 20 year-olds going to be the faces of the Flomax, Viagra or adult diapers ads? Did Bob use twenty somethings for his bankers?

There is a serious market for older models out there, maybe not for the nude bondage stuff, but its there.

I wasn't saying there isn't a market for older models.  I was saying that I wouldn't shoot erotica with an 80 year old...I don't shoot erotica at all and I don't feel any need to at this moment.

Jeez.  Way to get taken out of context.

I wasn't testing anything, I didn't intend to provoke anyone, and I was light years away form any thoughts of commercialism. I have had a lifelong love affair with texture. I can stare at peeling paint lit by the fading sun for as long as there is light on it. The portrait of the old woman with silver rings falls right into my wheelhouse.

If I had two elderly subjects that loved one another, and I could light them and photograph them sharing intimate moments, I would jump at the chance. For the life of me, I can't see how that notion is provoking or testing anyone.