My son won a baby contest and part of what he won was a "test" photo shoot with George Papadakis, a high profile photographer. After the "test" shoot they said he was marketable and if I would like them to take more photos to send to agencies it was an additional $195 sitting fee. I paid that then had to purchase 210 pictures at $1.50 each to send to agencies. The total came to be over $500 by the time we were finished.
Does anyone have experience with this or with George Papadakis?
2007-10-27 10:40:21 · 8 answers · asked by Cale F 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Visual Arts ➔ Photography
Sounds like the original contest might have been a part of the scam just to get names to see if they could talk more of you into PAYING.
2007-10-27 10:49:14 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sorry most likely it is a scam. If the entire price was discussed up front then perhaps not
The giveaway is that they charged you that much for all those pictures. The sitting fee was reasonable, and if you did want to pursue modeling for your child, then it would be necessary to put a book together. The sitting price is actually very cheap as many would charge around 500 dollars. But in this case it appears you were strung along to get the max amount of profit out of you with ALL the prints you had to buy.
If they sold you just a few then there would not be any issue.
The biggest thing for models that are starting out to avoid modeling agencies that charge you money to get you career going. If you are that good they will foot the bill otherwise it is just a scam.
2007-10-28 07:25:46 · answer #2 · answered by Michael L 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First of all, most high profile photographers would never charge such a low fee as this guy has. $195.00 is a low price for a photo session and $1.50 per photo at any amount is extremely cheap unless he's selling you composites which are not photographs and they can be had very cheaply from ABC Pictures http://www.abcpictures.com. I wouldn't say its a scam, because you get what you pay for. Send the images out and see what happens. It's not the photograher who decides who makes it, its the agencies.
2007-10-28 03:08:27 · answer #3 · answered by giljackson CPP 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Maybe not a scam, since the "sitting fee" isn't that bad and the price for the enlargements isn't excessive. But what do you do now? Do you have 210 photographs that you have to send to agencies, or did they send them for you? Did they just give you a list of agencies and expect you to send them out? It is probably aggressive and possibly deceptive marketing--but all they have to have is actually fulfill the terms of their contract to be legal.
2007-10-27 10:58:31 · answer #4 · answered by John T 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, it does sound like a scam. Who organised the contest? George Papadakis?
2007-10-27 10:46:01 · answer #5 · answered by rdenig_male 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hmmm !
Every mother thinks her baby is wonderful so I guess this is a very easy way to make money. Lets hope the agencies come back with work for Baby to cover the costs, but somehow that might be a long shot.
Perhaps this needs reporting.
2007-10-27 12:04:41 · answer #6 · answered by Angel 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If this was real, like all real things (publishing), the company will pay you for your services. Not the other way around.
2007-10-27 11:01:16 · answer #7 · answered by electrosmack1 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
been scammed before and be reluctant to do that one!
2007-10-27 10:45:49 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋