What To Do...??

[bullsparade]

Ok I was contacted to do a shoot for an acquaintance. The lady had been accepted to "Suicide Girls" modeling agency. She needed a set of images that consisted of at least 50-80 images. Those of you familiar with "Suicide Girls" know it operates just above the board of "porn". The pictures are very "Playboy-esque"/"Penthouse". We definately kept her images in the Playboy range and that is only a few, the rest are in the vain of Maxim or any other pretty girl magazine.

She needed me to shoot her images as she was unable to travel 400 miles to the photog the agency recomended. I agreed to do them and was given abrely 2 days to prepare. The shoot went very well and I had post processed maybe 40 of the 200+ images we took. Shortly after the shoot, she became unhappy with the amount of rejections "Suicide Girls" hand out to people's image sets. I beleive she grew nervous they might reject hers. None the less, she decided not to submit to them. No big deal.... it just took the pressure off me to rush post processing on the 20 or so more we WERE going to submit.

NOW...here comes the delima...2 months after we have shot the pictures, she wants all of them. This would be more than 200 images. She said to give her unprocessed images...just "burn them on a disc". Nor do I want to take the hours of post processing the other 150 or images...for FREE!

All her images wont fit on a disc! I certainly DONT want all the images on the disc going out there, unprocessed!

We did not sign a contract with one another and I havent been paid a dime. What is my obligation to her? I have the great shots that are nothing more than portfolio material to me now and she is griping about wanting all "her" images...'ahem', I think they are my images, I took them and am in possession of them. Anyway, what do I do? How do I resolve this in a way that is good for us both? What am I obligated to when it comes to a no-contract, no-pay shoot? What can I do with the pictures as far as my portfolio?

HELP!!!

[HotHolly]

What was your original agreement? Was there one?

They are your images, however, you can't use them either without a model release (which is usually embedded in a contract).

It sounds like she doesn't realize what you do. Its very common for people to think you shot in jpg - like she could have done, so its no big to ask for everything. Tell her you shot RAW and she wont even be able to open the file without processing. (Assuming you did)

If you guys dont work it out, youre at a stalemate. Nobody gets what they want. Since you are the photog, explain that it doesnt work that way. If she wants to buy the negatives, they cost $XYZ...if she wants prints, they cost $XYZ.

It also may be she's panicking as to what you might do with the images - if she didnt follow through with the modeling place and the photos are racy. Talking to her to find out her concerns should help a lot. She might just want to make sure no one will ever see them.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

One way to solve the problem and to give her copies of every photo is to make very small jpgs of each photo (40x80 or so) and send her a disk with them on it.

Otherwise tell her if she wants full sized files they will be $XX dollars each, there is not much she can do to you as long as you don't publish them since you didn't get a signed contract/model release at the front end.

[bullsparade]

yes, there was no model release or contract at the front end or now for that matter. It was a "please help me!" kind of thing and we rushed to get her self imposed deadline.

Once she decided not to use them, I basically set the work aside and moved on.

I dont want to sell her images, at this point they do nothing for me except maybe a few for my portfolio (non-racey).

I will follow the advice given and explain that her request now does require work on my part and I should be compensated. Hoepfully it will work out where everyone is happy.

[ndsimm]

Holly gave you good advice, keep us posted and don't give her anything until this is settled....