To all Southeast sportsshooters ... a WARNING!

cecilc

Hi all ....

I'm going to refer you to these two threads over at SportsShooter.com:

From Oct. 2009: http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=34453

And from Feb. 2010: http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=35407

These threads are pretty self-explanatory .... but all of you in the southeast that are regular sportsshooters need to be aware of it .....

Toshido

Funny as how last year when myself and a handful of other photographers had to wait months for any contact from a SS member employer for any contact, let alone payment, the reaction to complaining about the situation was completely opposite. Basically we were told by the majority (on SS and another PJ site) that we should be dealing with this in private. That going public about non payment would make it harder to be hired in future.
Now less than a year later the reaction is outrage at non-payment.

BTW, my personal outcome was to be underpaid. Ignored when I commented on not getting paid for a full day and to walk away with a lesson learned in documenting time worked.

Hope things pan out better for you.

johng

Toshido,

Welcome to the hypocrisy of the sportsshooter community. It's all about WHO makes a post or at least whether or not one of the "chosen ones" chimes in for or against you. In truth, almost any question/issue I've raised on sportsshooter I get more useful info behind the scenes - i.e. emails or phone calls rather than message posts. Because of that there are a few members I'll simply email or call rather than post publicly about a question/issue I'm having. Otherwise, all it takes is one of the elitists to slap you down and then others simply pile on.

Not coincidentally it's the same behavior over at Fred Miranda. It was very amusing to me how some of the elitists changed in their approach to my posts once the Sportsshooter member showed up on my posts. My opinions were the same but suddenly that (rather than the quality of my work) was the "key" to getting some respectful answers. Some great people in both places but unfortunately there are a few elitist snobs who make the forums less than desirable for a lot of people.

ian408

No offense but if this applies to sportsshooter members, why post here?

If you'd said "If you shoot sports in the SE and happen to work...", I probably wouldn't ask the question. But this seems directed only at SS members.

If I'm wrong, my apologies.

Toshido

Ian..

The linked threads are a warning to any sports photographer in that area. Warning people about an employer that is failing to pay.

cecilc

ian408 wrote:

No offense but if this applies to sportsshooter members, why post here?

Apparently, this statement from my post: "... but all of you in the southeast that are regular sportsshooters need to be aware of it ....." was interpreted as being directed only to the SportsShooter membership.

That is NOT the case ! If you're a shooter in the Southeast, you need to be aware of and cautious about dealing with Todd Drexler and Sideline Sports .... I know that Todd has non-payment issues with photographers that are not members at SS - and I know who they are. I started that thread at SportsShooter.com for a couple of reasons: 1) Todd Drexler is a member at SS, and 2) Most (but not all!) of the shooters that Todd has stiffed are members at SS.

And let me speak to Toshido's and John's posts, too .....

I agree that I've seen posts and threads in the SS forums regarding non-payment and/or late-payment issues .... and it's true that sometimes the author of the thread/post suffers more backlash than the employer/culprit. And for that reason it scared me to death to start that thread about Todd Drexler (even though I thought I was justified in doing so!). But the point of that thread was not about me not getting paid by Todd .... the point of the thread was to legitimately warn other shooters about Todd and to let them know Todd's recent history with photographers that he'd hired to shoot events for him.
If I had seen a warning like that when Todd approached ME to shoot for him I'd have been "forewarned" and could've asked some pertinent questions before making a decision. I wanted other shooters that Todd might approach for work to have that information so that they could make a decision with more facts at their disposal than I had .....
By that time I'd already given up ever getting paid by Todd ..... it wasn't about me not getting paid - it was about preventing other shooters winding up in the same boat as me and many others.

ian408

No worries. It just seemed targeted at a very small audience.

The problem of not being paid or worse, not fulfilling a contract sucks. Especially when the dude is making his money off of sales. Be one thing if pay was a percentage and there were few sales. Quite another if it's agreed upon before hand and not paid out--regardless of sales.

Good luck.