model changes mind

picturetaker607

A couple years ago an actress/model had me take photos of her and brother and sister to expand my portfolio and help with their modelling careers. Now she has moved on and wants to be a singer and asked me to hide/remove her photos on my website as they don't relate to her new career. I had this happen once before when a model decided to become a poet. Anyway, has anyone else had this happen and how did they handle the situation Thanks in advance

kdog

Hi there. I've worked with a lot of models, but only ran into this situation once, and I took them down. You didn't include much detail in your information about what agreements written or verbal were made. Also, it's not clear whether you've made the person's names visible on your website. If their name isn't visible, then I can't imagine what their issue is as long as they're not offensive in some way. So here's some generic comments and how I'd probably handle it.

There are really two issues at play here: legal and moral. I'm not a lawyer, so use this next bit of advice at your discretion. It's my understanding that you have the legal right to use them in your portfolio with or without a modeling release and in the absence of any other agreement that limited your usage. In the case of the photos that I took down, they were not important to me. On the other hand, if I had put a lot of effort into the photos, and they were important to my portfolio, then I would probably be reluctant to take them down. So morally, you should do what feels right to you. And keep in mind that if you're using them against that person's will, they could sully your reputation. I always err on the side of not making enemies.

Here's one potential solution that could be a win-win. You could explain to these folks that you had a deal to trade your photography in turn for the usage of their photos in your portfolio. If they now want to change the terms of that deal so you're no longer free to use the images, then they should pay you for the photography session and the pictures that were delivered to them. I would set a fair price using your regular rate for portraiture, or in absence of that, a reasonable hourly rate for the time you spent on them. Let's say for example you chose $100/person. That's a reasonable enough price that if it was really that important to them then they'd simply pay the amount. At that point you could use that money to hire a model and take more pictures for your portfolio for example. If they don't want to pay that amount then it's clear they don't really care that much about the pictures being shown and I'd be much more inclined to go ahead and keep using them. I'd do all this through email so that you have a paper trail just in case anyone ever asks. They could still try to sully your reputation. But I think they'd be much less inclined to do so if you laid out the alternatives in a friendly non-confrontational way.

bham

I haven't had this happen directly to me, even though I have shot a number of models over the years, and always get full releases. But everything kdog said I agree with.

If the photos aren't tagged with her name, I am not sure how the images could negatively affect her singing career, or the poet's career. That just seems odd to me.

I agree with kdog on them paying for the session to take them down, and maybe throw in shooting a session with images they can put to use now. Then you keep a client and they get new images and old images down. Just an idea.

I guess depending on your mood or what you think, is the customer always right, or do you stand a reasonable line, and like kdog said, are the images important to your portfolio.