Model Demands Photographer Work For Free And When They Agree, Demands Payment

Creative people often complain about how others treat their work as a fun hobby, instead of a business that has cost them a significant amount of time and money to build. Skills are developed through deep investment and what might appear “easy” is the result of something not easy: dedication. In short, people should be paid for art.

Photography is also in that zone, but it’s even murkier because photographers do sometimes do shoots for free to build their portfolios. That can be any kind of photography, but amongst photographers and models, there is frequently an exchange in their early days. At a certain point, though, either the photographer or model is doing well enough to set that behind them.

Reddit user u/NotATransponster shared a conversation to r/ChoosingBeggars between a photographer and a model in which the model doesn’t seem to be aware that not all photographers want or need to keep doing these free shoots. They say in the comments that this is a friend of theirs, a photographer who couldn’t believe the way this model tried to get more and more out of them.

It starts with the model asking for a “collab” which is code for “free stuff.” The photographer responds that they have a special for 3 looks and 9 edited mages for $175. That’s not what the model is looking for.

“Oh really?” they replied. “I was mostly looking for something that I wouldn’t have to pay for, which is why I said collab.” Yeah, we know.

They continued, “I currently don’t have funds and would appreciate if we could just work something out, and both be happy.”

At this point, the photographer makes a generous offer. They have a camera they want to test out against a certain background with someone in white. If the model will do that, they’ll give them images for free. That would be an actual trade, wouldn’t it?

But it turns into a real “if you give a mouse a cookie” situation because once the model gets that much, they want to be paid, they want their clothes to be bought, or they want their mother’s wedding dress rented. Now they want the photographer to hire them, not just take free pictures:

The two seem to be in a passive-aggressive battle to the death, each one outlining what they’re willing to do and trying to get the other one to comply, but I think the model takes the cake by comparing a day of shooting to “slave labor.”

Finally, the photographer just says “NO” which they should have done much sooner. At that point, the model starts spam messaging them, and according to the OP, the photographer had to block them to make it stop:

“Unprofessional,” the model says in the last screenshot. Well, when you’re asking for free stuff, you’re not really asking for someone to be professional.