So I ended up in a very unique situation and am not sure how to go about this. A new photographer that I met invited me to a styled shoot at a wedding venue. Long story short, she pitched things differently and when she laid out the plans less than a week before, the timeline and specifics were a lot more demanding than initially pitched. This was an unpaid shoot, but I decided to go regardless for content for my portfolio.
When I got there, a ton of vendors backed out at the last minute and everything was very disorganized. We shot the same photos together and both came up with posing ideas.
We both delivered our photos to the vendors separately, and some of them are tagging us on Instagram. I found out she’s been messaging them and telling them not to tag us both so people don’t confuse my photos for hers. She also made a post saying how she was the main photographer of the event and I “helped out.” She 100% organized the event but I felt a little insulted at the main comment since this was pitched as an equal opportunity and I did not feel like I was her assistant during the shoot. At this point, I don’t understand why she even invited me to this.
Now the venue owner shared my photos on Instagram and tagged only her (and none of the photos shared were hers). The photos were definitely mine because even though we took the same shots, she used different equipment (she doesn’t even own a flash, she used the one built into the camera so the lighting alone is a dead giveaway) and has a completely different editing style.
I don’t want to look like the petty one since she’s clearly trying to make sure she gets all the credit for this, but should I reach out to the venue and let them know that the photos they shared are mine? I don’t want to hurt my business’s image and am wondering if I should just let this go, but I do think I deserve credit where it is due.
Here is the thing, when you do work for another company (photographer in this case) you often are surrendering credit for the work to them in situations like this.
Your goal was to get content for your portfolio, if you did that just be happy and move on with life. You start making a big deal out of that with the venue it can cause you larger issues (say the venue may just blacklist both of you because of "drama")
Yes it sucks they did that to you but if it is not something that is directly costing you money it is not worth the effort.
Take the life lessons, if you work with others in the future make sure that you have clarity (in writing is often important) on everything related to the transaction. This includes things like "who gets credit" for the photos provided etc... Just remember that when working for someone else you often will be sacrificing professional credit for the pay check, especially if you are hired freelance as a second photographer at an event.
It is not uncommon, at least where I am, that if you are hired as a second photographer for something like a venue / wedding shoot; you are not going to be named with any credit. I in fact have a short form contract that covers just this that I would use if hiring someone in a case like this (basically says that all photographs taken at that event are my property, I own the copyright and publication rights to them). To be honest this is important because I was hired and need to have the legal ownership of the work in order to be able to sell it to those who hired me for the work.
The people putting on the event hired X photographer / company and if you are hired (paid or unpaid) to be a second photographer then you are representing the company that was hired and you should expect that they are taking full credit for the work produced. Often photographers operated under their own name in the trade so you can expect this to happen. But any actual professional photographer will have contracts / agreements regarding these types of things and make it clear up front.
If you don't like that, make sure you are clear upfront and in writing that you need to be given credit or don't take the job.
^^^ This is so true.
It really is best to just move on. Use your photos in your portfolio and probably avoid working for/with her ever again. Your life and career will be much smoother if you work with people that do what they say and say what they'll do.
She screwed up...does she know she did and told you? If not...it would happen again with her.
I worked 5 weddings unpaid before I did my own, and the experience was worth it not just for how to shoot the wedding but for how to run your own photo business with integrity.
This was a styled shoot...