I just want to start by saying, I know this is clearly a learning moment for me and my business lol. I'm just curious as to how y'all would proceed, if in my shoes. TYIA 🫶🏼✨
So, I photograph weddings. I love it. Oddly enough, I had a volleyball coach DM me, asking to photograph his team. He said, "I need photos of my girls and I think you'd do a great job." Leading me to believe he's seen some of my work, as he's DMing through IG. And since it was about portrait work, I felt more than able to do this task. However, now I'm feeling weird about this booking.
He's rescheduled on me, twice. If I hadn't reached out to confirm both times, I would not have been notified about his intentions to reschedule/cancel. Both times were less than 24 hours notice, with the most recent reschedule being less than one hours notice.
He's also now asking me to help 12-16 girls get their hair and makeup ready, saying, "it'll be easy because they'll have their products with them." The initial conversation never included me providing H/MU. He's only hired me for three hours, and there's no deposit made or anything. I didn't think to ask for deposit since it was such a short notice booking and I figured I just wouldn't deliver photos until payment was made in full. I just never expected to reschedule so many times.
Now, this is all supposed to be taking place on an outside sand court, in Minnesota. It's now been re-scheduled to take place on December 2nd..
I don't know lol. It feels too real to be fake, and too fake to be real.
If you were in my shoes, what would you be thinking/doing? Am I being paranoid? If this is legit, I'm totally down to photograph him and his team! However, there's been blatant disregard of my time, and he seems really oblivious about what a photographer is expected to do in a situation like this. Also, I can't imagine wanting to schedule a volleyball portrait session outside in December in Minnesota. Should I just say I no longer feel like the right photographer for this job? He hasn't even signed my contract I sent him.
Anyways, hope y'all have a great holiday weekend!!
Edit: I forgot to mention that you need to give him a hard cutoff date. I ran into this situation a few weeks ago with a family session. The family agreed to paying in full, viewed the invoice, and then ignored it. I reached out to the mom and said “if I do not receive payment by tomorrow at X time, I will not be able to add your booking to my calendar.” She paid ASAP. I think because I was polite and flexible multiple times, she thought I wouldn’t be serious about payment.
Since this is scheduled for December 2nd, I would give him until noon on Tuesday to pay.