A pair of British wedding photographers have found themselves called “unprofessional” and “appalling” after declining to work for an influencer for free. A PR rep of the influencer had requested 1,000 photos and two videos, and in return would offer their followers a 25% off the photographers’ services — a discount the photographers don’t even offer.
Photographers Frankie Lowe and Laura Dunning of Betrothed & Co were the lucky souls recently contacted with such a kind offer. The PR woman, known as Melissa, contacted the duo to discuss shooting the wedding of “a well-known social media influencer.” In return, the photography duo would have their business “extensively promoted” to a combined Instagram and Facebook audience of 55,000 followers. As if that wasn’t cheeky enough, the email concludes: “Just so you’re aware, we have approached four other similar businesses in your area, so a fast response will be beneficial to your business.”
The couple were baffled at the expectations of the request, given that in the grand scheme of influencers, 55,000 followers isn’t particularly impressive. They responded:
As I’m sure you probably know, 55,000 is not usually the level of following which can command the free transfer of products worth between £3,000-£4,000 in total, especially when you take into account bots, duplicate accounts, and the types of followers who are not our target audience.
They also drew attention to the PR’s brazen “offer” of discounting their product, adding: “It’s helpful to know that in advance that being linked with your client will automatically knock 25% off the perceived value of the product we have spent so many years honing.”
Melissa responded to the email threatening to “name and shame” them if they were to respond and “continue with this abuse.” She even went as far as to guilttrip the photographers by mentioning that her client’s mother has recently been diagnosed with cancer.
Choosing to kill them with kindness, Lowe replied back once more, even directly addressing the issue of the PR’s client having a parent living with cancer.
The pair eventually uploaded screenshots of the exchange to their Facebook page, which you can now read here.
They're getting some pretty substantial paychecks from YouTube and Brands that want to work with them.
if Beyonce Knowles asked me to photograph her in exchange for exposure, i'd do it. if Bianca Nomes with 55,000 unverified followers asked me, with the type of attitude displayed in that email, i would tell her to get bent and i would only hope it came off as sarcastically as these folks.
I can't take someone who uses "would of" and "could of" seriously.
Have course! This is typical of generic, plastic, superficial, copy cat people. They just had to do it all the way.
Melissa categorized the reply email as 'abuse'. That tells me all I need to know.
This sense of entitlement comes from Participation Trophies, Safe Spaces, and parents not introducing their children to an occasionally backhand.
There's a lot of people out there that need to be humbled and most of them go by "influencer".
This is the entitlement that comes from being born into wealth, not from a lack of abuse.
looks like the fixer is out of date in the opening photo and the print is on its way out
Love this story, but it is old news.
Nothing good ever came out of the mouth of a person which writes “should of”.
The "Influencers" think their wedding is important enough for vendors to do it for free? I can only imagine the two looking at each other, laughing and saying, "suckers". Good for Laura and Frankie for posting the notes online for everyone to see.
Uploading private conversations about business-deals - that's not done. They didn't ask permission to post - so there's a severe violation of privacy laws here.
"would of"
Credibility drops instantly to zero.
Also,
"we will have to name and shame you"
Extortion based on a threat of libel. Sounds illegal to me.
The response was in poor choice to add snark and sarc.
Yea I read this article on petapixel last week too. Why not just redirect your readers to there, the same way it is done with youtube videos to make a quick buck?
How is the offer lucrative for the photograher?
When you get in the mud with pigs you get dirty as well. Delete Delete Delete
They used to be called "Blogger" than to "Influencer" and now they start calling themselves "Public Figure"
This is a great response to all "influencers"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/07/03/us/ice-cream-tru...
Why are we calling these people Influencers , they are fake Influencers .
Anything under 500k per account is not an Influencer, any acount that has fake bots or paid likes is an fake Influencer.
-Haute miami
Influencer = simply: NO, thanks you. They asked me too, I was curious who they are, so I went trough their profile and I found out that it was fake...