Thanks for sharing!

Anyways when you’re a student it’s very easy to get taken advantage of in any industry, but stuff that has to do with “glamor” (or, perceived as glamor) like fashion or the movie industry usually are the worst.

When I was looking for jobs after college in Hawaii there was an ad for a fashion photographer.
I had a camera and some photography experience, working for the school paper and what not so I thought I’d try out even though I didn’t have any real fashion photography experience. The person I interviewed with (an ex-Miss Hawaii who was now opening her own modeling agency) had no problem with that. She had me do a test shoot with a model hopeful. I had to pay for film (hey, I still haven’t gotten a digital camera, but of course this was back in the 90s!), pay for printing the pictures, hire a make-up artist. After that she flipped through my shots dismissing them all but instead of telling me I wasn’t getting the job at the end she told me to do another test shoot with another model. Things felt iffy so I took my pictures and left, only to see other student-photographers taking pictures of models at the nearby mall (at their own expense no doubt.) The lady was only interested in free labor but I doubt that her business is still around. I mean how many people can you take advantage of and still stay in business? Or is that too naive a question?

A year later working for a fashion website in L.A. I discovered that even test photo shoots are paid and pretty well at that. But when you’re a student no one prepares you to be on the look-out for scam artists. I mean an internship is one thing, but working for a tv show in supposed pre-production when the director runs off to Vegas with all the company’s money, that’s not something you can put on your resume! (that also happened to me in Hawaii!)

Anyway, I realize this wasn’t related to the industry exactly but I had to share! This happens outside of Vegas too! LOL

Yes, I finally collected my money through Western Union a few days after this was posted.

Kathleen, you are working for squat in terms of dollars, but for sure you are racking up massive amounts of karma. It may protect you from the yarmulke gang, in the event (heaven forbid!) you ever cross them. The smiley face kippot would make me shiver…those evil eyes mocking me, and that deadly grin…

I don’t have any enforcers on staff, mostly because they’d want a cut of the action. Since I get zero return from my caped crusades (three hours work on this one), I doubt I can find enforcers willing to work for less than diddley. I’m glad I could help Brian. The model however, didn’t even bother to thank me by phone or email. Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. ~sigh~

RE: Kim’s adventures. It sounds like you extracted a some good out of this experience. All is not lost. Hat’s off to you, though! It’s tough to find the bless in the mess, sometimes. I’m sure there’s more to come out of this, yet.