A Little PSA Regarding Professionalism & Douchebaggery

I just wanted to take a break from our regularly scheduled blog to talk about a recent experience that I had with an amateur photographer. As some of you may know by now, I had an 8 page pictorial in the May issue of The Petite Alternative (www.thepetitealternative.com) & since it was my first ever publication, I was pretty darned excited. As some of you also may know, the original spread, along with the special edition poster, was pulled, and then replaced with older photos that were taken of me by Scott Church. WTF? Some of you might wonder. Well, I'll tell you what the fuck right now.

Back in February, during my cross country trip, one of the cities that I passed through was Knoxville, TN. I put out a casting call, and I got a few responses. One response was from a very amateur & inexperienced photographer. Now, at this stage in the game, I usually don't shoot with those types of photogs. Yes, I understand that we all start somewhere, and no one is more sensitive to that than I am, but paid or not, if I don't feel that you can bring something to my port, then I don't feel the need to shoot with you. I've worked very hard to bring myself up to a certain level in this industry, and my goal is to maintain that. Anyway, I reviewed this man's port, and he did have some nice things in there, so I decided to do the shoot.

Shoot day arrives, Eric & I head to the studio, and everything seems on the up & up. The shoot lasted 4 hours, and went pretty smoothly. Admittedly, I didn't have high hopes for these photos, but he had me do some cool pin-up type photos, so I was pretty anxious to see the edited pics.

Fast forward to the Dallas portion of my trip. Eric & I were actually getting ready to leave Dallas, and decided to stop at a few antique malls & vintage stores on the way out. We were in the last store, when I got a text from the photographer. He had submitted the photos that we took to The Petite Alternative, and not only did they accept them, but they wanted to put me on the cover! I had never been published before, so you can imagine my excitement! He said that I had to go to the website, fill out a questionaire & that she would be in touch. Sounded simple enough, so as soon as we got to our next destination, I did as I was instructed. And.....then I waited. And waited......

I texted the photog after a few weeks to see what was up, and he said that the woman was in the hospital, and would be in touch as soon as she got home. Certainly understandable, and absolutely not a problem. So, then I waited some more. A few more weeks went by, and I emailed the photog to see what was up. He responds by saying that the magazine changed their mind about the cover, and were giving me a 8 page pictorial instead. Um..ok. I was a little disappointed about not being on the cover, but being published is being published, and I was just thankful that I was going to be in the magazine.

Fast forward to now. This trip in particular, and Delaware, to be exact. Delaware was where I was when the shit hit the fan, so to speak. I was sitting in my hotel room eating my dinner, when an unfamiliar number came up on my phone. I answered it, and the woman on the other end said, "Hello, Nyxon? It's Stacey Renee from The Petite Alternative".  Wow! So, basically she called to apologize about not putting me on the cover, and to explain why. Apparently, the reason she decided that I wasn't going to be on the cover, was because every single photo that she had of me from this photog, was on a stark, white background. It was a graphic designers nightmare, and just looked shitty as a cover. I completely understood, and was glad that she decided to not have a shitty cover with my picture on it, lol. The photographer, however, did not. This is where the story starts to go south. This photog got so bent out of shape over not being on the cover that he refused to sign the release form to allow the pictures to be used at all. WTF? Finally, Stacey convinced him to do so, so that's how I was able to be in the magazine.

So, May 1st rolls around, and the issue is out, and we are all promoting it like crazy, and it's doing really well! As an added bonus, Stacey decides to reward the fans by issuing a special edition poster, featuring yours truly, in celebration of reaching 1000 'likes' on Facebook. So, that's released, and once again, we are all promoting like crazy. Well, this photographer goes ballistic & starts harassing Stacey & saying that she better take down the poster & quit selling it, or else he was going to sue her. WTF? He then reports her to FB & has her 2 accounts suspended, gets her locked out of her Model Mayhem account, and a few other networking sites that she's on. He then starts posting nasty, nasty stuff about her online & just being a complete dick, in general. So, Stacey pulls the poster, and then he comes back with he wants her to pull ALL of my pics from her magazine, and that he has a lawyer and that he's going to sue her, blah, blah, blah...

NEWSFLASH, ASSHOLE: YOU SIGNED A MOTHERFUCKING RELEASE FORM GIVING YOUR PERMISSION FOR THE PETITE ALTERNATIVE TO POST, PRINT & PROFIT OFF OF YOUR IMAGES OF ME. IF YOU ARE ACTUALLY DUMB ENOUGH TO THINK THAT YOU COULD TAKE THIS TO COURT, AND IF YOU ACTUALLY FOUND A LAWYER TO TAKE ON YOUR BULLSHIT LAWSUIT, THE JUDGE WOULD LAUGH YOU OUT OF THE COURT ROOM. A RELEASE, WHEN SIGNED, IS A LEGAL & BINDING DOCUMENT. IF YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO KNOW & REALIZE WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING, WELL, THEN.... I FEEL BAD FOR YOU.

I AM PISSED! Besides the fact that this fucking hillbilly is behaving like a childish piece of shit, he is being unfair to me & screwing with my career. Being in this magazine, and being published is extremely important to me & my career. I worked too hard to let some hillbilly come along & shit all over it.

Well, let me just say that thank god for good people like Scott Church. Thank god for professionals, who know, understand & respect the business, like Scott Church. Whenever Stacey said that she was pulling the photos, and asked if I could send her others, I knew exactly what to do. I called Scott Church, who said that this was completely unfair to me, and Stacey, and that he would do whatever he could to make it all better. And better he made it. Early this morning, he emailed Stacey a bunch of photos of me, and later on this afternoon, the May issue was relaunched....with me on the cover!!!! I got the cover PLUS an 8 page pictorial, PLUS there are TWO limited edition posters for sale!!

Ladies & gentlemen, this is how a professional photographer operates, and I'll tell ya what. I was picky & choosey regarding the glamour photogs I worked with in the past, but moving forward, I will be EXTREMELY choosey about with whom I work with. There's nothing wrong with being an amateur photographer, like I said, we all gotta start somewhere, but  you at least have to ACT professional.

I am extremely thankful for the good people I have in my life, and Scott Church is certainly one of them. Thank you, Scott, for being the outstanding & amazing person that you are, and or helping me out. I am truly grateful.

Last but not least, I'm sure  you wanna know where to get this magazine that I've been speaking of, and the 2 limited edition posters, so here ya go!

The Petite Alternative:
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/193368

Poster #1:
http://www.zazzle.com/tpa_the_real_nyxon_thank_the_fans_poster-228028988256050418

Poster #2:
http://www.zazzle.com/tpa_1000_likes_poster-228236472018636386