A New Level in Flaking Out

[OrcaBob]

Wow. I had another TFCD shoot scheduled for last Monday. This one gave every indication of being a solid model: clear and consistent communicator, open to ideas with plenty of her own. We'd been planning this shoot for nearly two weeks. We were shooting at her place, so the day before the shoot she gave me her address.

Monday morning I had a flat tire and an hour's drive, but I still got to her place on time.

Except the address she gave me was that of an empty house under construction.

I checked to see if she gave me a transposed house number, but there was no house at the transposed address. So I call her.

She's not answering her phone, though I'm getting her voicemail. She didn't answer the phone or respond to voicemails over the next hour.

I done been had! The girl got cold feet and instead of admitting to it, she decided to give me a phony address and let me drive an hour for nothing.

I did hear from her, however. Later that day she emailed to say, "Gosh, I feel so bad! I thought that when the makeup artist cancelled, the shoot was cancelled." Problem is, when the MUA (makeup artist) backed out, the model said she'd find another MUA. That doesn't sound like someone thinking the shoot's over.

I notified the MUA who backed out. She was planning on working with that model on another gig. Not now! I'll also be notifying several photographers in her area.

[john101477]

That stinks Bob.

[Steve (FloppyDog)]

Backing out of a shoot is one thing, but giving you phony information is plain negligent. About the best thing you can do at this point, is like you're doing, notifying other photographers in her/your area.

[OrcaBob]

As frustrating and outrageous as those three flakeouts were, two more recent shoots seems to have taken the sting away.

Last Thursday, my shoot with young Nicole was a real soul recharger. It was fun, professional, and highly productive. She's one of the youngest models I've worked with, but she's rock-solid dependable.

Then yesterday was the smorgasbord of model shoots. Great location, ever-changing weather with great stormy skies, and utterly fantastic models.

That's not to say we didn't have flakeouts. To get ten models, the event's organizer went through dozens of models who dropped out, got replaced, those dropped out and got replaced, and so on.

The crew that did show up, though, ended up being a real joy to work with. It was amazing to see these women keeping their sense of humor even while standing around in bikinis in a light sprinkle of rain.

Funny... I go one whole year without working with a single model I met through Model Mayhem, and then in one shoot I work with ten outstanding ones.

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[Steve (FloppyDog)]

NICE It seems that when it rains it pours, sometimes in a good way. Good job mister Bob!