We’ve often discussed how difficult it can be for freelancers in creative fields when they’re trying to get a fair price for their work .
However, that doesn’t mean that the problems suddenly stop when they do find a customer who’s willing to pay. Indeed, artists can often find that it takes a pretty open mind to accept commissions because a lot of people who are willing to shell out the big bucks will end up having some pretty strange requests.
Of course, it’s easy enough to just chuckle a little and go for it if what a customer wants isn’t causing anybody harm. But since one photographer really couldn’t bring themselves to think that was the case with one bizarre offer they received, they felt they had to say something about it.
During an email correspondence with the photographer, a parent was trying to arrange a special photo shoot for their seven-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son.
As the photographer shared in a Reddit post , this shoot was apparently supposed to be a way to get “sweet revenge” on the son for destroying his sister’s favorite unicorn toy.
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And while this already seemed like a weird way to describe an attempt to discipline a child, the photographer didn’t get any more comfortable when this person shared what they had in mind.
It seems their idea was to turn the boy into a “new unicorn” for the daughter, which would then be immortalized in this photo shoot as a “special memory.”
As they put it, “We got him get a girlish unicorn costume and train him how to act properly as a unicorn.”
And as the photographer made pretty clear in their response, they were so flabbergasted by this request that it was hard to figure out what to say about it.
As they said, “I took a little bit to think of a response to your email that could at least be semi-professional. I can’t in good conscience agree to this type of session — I honestly hope this is some kind of joke.”
Because while they could understand wanting to teach the son to respect his sister’s property, they suspected that wasn’t the only motivation the parents had.
In their words, “Humiliating and getting ‘sweet revenge’ as a ‘special memory’ seems a very dysfunction punishment and I have no desire to take part of it.”
Since they didn’t receive any further response from the parents, we may never know whether this reply had them reconsidering whether this was such a good idea or simply trying to find another photographer who agreed with them.
h/t: Reddit | absophoto