A tale of woe - PR chickies gone wild

So I sent out a freelance photog on a portrait assignment for a profile and he came back with some fine pictures.
Being a freelancer and trying to make an extra buck, he offered to sell the unused session photos to the subject's company.
And while some may argue, that's cool. Not like we are paying him a f***ing fortune anyway.
But this made an appearance in my in-box.

My head spins. I don't know how to respond. Thoughts?

 

Wait ... the PR firm is telling you which photos they want run? And that they want you to run a doctored one?

Or they're telling you which photos THEY'LL be using for their own purposes.

If it's the former, it's simple: Just politely tell them that A) you need to be the one to choose which photos run editorially and B) you don't run digitally altered photos. But thanks for playing.

If it's the latter, it's PR, and they can do whatever they want, I guess.

 

The former. They are telling me what editorial photo to run and a doctored one at that.
The possibly ironic thing is that this PR girl had been completely sane up until now.

 

Dear PR lunatic:

We appreciate your input, but we sent the photographer over there so we would have our own photos, and we'll choose from those.

Sincerely,
JF

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Then, make sure you use the photos that cast them in the worst possible light.

 

Send them a bill.

Printing your favorite undoctored photo in the paper: $100

Printing your favorite doctored photo in the paper: $500

 

This is a case where I would probably ignore the e-mail and move forward.

 

I dunno. Polite response is probably merited.

 

As someone now in PR who once sat on the other side of the fence, let me just say I am vomiting on my shoes that someone would do that. Makes us all look like complete tools, whereas most of us are just mostly tools.

 

I would email back and say thank you but that the layout editors or photo editors or whomever choose which photos they will use.

And that the paper's policy prohibits using altered photos.

Best wishes, etc.

 

It's great that she thinks the "crazy" part about doctoring the photo is that it might not work, not that it's off-the-wall insane and no paper worth anything would ever run it.

 

Yes, but I was just suggesting what i would do, and I'd be incapable of a polite response.

Ace's suggestion is pretty good.

 

PS: If you'd like to buy an ad using your altered photo, that extension is...