Photographer
Kent Art Photography
Posts: 3588
Ashford, England, United Kingdom
IMAGINERIES wrote:
With in six weeks..... case one, all is set...wait and wait and then called hopping it was not an accident or some thing bad...
Reply.....Ho! no! I forgot!!! so sorry...So I saved a couple of $......then two offers for paid gigs ....message read ..but no reply.
The first bad streak in many years...But, in a way, I am glad they don't need the money!... all under 22 years old and maybe the
age gap is the problem! Or too busy texting......THIS NOT A RANT JUSY AN OBSERVATION!
I'll go fishing in my age group! Perhaps if your messages to the model - or models, it's not clear - were similar to your rant then I'm not surprised you didn't get any replies.
Photographer
Todd Meredith
Posts: 728
Fayetteville, North Carolina, US
Tony Lawrence wrote:
You don't have to provide your actual private number.
Isn't the idea of being here to work. Isn't the idea to improve. Isn't the idea to network. If you have no desire to model then why sign up. Why waste other people's time. If you are too busy to reply to emails then one might think you're too busy to read them. I know people who might have used MM models who won't consider it after multiple emails go unanswered. MM is just one example of why real world modeling agencies will always do well and busy professionals use them.
I guarantee you if you emailed almost any legitimate modeling agency about testing. You will receive a reply. Professionals and serious folks do those kinds of silly things. I must agree with Tony and say that his response is well written. Unfortunately, for every one really wonderful person met through MM, there are at least three to four who collect "friends" but never reply when sent a message about actually collaborating. Why even accept a friend request, or send on for that matter, if you have no intent on working with that person?
How long does it really take to reply to a message? Receiving a message is the equivalent of someone speaking directly to you, in my opinion. Not responding is rude and demonstrates a lack of social skills or an ego that precludes the receiver from being bothered with a reply. Should people expect a reply? I believe its reasonable and not beyond the realm of good manners and professionalism. If a model or photographer holds the mindset that they are too good or too busy to send a simple reply, how about making that note in your profile. When others see that an ego or social ineptness prevents the receiver from replying, I'll bet the amount of messages sent their way will decline drastically.
Model
CamelliaFlower
Posts: 385
New York, New York, US
I'd hazard to say it is no more rude for someone to ignore a paid gig, as it is to ignore an unpaid one. In the sense that you are not more entitled to a response to a proposition simply because you are offering money as payment...since you've made the distinction of stating that you're offering payment in the topic title.
Of course it is rude to ignore a message in general though ;P
Photographer
Farenell Photography
Posts: 18832
Albany, New York, US
IMAGINERIES wrote:
With in six weeks..... case one, all is set...wait and wait and then called hopping it was not an accident or some thing bad...
Reply.....Ho! no! I forgot!!! so sorry...So I saved a couple of $......then two offers for paid gigs ....message read ..but no reply.
The first bad streak in many years...But, in a way, I am glad they don't need the money!... all under 22 years old and maybe the
age gap is the problem! Or too busy texting......THIS NOT A RANT JUSY AN OBSERVATION!
I'll go fishing in my age group! In fairness, MM doesn't make it easy to facilitate the means of communication these days, particularly if either party is on a mobile device.
If there are of ways to contact the same person whether it's via FB, or Tumblr, or private email addy, or texting, I'd reccommend doing so.
Photographer
Mary Durante Youtt
Posts: 520
Barnegat, New Jersey, US
With expectations - come disappointments. It's part of life.
I'm old school, I pretty much reply to everyone as I personally feel it is part of the "golden rules" Some of today's youth were not taught about the golden rules in life.
Photographer
Electroglow
Posts: 90
Elk Grove, California, US
I have to say that I agree with the responses regarding clear communication. I suspect that there is an ESL component here, but, if was a model, I might choose to not respond to an unintelligible message from a photographer. If this is an ESL situation and your English is not good, maybe you could consider having someone else read/edit your messages before sending them.
I've sent some messages out over the last week to some local models that I would like to work with and several of them logged on and read the message, but waited several days to reply. No harm there - they could have had a million reasons to delay in responding (e.g., checking out my work, checking their schedule, googling me to make sure that I'm not some creep, just didn't feel like responding right away or didn't have time, etc, etc, etc). I don't think that hounding them is the appropriate way to get them to reply - that will probably just annoy them or scare them away and have the opposite effect. If they're interested, they'll reply. Hell, even if they're not all that interested, some of them will probably reply and then just flake on me! That seems to be the nature of the beast when dealing with models, artists, musicians, etc.
As for whether or not it's "rude" for a model not to respond to a legitimate offer to do a paid shoot, my opinion is that, yeah, it's a probably a little rude. But, considering the experiences that some models have mentioned regarding being hassled by the photographer after turning down an offer, I wouldn't blame them for not replying.
Model
CamelliaFlower
Posts: 385
New York, New York, US
cryophonik wrote:
I've sent some messages out over the last week to some local models that I would like to work with and several of them logged on and read the message, but waited several days to reply. No harm there - they could have had a million reasons to delay in responding (e.g., checking out my work, checking their schedule, googling me to make sure that I'm not some creep, just didn't feel like responding right away or didn't have time, etc, etc, etc). I don't think that hounding them is the appropriate way to get them to reply - that will probably just annoy them or scare them away and have the opposite effect. If only everyone could get this!
I had an extremely unpleasant experience with a MM photographer who waited a whole 4 hours after sending his message to me before flying into a rage about my non-response and threatening to report me to the moderators for being a "fake". Needless to say...I didn't respond (I had replied to his previous message!).
A million reasons indeed...I frequently check my MM inbox while I'm running about inbetween my two regular jobs. I prefer to phrase my responses carefully so while taking 20 seconds while I'm waiting for the subway to read a message is one thing, texting and walking is something I'd rather not do, both because it's dangerous and also I tend to make typos when I text and I hate making typos. Typically I often read messages while I'm out of my apartment and wait until I get home at the end of the workday to reply.
Also yes, sometimes I just don't have a good response right away, or I'm not sure about something so I'd rather not type a hasty ill-thought-out reply that I might regret later on, since I prefer to keep my commitments.
Photographer
JQuest
Posts: 2446
Syracuse, New York, US
Todd Meredith wrote:
...Receiving a message is the equivalent of someone speaking directly to you, in my opinion. Not responding is rude and demonstrates a lack of social skills or an ego that precludes the receiver from being bothered with a reply. Should people expect a reply? I believe its reasonable and not beyond the realm of good manners and professionalism. If a model or photographer holds the mindset that they are too good or too busy to send a simple reply, how about making that note in your profile. When others see that an ego or social ineptness prevents the receiver from replying, I'll bet the amount of messages sent their way will decline drastically. It amazes me that any individual who sends out unsolicited offers feels they are owed a reply. The lack of a reply indicates nothing in regard to the recipient other than they simply weren't interested in your offer. It doesn't mean they are rude, uncaring, irresponsible or any of the other things that the senders seem to feel they are owed for gracing someone with an offer to work with them, paid or not. When sending out unsolicited offers no answer means I'm not interested in working with you. It's exactly that simple, and that's all it means.
Model
CamelliaFlower
Posts: 385
New York, New York, US
JQuest wrote:
It amazes me that any individual who sends out unsolicited offers feels they are owed a reply. The lack of a reply indicates nothing in regard to the recipient other than they simply weren't interested in your offer. It doesn't mean they are rude, uncaring, irresponsible or any of the other things that the senders seem to feel they are owed for gracing someone with an offer to work with them, paid or not. When sending out unsolicited offers no answer means I'm not interested in working with you. It's exactly that simple, and that's all it means. For the sake of playing devil's advocate though--it could be argued that just by making a profile on Model Mayhem you're essentially soliciting offers no? I don't think it is necessarily unreasonable for some people to view it this way.
Photographer
FIFTYONE PHOTOGRAPHY
Posts: 6597
Uniontown, Pennsylvania, US
JQuest wrote:
It amazes me that any individual who sends out unsolicited offers feels they are owed a reply. The lack of a reply indicates nothing in regard to the recipient other than they simply weren't interested in your offer. It doesn't mean they are rude, uncaring, irresponsible or any of the other things that the senders seem to feel they are owed for gracing someone with an offer to work with them, paid or not. When sending out unsolicited offers no answer means I'm not interested in working with you. It's exactly that simple, and that's all it means. I would disagree with this statement.
Having a Model portfolio opens the door to solicitation for work and for a Model to not respond to a paid offer isn't rude, it's dumb. .
Photographer
JQuest
Posts: 2446
Syracuse, New York, US
CamelliaFlower wrote:
For the sake of playing devil's advocate though--it could be argued that just by making a profile on Model Mayhem you're essentially soliciting offers no? I don't think it is necessarily unreasonable for some people to view it this way. That's all well and fine and I don't disagree. No one saying people shouldn't be allowed to solicit members for projects. However that still doesn't change the fact that no reply only means that the individual who received the offer wasn't interested and in as much certainly is under no obligation to send a response. In a perfect world would it be nice if everyone's requests were acknowledged? Yes it would, however to label individuals who are not interested in participating in some else's project who don't respond as the sender wishes as rude, uncaring, unprofessional or otherwise is ridiculous and I know if non-responses bothered me as much as they seem to bother some members here I would close my account and do away with the aggravation.
Photographer
JQuest
Posts: 2446
Syracuse, New York, US
51 Imaging wrote:
I would disagree with this statement.
Having a Model portfolio opens the door to solicitation for work and for a Model to not respond to a paid offer isn't rude, it's dumb. . Again, no one is closing the door to unsolicited offers, the offers are still going through. How is it dumb not to respond to an offer you have no interest in? You make no sense. What's dumb is getting upset that you didn't get a response from someone who isn't interested in your offer.
edited to add: Do you reply to all the unsolicited mail that the post office drops off at your door everyday? Didn't you open the door to that unsolicited mail when you got a post office address? Do you think the unsolicited mailers expect a response for all the messages they send out?
There is a reason unsolicited mail is often called junk...
Photographer
Electroglow
Posts: 90
Elk Grove, California, US
CamelliaFlower wrote:
For the sake of playing devil's advocate though--it could be argued that just by making a profile on Model Mayhem you're essentially soliciting offers no? I don't think it is necessarily unreasonable for some people to view it this way. Yeah, it seems like there is a pretty fine line between professional courtesy and rudeness. I agree that, if you're here, you're making yourself available for solicitation to model/shoot. I view it as a professional courtesy to respond to a request, or I run the risk of being perceived as rude. Bottom line for me, though, is that it's the internet and I've learned a long time ago that internet acquaintances are often unreliable and unprofessional, so I tend to not hold them to same standard that I have for personal acquaintances.
Photographer
Flex Photography
Posts: 6471
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
These days, common courtesy, unfortunately, is less & less common.
I don't think the "no time to reply" excuse holds water in most cases, as many have "time" for constant texting, or describing their sandwich contents on Facebook. For some in this thread, during that large amount of time spent (or wasted) typing long opinions, they could have used that time to reply to dozens of offer messages. Time is often subjective. We have plenty, we just don't all use it wisely.
Model
CamelliaFlower
Posts: 385
New York, New York, US
Flex Photography wrote:
These days, common courtesy, unfortunately, is less & less common.
I don't think the "no time to reply" excuse holds water in most cases, as many have "time" for constant texting, or describing their sandwich contents on Facebook. For some in this thread, during that large amount of time spent (or wasted) typing long opinions, they could have used that time to reply to dozens of offer messages. Time is often subjective. We have plenty, we just don't all use it wisely. If only we all had piles of offer messages to reply to eh 
Model
CharlieMW
Posts: 93
Dallas, Texas, US
I'm a firm believer that you get out of things what you put into it. If someone takes the time to send me a coherent message, I think its reasonable that they expect a reply from me. I am older than the average model, so I endeavor to make sure to take advantage of every possible opportunity to keep communication channels open by responding if I intend to accept and offer or decline an offer. Usually, I decline because of prior commitments, so there is always a hope I can work with them in the future. I do check messages here daily, and usually reply the same day. I have been put off by people getting upset that I read a message and didn't respond within 4 hours of reading the message. I think you'd be challenged to find anyone that did not get a response from me in 24 hours. If I apply for a casting and do not receive a response, I usually make a note not to work with that person/business in the future. Why should I expect less from someone than I expect from myself?
Photographer
Natural Means
Posts: 936
Yamba, New South Wales, Australia
No reply can mean
1. No.
2. Nothanks, but happy to hear another offer another day.
3. No. Hell no. Never darken my door again.
4. Modelling? (or photography, or whatever)....pub yeah I used to be interested.
5. I thought I answered, but forgot.
Without a reply, the person who initially enquired is left guessing, and probably assumes 3.
How a chunk of MM creatives can think this is professional, or normal is beyond me.
Model
CamelliaFlower
Posts: 385
New York, New York, US
CharlieMW wrote:
I think you'd be challenged to find anyone that did not get a response from me in 24 hours. If I apply for a casting and do not receive a response, I usually make a note not to work with that person/business in the future. Why should I expect less from someone than I expect from myself? See this is actually a bit funny now. Because I have taken longer than 24 hours to respond at times, because the plain truth of it is that other things sometimes take priority over immediately responding--like I said sometimes I read things as I'm traveling and don't reply until later, or I take a while to make up my mind.
Buuuut in the same thread, I've responded to someone's casting, and saw that they read it...and didn't receive a response for over two weeks! So naturally I understand they aren't interested, no hurt feelings. Then out of the blue he replies and says he's already booked the casting I replied to, but he'd still like to shoot with me, and if I'd be interested in doing an independent TFP session?
And we wound up doing the shoot together and it goes pretty well despite my lip-swallowing awkwardness and 20degreesF in a miniskirt.
At least we are both fair to others xD
Photographer
Todd Meredith
Posts: 728
Fayetteville, North Carolina, US
JQuest wrote:
It amazes me that any individual who sends out unsolicited offers feels they are owed a reply. The lack of a reply indicates nothing in regard to the recipient other than they simply weren't interested in your offer. It doesn't mean they are rude, uncaring, irresponsible or any of the other things that the senders seem to feel they are owed for gracing someone with an offer to work with them, paid or not. When sending out unsolicited offers no answer means I'm not interested in working with you. It's exactly that simple, and that's all it means. JQuest - How long does it take to send a message of, "Thanks for the offer but I'm not interested at this time" or something to that effect? As another contributor noted, doesn't placing your profile on here invite an unsolicited message offering collaboration? So why not just be courteous and reply. It takes all of two seconds and may result in something positive down the road. Burning bridges through rudeness - and that's really what it is when you blow off someone's message - can result in more than just one lost opportunity. Would you ignore someone speaking directly to you? Probably not, because that would be seen as rude. So why be just as rude simply because you receive the message electronically?
Photographer
Todd Meredith
Posts: 728
Fayetteville, North Carolina, US
Natural Means wrote:
No reply can mean
1. No.
2. Nothanks, but happy to hear another offer another day.
3. No. Hell no. Never darken my door again.
4. Modelling? (or photography, or whatever)....pub yeah I used to be interested.
5. I thought I answered, but forgot.
Without a reply, the person who initially enquired is left guessing, and probably assumes 3.
How a chunk of MM creatives can think this is professional, or normal is beyond me. Totally agree!!!
Photographer
Rebel Lens
Posts: 225
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
IMAGINERIES wrote:
With in six weeks..... case one, all is set...wait and wait and then called hopping it was not an accident or some thing bad...
Reply.....Ho! no! I forgot!!! so sorry...So I saved a couple of $......then two offers for paid gigs ....message read ..but no reply.
The first bad streak in many years...But, in a way, I am glad they don't need the money!... all under 22 years old and maybe the
age gap is the problem! Or too busy texting......THIS NOT A RANT JUSY AN OBSERVATION!
I'll go fishing in my age group! Do what I do, you send them an offer of a paid shoot, they read it but don't even have the common courtesy to respond with a "No thank you" message, then never offer them paid shoots ever again period.
See, problem solved.
Because there are plenty more professional acting models out there who would be happy to receive paid shoots.
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