Supermodels Unlimited Magazine review: They are running scams on everyone

I was brought on as a contract photographer by Lisa Blackman who owns Woobie Wear but works for Supermodels Unlimited. Lisa was initially my main contact. I was suppose to be SU’s Chicago photographer. That is if I played by their rules. I had a number of conversations about what I was going to be paid and tried to get from them exactly what the process is. Lisa gave me very limited information. Because I didn’t want to have any problems with it being a verbal agreement I asked for something in writing. Below is what they told me I would be paid. As you could see Lisa sent out what she understood payment to be and Kimberly Clark agreed with it all.
In March of 2011 I did pictures for two models. One of them had 3 looks the other had 5 looks. Then in July 2011 I had another shoot for SU. I took pictures of 7 different girls all having 3 looks each. With both of these shoots I provided CD’s of each girl. Su only asked for me to turn in the raw images but I also ended up creating a file on each cd that had around 10 edited images. I wanted to do this so that the girls could actually use some of the pictures that I took for their portfolio. This is something I didn’t have to do but wanted to do. When I turned in the cd’s I also submitted an invoice for the shoots.

During this time I got multiple messages from these girls that I did pictures of asking when Su would be giving them their pictures and when would the pictures be in the magazine. I had asked Lisa and Kim this question multiple times as well and would be told for me to just have the girls contact them. I felt bad for these girls so I basically just told them that I didn’t have any information, which I didn’t that they should continue to bug Lisa and Kim.
I still hadn’t received payment either from my shoots even though I went above and beyond giving them what they needed. I would contact Lisa and Kim and would get no response. Finally I was able to talk to Kim. She was unhappy with me because she thought I was talking bad about them, which I wasn’t I just wanted my payment. Apparently I wasn’t following the rules because I would tell the girls to keep bothering them to get the pictures that were due to them. Lisa knew me personally and knew that I wouldnt lie to people or play their games. They were not happy about this. So Kim and I finally had our conversation, where she told me that she couldn’t pay the $300 a girl that she doesn’t pay her best photographers that. I was amazed by this because I knew that I had emails with her agreeing to the payment. So I ended up forwarding the email to her where she agreed to payment. She is a smooth talker and manipulates her way through things. Needless to say, she received my invoice again and I still have not received payment.

I would never work for these people again. They claim to donate money to all of these charities and not one of them have ever even heard of SU. I was suppose to shoot the event in October of 2011 for them where they claimed that they were donating to Make a Wish foundation and were going to grant a child a wish. I didn’t end up shooting for them since I never received my money from the other shoots I did. I do know though that Make a Wish has no idea who SU is. Make a Wish never received any money that SU collected nor did a child get their wish granted at the event. Its all so sad that they can get away with this.