Saturday, February 19, 2011

Frischling Stiffs Fellow Photographer, Part 1

It seems nobody despises Steven Frischling more than professional photographers. The pros can spot a fake when they see one, and they've been sick of his antics for years. Since they recently discovered our humble blog, the stories have been pouring in.

The following post occurred on Digital Wedding Forum, a place for wedding photographers. On July 22, 2008 a wedding photographer says that she responded to a post by Frischling who was in need of a photographer to shoot a wedding for him at the last minute because he had an emergency. She shot the wedding, he did not pay her and would not respond to her at all (sound familiar?). She noticed that during the weekend of the "emergency," he was updating his blog, and then the following weekend he shot two different weddings.

Also during this time, he was posting on the SportsShooter forum repeatedly, including about his book contract that went nowhere! Obviously he didn't think anyone from the SportsShooter forum would also be on the Wedding forum...

The frustrated photographer writes on the forum:
"What if you try to discuss the pay before hand and the photographer says:"Figure out what you need for compensation and I'll have my wife sort out how to get it done."Then when you say how is second shooter pay of $350 and he NEVER returns your emails?Then the bride contacts me and still nothing from the contracted photographer. Then you are really in a bad spot because you don't know what to do with the files or with the bride or the contracted photographer. Again, the contracted photographer has not communicated what to do with the files. What do I do?"

After some responses she continues:
"Not all of the photographers on here are generous. I have unfortunately found this out the hard way.
The photographer I filled in for has very questionable business practices. This is becoming more apparent as time goes by and he does not even email me and as other photographers surface with similar allegations. The bride contacted him and has not heard from him and she is upset. I've emailed him today and yesterday with still no response. I offered to send the files early on with very little compensation, but he never emailed me back.
This was an emergency posted ON THIS FORUM, so besides his posting, I really don't know him personally.  I can't even get him to respond to my emails and I don't have an address I could send files to. Still really don't know what to do."

Someone asked her if she has called him vs email and she responded:
"Several times. He does not call me back. He emails."

She continues:
"I felt like I was doing a favor and now I am in a difficult position. I don't know this other photographer personally, so how do I know he is not lying about his emergency? He did, after all, find time over the weekend I shot for him to post on his blog and went on to shoot two more weddings the following weekend. Maybe he has a celebrity call him up last minute and ask him to shoot a wedding and decided he would take advantage of the forum to cover the weddings he had. I can only guess because he does not communicate with me. Perhaps because this person flys all over the world doing weddings, he has no specific address, or perhaps he is trying to avoid having a specific contact as there are many people and clients who are frustrated with him."

Another photographer pointed out that Frischling has been active on SportsShooter forum and should have had time to call the photographer back:
"The point of my post was to indicate the photographer in question isn't in some far off land beyond the reach of modern communication.
On Tuesday July 22nd he posted at 4:09pm, 4:43pm, 8:06pm, 9:59pm, and 10:39pm about his new business deal on Sportsshooter.com
Then yesterday July 23rd he posted at 6:37am, 7:30am, 3:12pm, 3:16pm, 8:19pm, and 8:25pm again on Sportsshooter.com about the same subject.
In his first Sportsshooter.com post on the subject (Tuesday 4:09pm), he mentioned that the morning had been rather uneventful,
but that the afternoon had be spent finishing up negotiations with an international firm.
At 6:09pm on Tuesday he posted a rather lengthy post about the new deal with an international firm.
Just seems to me, that had he wanted to be reached, he could have been."
Frischling finally responded in typical Frischling style, laying it on thick with the excuses and accusations of misconstrued "facts," all while playing the victim:
"There is misinformation being posted here. There are words being missed either intentionally or unintentionally. At this point I'd like this to be settled.
It needs to be settled in writing, so there are no miscommunications. The beauty of the internet is that it does not matter who is right and who is wrong. It does not matter if either side is right or wrong. What seems to matter is who can shout louder and who can rally the most support.
Internet forums are a great place for facts to become irrelevant and those who speak the most and push the most opinion in the face of a silent opposition to become the victors. There are quite a few reasons I have remained absent from this discussion. For one it is not a discussion. Secondly I prefer to not enter into a mud slinging competition, no one wins and everyone looks foolish. I love that people count my SportsShooter posts, ones made from a Blackberry the other day while in the hospital on Tuesday.....and there an email explaining I'd be unavailble most of the day due to an exploratory procedure, which was explained to one party in the mud slinging session at 4:31pm on Monday by email, yet on Tuesday I get an e-mail stating she has not heard from me.......while I was in recovery.
Tuesday afternoon I was home and briefly awake. I was happy a contract had been agreed upon for me to write a book, that agreement came by e-mail, was signed electronically in under a minute and sent back. In the span of 20 minutes I posted about this in a few places and was then back to sleep for quite a while.
The next day, my expected 30-min follow-up consult lasted seven hours and spanned five doctors. I expected in an out and was hit with may more than I expected. Following this day of consults I couldn't give a crap about business, photography, or getting involved in a verbal jousting. In light of some options, nothing life threatening really, but some significant issues, I want to be done with it, move on, not play tit-for-tat and I don't give a shit what my reputation looks like after 48hrs.
As for me being able to work the weekend after I needed emergency help, I did that on heavy pain killers. I did work Wed-Thurs-Fri-Sat on both coasts. I did that because I can't afford not to work. I have no idea what people think of me, or what they think 'I Have,' but my guess is you have no idea what hole I am working out of. My guess is you have no idea how much pain I was in working those days. I never rented a car, I got a lift or took cabs because I knew renting a car would be reckless and highly illegal in my condition.
Maybe some people can afford to pay $15 more than then were paid for a job to have someone cover the, I sure as hell can't.
So feel free to get back to your opinions based on one sided facts. Enjoy your foray into the world of mud slinging just for the sake of mud slinging. I have much more pressing issues to try and sort out between now and my next doctors visit on the 28th of July. 
He dismisses his 11 SportsShooter posts about nonsense as "ones made from a Blackberry" while he was in the hospital, yet he cannot explain why he did not simply use that same Blackberry to contact this photographer and give her some instructions. Isn't that what a professional would do?

18 comments:

  1. Can't wait for part 2 - Woohoo!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My god, his modus operandi is like a broken record already: does he really need to write a War and Peace opus every time someone catches him in a fib? The machinations of this email exchange are painful. Rather than simply tell this photographer (a stranger who helped him out of a jam, mind you) that he fucked up and is sorry, he has to come up with a convoluted, 30-minute doctor appointment that morphs into a seven hour, five doctor ordeal. But of course! You could almost cut and paste his response to this helpful photographer into his response to the bride who never got her pictures. Same Rube Goldberg meandering.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The story amazes! He may be the most public failure in social media. All this history coming back to haunt him. And no doubt that there will be more. A lifetime of mistakes, missteps, and unending stupidity. I love it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. whould you hire this guy as a social media conultant? More like a case study of how not to manage your online brand.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just found this blog, but I've been watching him on SportsShooter for awhile. Does anybody remember when he was offering to teach photo workshops for people that involved a ton of traveling? Did anybody ever sign up for those? Did he ever follow through on them? Or did he just take the money and run?

    ReplyDelete
  6. ^ Took the money and ran, at least on one occasion.

    ReplyDelete
  7. hey dude, you really need to get a life. you have nothing better to do than bash someone, full-time? what did fish steal your high-school sweetheart?

    really, chill. it could be good for your mental health!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yeah really, why so mean? If you have issues with Fish, address them, but here?? C'mon!

    You end up looking like a very unhappy stalker with serious mental issues. Btw, who are you? You seem to be hiding behind this blog. We know who Fish is, why not present yourself?

    What are you afraid of?

    You may have been entertaining initially but now your rhetoric seems to have progressed into some sick witch hunt.

    Is your life that nasty for you? Have you missed your allocation of afternoon meds? Please tell us. We too, want to know your motives.

    If Fish did indeed steal your high-school sweetheart and this is how to "get back" at him, that's rather sad!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Uh, not if he's lying and defrauding people. He presents himself as a serious blogger - people listen to and act on his advice. If he's lying, that creates serious problems. Most people with customer service issues reach their customers long before hearing about it on the web. How did SF's problems get this out of hand? Why are there so many?

    ReplyDelete
  10. ^All "issues" with Fish are well known, Susie.

    The blog is basically writing itself at this point. People are emailing us links to his various message board tales and we're putting them up with snarky comments. Reading email after email from photographers who hate him is more time consuming, but the stories are truly hysterical. The way they describe him is the best. Still laughing over "two brains cells away from retarded... or possibly retarded."

    The reason all want to stay anonymous (including commenters) is that Fish is obviously off his rocker.

    Look how crazy he went attacking and harassing two innocent people when there was no proof whatsoever they were involved, and all they did was follow @fishfraud on Twitter. He went berserk. Can you imagine if he actually found out who was behind this site? He'd probably try to recruit one of his fanboy followers to kill us .... and then stiff them on the payment!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Nice to see Fish is on here commenting.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Isn't it interesting that Fish's "supporters" (aka his "wife") simply say we're cowards, mentally unsound, have no lives, etc? Why doesn't she argue with the actual content? That would be much more beneficial to their cause.

    So why is it that he had time to write ELEVEN message board posts over several days yet could not make a single call or email to a colleague (from a different message board) who was trying to track him down? Could it be that Frischling is irresponsible professionally?

    Why is it that the person he all but named as his alleged molester does not match the individual he previously described? Why is it that he first said his molester was given a light sentence and released, yet the guy he named was actually sentenced to 15 years in prison? Could it be that Frischling has a problem telling the truth?

    What is true?

    Happy Lying!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm sure he can speak for himself if nessasary.

    ReplyDelete
  14. As observers, FishFraud you are creepin' us out. Why are you SO obsessed with this? Why lower yourself to the level you claim Fish is at.

    Are you his secret lover? Did he not return your Valentine's Day wishes?? Get over it and move on. You're behavior is bordering on psychotic, Really, it's not worth the effort, unless of course this is all you have to do. If so, please get some help, for your own sake!

    ReplyDelete
  15. wow an online fight

    who is fish and who is the guy dumpin on fish

    ReplyDelete
  16. "happy lying"

    that is golden.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Photographers everywhere are canceling their cable subscriptions and waiting for the next installment of FishFraud

    ReplyDelete
  18. ^Thanks! Photographers will get a good laugh over what is coming up next!

    ReplyDelete