I had the pleasure of shooting these lovely ladies for the March issue of Self.  It was a fun day with lots of groovy tunes.

© 2012 Karen Pearson

© 2012 Karen Pearson

© 2012 Karen Pearson

PDN article on Retna here

I was a witness to the unfolding of Retna’s wrong doings.  It was a minor clerical mistake (CC instead of BCC) by an employee that caused the unravelling of their front.  A dialogue began between photographers revealing  similar problems — no statements, no checks, no communications, but apparent sales.  I thought my images just weren’t selling. When I inquired on the lack of statements, an employee told me I was getting a lot of sales from a particular image, Senator John McCain.  My 1099 reflects the election year with a disappointing amount of money.  So did someone in that company say, “Don’t pay them, don’t send them statements, just ignore them, we will take what profits we can and pay ourselves?” Where do we find a way to point a finger at the problem to be corrected.  How do you make a company tell the truth? Who takes responsibility in this matter, does it become a he said she said? If a mugger robbed this many people, he
would probably be doing time.  As proven by the banking situation and economic times, it seems to be true that companies have their own laws and rules they follow and are not held to the same morality as that of the average person.

“A street kid gets arrested, gonna do some time He got out three years from now just to commit more crime A businessman is caught with 24 kilos He’s out on bail and out of jail And that’s the way it goes Raah!”

-Grandmaster Flash, “white lines”.

A friend posted this article about this amateur photographer, Lee Jeffries.  I must say the images are moving, but so is this story.  This is a case of a natural born photographer.