Exposé:The Shady Business of Fashion.

A friend shared this link with me. In essence, here is her except.

I’m not the first victim of Terry Richardson, one of the world’s most notable ( I’d say notorious) photographers. He has shot Obama, Lil Wayne, Megan Fox, Kate Moss and many world-wide known celebrities and models. He has tried to trade sexual favors for a photo-shoot with him. 

Would you fuck for fame? 

Keeping it Real,

Jade Griffin xoxo

At first, with those small screen shots i thought this was a funnyhumour.com sorta thing that my friend shared. One of those made-up-stories. I squinted and read through the screen shots, looked up the flickr account mentioned. Lo and behold, Jade IS real and very pretty.

Then i looked up Terry Richardson, still doubting the realism, thinking this is a joke, personal vendetta or malicious rumors. Instead of going to boring Wikipedia descriptions, i found Jennifer Wright who wrote a much more interesting profiling.

Terry Richardson is famous for his outrageous antics and infamous fun on sets...

He recently photographed a lesbian fashion orgy for Purple Magazine. It’s eye-catching. It was also photographed without Terry getting nudity approval from the model’s agents, which was kind of surprising, but at least one model on the shoot says that the nudity happened organically. A few days ago, Abby Kershaw remarked to the Times UK:

“Terry doesn’t force girls to do anything they don’t want to. He puts you in a G-string in a pile of mud because you want to do it. You touch yourself because you want to. For me, that shoot was the truth about how things were between us both, and I felt good doing it. I’m not ashamed of it — why should I be?”

That's Terry, clothed.

Jen then spilled more and thought his work to be exploitive of women. Especially after German model Rie Ramussen called him out.

“He takes girls who are young, manipulates them to take their clothes off and takes pictures of them they will be ashamed of. They are too afraid to say no because their agency booked them on the job and are too young to stand up for themselves….His ‘look’ is girls who appear underage, abused, look like heroin addicts . . . I don’t understand how anyone works with him….I told him, “what you do is completely degrading to women. I hope you know you only fuck girls because you have a camera, lots of fashion contacts and get your pictures in Vogue.” Instead of arguing with me, Terry ran out of the bar. Then the next day, he called my agency and complained I called him names in front of clients in Paris. It was the most cowardly thing I have ever seen.” Page Six

Fellow Gloss writer, Jamie Peck who is a damn good writer who wrote a very candid, honest and detailed post about her experience with Terry.

I'm not a model, just a vain girl with nice tits who likes to pose for the occasional cheesecake photo. I modeled for Terry Richardson when I was 19. And guess what? I felt bad about it. Of all the fine folks I’ve frolicked au naturel for, he’s the only one who’s left me feeling like I needed to take two showers. 

He asked me to call him Uncle Terry and i obliged...

Uncle Terry was feeling frisky that day! I told him i had my period so i wanted to keep my underwear on, and he asked me to take my tampon out for him to play with. “I love tampons!” he said, in that psychotically upbeat way that temporarily convinces so many girls that what’s fun for Uncle Terry is fun for them....... I politely declined his offer to make tea out of my bloody cunt plug. It was then that he decided to just get naked.

Before I could say “whoa, whoa, whoa!” dude was wearing only his tattoos and waggling the biggest dick I’d ever seen dangerously close to my unclothed person (granted, I hadn’t seen very many yet)....

So his assistants took pictures of me taking pictures of him. All the while, he was dropping names like they were hot, casually mentioning his upcoming Miu Miu shoot with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Billy Crudup, wondering aloud if he could get the kid from Elephant to model, and suggesting I come upstate with him and his fab celebufriends. I wish I could say this didn’t impress me, but I was fucking 19 and nerdy as hell, okay?

I’m not sure how he maneuvered me over to the couch, but at some point he strongly suggested I touch his terrifying penis. Who the heck specifically requests a handjob, that most unpopular of sex acts......Not that I would’ve preferred him to request anything else.....

This is where I zoom out on the situation. I can remember doing this stuff, but even at the time, it was sort of like watching someone else do it, someone who couldn’t possibly be me because I would never touch a creepy photographer’s penis. The only explanation I can come up with is that he was so darn friendly and happy about it all, and his assistants were so stoked on it as well, that I didn’t want to be the killjoy in the room. My new fake friends would’ve been bummed if I’d said no.

I must have said something about finals, because he told me, “if you make me come, you get an A.” So I did! Pretty fast, I might add. All over my left hand. His assistant handed me a towel. 

I honestly did not expect to find a picture of him caught-in-action.

As they I say, the pen keyboard is mightier than a sword. Jamie's blog account took on a life on it's own on social media and soon traditional print picked it up. Terry Richardson then made a statement replying to the furore of unsavory comments about him.

I just want to take a moment to say I’m really hurt by the recent and false allegations of insensitivity and misconduct. I feel fortunate to work with so many extraordinary people each and every day. I’ve always been considerate and respectful of the people I photographand I view what I do as a real collaboration between myself and the people in front of the camera. To everyone who has embraced and supported me and my work, I am so grateful. Thank you, it means a lot.

Caption reads: "Pornography, art or blatant self-obsession, call it what you will.
Whatever way you look at it, you've got to admire his balls."

 So is it true? Or is Terry a black sheep of the industry?

A fairly famous photographer friend of mine did tell me before that in China, the Chinese models do sleep with photographers for that shot of fame.

Does it happen in Singapore? Did Zoe Tay or Fann Wong sleep with the judge to win Talent Search in the hay days? I poked around and probed the industry people but some told me "nah...Singapore's pretty clean" and some replied, "no comment". With my imaginative mind, that answer usually MEANS SOMETHING, right?

A mature friend (that means a decade older than me) once told me that, "Sex only means something to you when you're young. As you get older, it doesn't mean much. It's then a sport that you casually engage in."

And it's true, as Pringles say, "Once you Pop, you can't Stop."

Except, it would be silly to sleep with a photographer for that shot of fame that is not yet bagged. After all, Sex Can't Be REFUNDED.


A photographer friend introduced me Modelmayhem.com. He said it was a great site for collaborations between photographers, models, make-up artists, stylists and digital visualizers. Granted, talent can be discovered via portals like MySpace and blogs but i haven't heard Modelmayhem shooting anyone to fame. Where Professional Models Meet Model Photographers is a misleading tag line when an option to choose when filling up your profile was "not experienced."

Most people use this site to TFCD (trade for CD) which means the model gives her/him time, body and face while the photographer return her/him with a CD of her pictures to use for a portfolio. There are more women than men in there, perhaps the hunger to be a supermodel is more evident for females.

They ARE professional photographers in there like my friend who do shoot for fashion magazines covers.

But it's a fair share of gorgeous faces as well as the CMI (cannot make it) faces as well as debatable men who use photography to mask ulterior motives. ModelMayhem.com borderlines on being a soft core porn site. Plenty of "artistic" nude pictures there that are debatable on its appeal.

From modelmayhem member.

As human beings crave attention, everybody wants to be famous, even for 15 seconds. I have to admit that i had a Modelmayhem account (now defunct) because i was secretly hoping to be the next discovered star.

That one big job never came, all i got were proposals to pose naked by hobbyists. Some had impressive portfolios, some were downright disgraceful. The amounts offered were tempting. $200 an hour, more than what a dentist would earn! I rejected immediately, and they would counter-offer with lingerie then bikini. I guess they wanted me badly.

Some "photographers" would turn nasty when i decline a shoot, saying "You don't know what you're missing".  Some would say "i'm too difficult" when i start probing on the location of the studio and conditions.

A friend told me he tagged along on a shoot and the photographer started masturbating in front of him and the female model meant to do implied nude.

I wrote about my experiences here and whilst i didn't reveal before, one of the unknown photographer allowed me to access my pictures via his password locked portal. When i logged in, i saw folders of different girls names. Whilst i was in swimwear, the other girls (not difficult to crack his code) were in g-strings and even nude.

I was young and foolish, but thankfully such mistakes didn't do much damage.

Why isn't someone as pretty as Jade not making it? Is it really true that a model need to sleep to the top? How then do the photographers themselves get famous?

Maybe they do it by discovering a talent before an agent does? Or shoot controversial pictures like Terry Richardson does?

Richard titled it Sunburnt.

Rie Ramussen may call him out, but she too has something similar.

Whether you shoot for personal satisfaction or have sex for the sheer enjoyment, just know that you do it on your own terms and not be coerced into anything.

But for me, i guess i'll never shoot nude unless it's for Chanel, in the next life time.