Last November 14, I joined the Headshot Clinic Project OneYouth shoot sponsored by Globe Tattoo at Cava! in Somerset Hotel, Makati. So I trooped there, was handed a number and a release form (pretty much signing away my rights to use of my face from that shoot), and waited for Niccolo Cosme of Project Headshot Clinic to finish setting up.

We had to decide what advocacy to support: poverty eradication, improvement of education, gender equality and women’s rights, maternal and child welfare, combating communicable diseases, and environmental sustainability. Our advocacies would appear in our headshots. I chose Education because I believe a lot of problems in society are caused by ignorance, lack of ability for independent and analytical thought, and improper civic socialization — all of which can be remedied by proper education.

It was a very simple shoot, with a painted backdrop, one or two light sources, and a bounce board. From what I understand, Niccolo post-processes Headshot Clinic photos a certain way to give them a hyper-real look. He’s already done many other ones, like the One World series which featured my friend Luke, and most recently and prominently UNAIDS MOVE for AIDS awareness, which our very own YogaJane was part of.

We were told that we would be emailed a download link to our photos during the December 2009 launch of the Youth Vote online forums. We were asked to upload our headshots immediately to our social media accounts so that people would be pointed toward the forums. The forums would facilitate discussion leading to the creation of the OneYouth Manifesto, containing the advocacies supported by the youth to be presented to future leaders. It was a very noble cause indeed.

photo by Niccolo Cosme

The photos turned out great, and the shoot was a success. Niccolo was very easy to please and I was done in less than two minutes. I met the lovely Hannah (of Flaircandy.com) there, and she has one of the most beautiful photos from the set, which you can view at the Globe Tattoo website.

The only failing? Lack of follow-through and coordination among the agencies involved. When December rolled around, the Youth Vote forums still hadn’t been launched, our photos hadn’t been uploaded, and Headshot Clinic was busy promoting MOVE. I was finally able to download a low-res version of my photo when the Tattoo website finally updated with our photos on December 15.

Last week, the Globe OneYouth team sent me an email:

Dear OneYouth Ambassador,

Good day!

We have just uploaded your OneYouth Headshot photo online. Your photo contains the advocacy that you support, along with other information about you. Your photo is now free for you to download at the Globe Tattoo site.

To grab your photo from the OneYouth gallery, follow these steps:

• Log in to the Globe Tattoo site with your username and password
• Visit the OneYouth gallery
• Click on “View All” button on the right-hand side of the site.
• Type your name on the search box.
• Grab your widget at the Flash pop-up.

Thank you for your support of OneYouth, and we hope you enjoy your photos. See you guys soon!

Even here I encountered a road block. The website requires a valid email address to release my widget, but won’t accept the email address I supplied them with (which was the email address they sent that message to). I can’t even email the OneYouth team to ask for help, because they sent their email from a noreply address. I’m not even sure if there really is any effective discussion taking place on the Youth Philippines online forum, because the website is so darned hard to navigate.

I hate to come down on Globe like this, but this was a FAIL from my viewpoint. I’m writing this post now because I’m frustrated and I have no idea to whom to address my concerns. I mean, seriously, I signed away rights to my likeness from that shoot, only to have it misused this way? Hay nako…

Tags: Globe Tattoo, Headshot Clinic, OneYouth, Fail

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