My name is Ayoka Thompson I am a fashion photographer. I woke up on Sunday 21st of August 2016 to see one of my works on the cover of Vanguard allure. I have been anticipating this for months so you can imagine my excitement as much as I was happy my excited drowned when I discovered that a media brand as Vanguard allure used my photographs of Toyin Lawani as the cover and inside story without giving me credit. In fact by context they gave their in house photographer my credit, this happen often times, we find our contents everywhere without proper credit and when we approach some of these media houses they apologize and make corrections immediately but some are adamant and feel they are doing us a favor by stealing our creative rights.
That said, I went on my Instagram page @ayokathompson to express how bad and discouraged I felt as the magazine was released nationally and the thought of all the people that came across it without knowing the rightful owner of the picture filled my head, the damage has been done. International magazines such as Vogue, Bazaar and Allure to mention a few pay photographers well for cover photos and still credit them. But here in this country it is not so, we find media houses even though they are aware of copyright laws committing this offense and they even have no money to pay for the hard work done.
I was working all through Sunday on a film location set. When I got back to my hotel room I sent the Vanguard Allure team an email notifying them of the situation the most disappointing thing that happened was the reply they sent to me attached bellow. I was surprised that instead of offering an apology and making efforts to remedy the situation I was told my pictures were not used illegally. I was forced to point their attention to the fact that they actually used another of my pictures illegally i.e. the pictures I took of Sen. Ita Giwa which went viral on the internet several weeks back, I did not give them the consent to use this image neither did they ask for the permission to use it.
I then realized that must be the way they operate victimizing young and upcoming photographers and creative content providers like me. But the truth is the fact that my brand is a growing one does not give Vanguard Allure the right to use my intellectual properties indiscriminately and unapologetic-ally. I feel victimized, cheated and the need to let people know that it is not Oscar Ochiogu that took the cover photos and inside story photos for the vanguard Allure magazine dated August 21 2016.
In their defense the creative editor Nelly Mesik stated that he was not given the credits by Toyin Lawani's publicist but I find this even more discomforting. I started wondering how a journalist could even think of saying that; is it not his job as a journalist and a creative director to collate all relevant and necessary information needed including the photos before the article goes to the editor and gets published?
