Hey Tamron Australia and Manfrotto Australia. Great products, I have some from both of you and I really like them. I love my Tamron 28-75 and my Manfrotto Tripod but very soon I won’t, because they won’t be part of my gear selection. My Tamron will be replaced by a Sony 24-70 and the Manfrotto will be replaced by something else, probably not a Gitzo because it’s the same company.

There is this little thing bothering me about the way you conduct your business and that’s the support for a photographer who has lied and cheated her way to a number of awards she didn’t deserve. She cheated other photographers out of the publicity they should have received, profited from it as a business and submitted entries that were clearly not allowed, and as a judge she would have known this, so she can’t plead ignorance. She didn’t accidentally submit entries into 80 competitions. She didn’t accidentally copy someone else’s designs. These are all conscious decisions she made that resulted in her winning money that should never be hers. She deprived other competitors of thousands of dollars worth of winnings.

Other brands have already dropped her, the right thing to do given the circumstances.

The AIPP and other institutions has taken a hard stance, disqualifying her from future competitions and taking away all her awards. The extent of her fraud is known as can be seen from the photostealers site.

So my questions to Tamron and Manfrotto is simple:

Why haven’t you done anything? Do you condone the behaviour or have you just been really slow to react? Is it because you’re friends with her, because surely professionalism and your business should come first? Surely ethics should be high on the list of your priorities for an ambassador? Are we to believe that Tamron and Manfrotto think it’s okay for this type of behaviour to occur? If this is a decision that was made in Australia, surely someone from the global brand should be looking at this and asking why she is still supported by them as a brand ambassador.