Complaint Review: Seth Sabal Studio - New York New York

I've been sick for years thinking about what photographer Seth Sabal did posing as The New York Photo Group. I was his "studio manager".  That basically involved scouring the wanna-be model web sites like One Model Place and Model Mayhem introducing ourselves as one of the "top photo studios in New York".  everyone who knows Seth knows this is a joke.  We would invite the models to castings, pretending that Seth was shooting for a big fashion magazine.  Once they showed up of course,  we would act as if they weren't that great, but if they are lucky and had the money we could create t he portfolios for them that would get them noticed.  we would basically hurt their self esteem and manipulate them into paying us a lot of money for a test.  We would also get them to bring their friends to "make-up parties"  where they had to pay to have their makeup done, promising access to agencies and possible jobs if they played it right.  standard bait and switch.

One thing Seth was really good at was manipulating the young desperate girls.  sometimes he did this by lying about his portfolio, claiming that he worked for W magazine and Numero.  That was his most popular lie. Other times he did it by feeding the girls drugs and alcohol.  He likes cocaine a lot.  It didn't matter how old the girls were either.  One time there was a 17 year old in the studio and he got her to drink most of a bottle of limoncello.  I'm not sure if he got her to have sex with him, but her certainly got her naked.  He had a routine where he would tell the girls that their underwear was getting in the way of the shot and to take them off, but that no one would see anything.  No one did except for Seth.  he would secretly shoot open leg "crotch shots" of the girls, which is why he always refused to show the models any digital images right after the shoot, only days later after editing.  He has a huge collection of these shots, and if you ever shot with him he probably has one of you too.  It's disgusting.

He even had a room with a mattress in the back of the studio where he always tried to take girls after getting them really messed up.  An agent at Women Model Management said that he got one of their young russian models to have sex with him.  Months later when she was at the shows in Paris, he showed up at the hotel where the model agency kept a suite like a complete stalker and the girl was horrified and embarrassed.  The agent had to get Seth kicked out of the hotel.  he followed her to Europe!

It made me angry, but at the time I was living with him and doing drugs, and he didn't let me handle any money, so he basically owned and supported me so I didn't have a  choice.  Of course now that sounds pathetic.  But it was, and I'm a better person now that I'm away from him.

I am posting this information on this site because we used it in the past to post false stories about certain photographers that Seth thought of as competition.  Some of the photographers were from the amateur model websites, and some were NYC based fashion photographers who were working with the legitimate model agencies doing paid tests.  they were good and making money and Seth was jealous.  We got a few models who really wanted to shoot with Seth to make up nasty stories about these photographers and post them to this site.  If they did, he would in turn shoot them for free, and they felt like they were part of something.  The rest of the posts Seth wrote himself.  He learned about this site originally because some model posted a story about him, complaining about her test and the prints.  And he thought he could use it to his advantage to get "rid of his competition".  He actually bragged about this to a booker friend of his at Elite models.  That wasn't a smart move because the guy stopped using him after that.  It's ironic that now this website is being used to expose his compulsive lies.

Another of his scams was to tell agencies that he was shooting a big job with a huge budget so they would send famous models to the studio.  At this fake casting, he would try to shoot them for real and use the pictures in his portfolio, which is totally unethical.  He was trying to give the impression to the public that he was actually of the caliber to shoot these girls.  The agencies caught on pretty soon after the bookers questioned who Seth was to have such an big budget job.  That was the end of that.  

One year he also gave iPods to all the model bookers that he worked with, and a whole lot of top models that he was kissing up to.  He told them that he worked for Apple and shot the ads so he got the iPods for free, but that was such a big joke and lie.  He really just maxed out his AMEX.  

Seth really is the worst that humanity has to offer.  I hear so many horror stories about him in the years since.  Models should not trust him, agencies should stay away, and photo reps should know better that to damage their own reputations by working with him.