Certain backpacking mag photo contest bl ows

“No, Sequoia, not your photo contest...

As a photographer who has on occasion sold one or two photos, I feel I must speak out on this. I see that for the second month in a row, Backpacker mag is promoting a photo contest on its website. Win and you get your photo in the mag and some cheap-ass prizes!

The contest, its rules and its prizes show that Backpacker mag has little respect for working photographers>> Those who depend on selling photos to make a living. Prizes totaling approximately $25 is nothing compared to their regular rates of pay to photographers.

Here is what their "contributor's guidelines" on the website say about pay for photography:
Cover photos: $550 to 800
Photo use inside magazine: $100 to 400 (depends upon size and placement)
Assignment day rate: $450 to 500

You think a $25 prize is something?? It's nothing... and you're taking the meal from a photographer who needs to sell his/her work to eat and live. It's nothing compared to at least $100 for a published photo.

Also, this is perhaps the worst part: "Entries, including any print, slide or digital image, cannot be acknowledged or returned and become the sole property of Rodale upon receipt." (Bold added here)

Pro photographers will tell you to NEVER let anyone buy all rights to your photo. NEVER... well unless it's worth it, say $2,000... $10,000... whatever. Here, "the company" wants to take any future earnings from that photo away from you for either a measley $25 prize... or for nothing, if you're not the winner during the set month.

If you enter that contest, don't even think about putting "your" photo in a company newsletter. You may not have won, but that photo is no longer YOURS.

This is such a rinky-dink, cheap-ass way of doing business, I'm appalled. And I encourage no one to enter. If anything, make your feelings known on this.

I was not happy to see this contest run in June, but I wanted to wait and see if it was a one-time deal. Apparently not. Apparently this is the new, cheap way the magazine cuts it budget and rips off photographers, all at the same time.

I'll look up and provide a link to a website that talks about companies that run such photo contests”

“Rodale sucks isn't anything new. That's why most of us are here.”

“Thanks, Lizs, for educating me. I was ignorant about that whole situation.

Rodale sucks moose turds!”

“Examples of the rights that best help photographers. Taken from various photo contest sites:

---This one's from another magazine, Hooked on the Outdoors. Note the great difference in their policy compared with Backpacker mag:

RULES:

The contest is open to any amateur photographer. Do not send pictures that you didn't take, or someone else has rights to. Do not send pictures exceeding 500KB in file size. Subject matter should be outdoor related. Any recognizable people should be model-released. Photos will be judged on the following criteria: visual impact and overall quality.Hooked on the Outdoors/ ruhooked.com is granted non-exclusive rights to display the photos on the Internet through our on-line gallery and in our archives. Ownership of the images remains with the photographer. Other uses will be negotiated. (Bold added)

Other contests:

---Ownership/Use Rights
Photographers retain the copyright to their photographs. By entering the contest, photographers agree to have their submitted photograph displayed on the Maine.gov website without any fee or other form of compensation, and agree that InforME may display winning photos in a "past winners" photo gallery and in the Maine.gov "e-postcard" service, and may make and retain copies of the photograph for archival purposes. Posted photos will be subject to the Maine.gov website photo use policy. Photos will be credited to the photographer named in the entry form. Entries (including non-winning entries) may be selected for display or use in other Maine state government web pages, with permission from the photographer. Entrants agree that InforME may contact them to obtain permission for use of photos in this way. Entries will never be used by InforME in any manner for advertising or sale. In the event that ownership of any photograph submitted to InforME is contested in any manner, InforME retains the discretion to disqualify that photograph and discontinue use of the photograph.

---Feeling competitive lately? Usefilm.com and digi-labs.net are sponsoring a photo contest. The best series of 5 flower photographs wins 5 custom printed calendars of your images. The photographer retains all rights etc. Contest ends March 1, 2003. There is no prize for second place, so let’s see your best stuff!

---3. The Department of Environmental Protection has non-exclusive rights to use and publish the photograph on its website or in publications in conjunction with this contest. The Department also may use the photograph in other Department publications to promote Florida State Parks, such as on its website, in state park brochures, in magazines, distribution of Desktop Wallpaper, and for other similar marketing and promotional uses. The Department recognizes that I, or the person I designate, owns the image or any copyright to the photograph.

---Your entry grants PhotoFocus and Olympic Mountain School of Photography the non-exclusive right to publish such entry in our publications and any of our advertising campaigns. We also reserve the right to use these images in any exhibition and promotions directly relating to PhotoFocus or Olympic Mountain School of Photography. You retain all copyright to your images.”

“I saw that contest on their site Lizs....when I read the words
"become the sole property of Rodale " I thought...what a rip.

I e-mailed them about the possibility of putting me on their monthly call list for photos several months ago...
they never even responded to the e-mail.”

“Well, it's a good thing that I wasn't going to send in a pic.”

“Isn't that also true for anything that's POSTED on their forum? It believe it all becomes Property of Rodale... so they can lift anything they want and stick it in the mag. I've had a couple of comments wind up in the magazine that way.

So now I'm thinkin'.... if they re-do their forum at some future date to allow for the display of images, would they also become Property of Rodale?”

“well there is also the more active way of protesting this crap - send them a lot of really carppy pictures that you don't give a damn about - or for that matter assorted moon shots and other signs of displeasure.”

“Lizs must have lost in the first month of the contest!

LOL.”

“Look at the time of the initial posting. Possibly after a Friday night on the town, anger rising after a few drinks, lizs heads rapidly back to the office computer determined to show them a piece of her mind. Hmmmm, wonder if she posted on the other site, too.

LOL”

“Wow... Look at the large smoking hole in the ground where Nowslimmer was standing a second ago...

LMAO”

“LOL @ Tilt
Thats what I was thinking when I read his posts...goodbye NS!!
And I never even got to meet him!
lol”

“Sometimes when you're right, you're wrong.”

“Tilt, you have confused the two "l" gals! I don't turn people into newts or zap them into oblivion.

Wasn't out drinking either. Washing clothes is more like it. LOL!

You do find contests that ask for all rights to photos. And people/forums that know photography will tell you not to enter them. But what about the people that don't know all the legal-ese of photography?

Sometimes these type contests will give you a pretty decent grand prize (although, again, weigh that against losing all rights to a fabulous photo and its potential to bring you income).

What really bothers me is that Backpacker has now offered this contest two months in a row... for piddly winnings. And they take all rights, so if you sent in what amounts to the second-place photo, it's probably going to show up in that magazine one, two, or 14 months down the road. Yet you get nothing. You don't get the $100 minimum fee for photographs mentioned on their contributor's guide. Nada. Nil. Zilch is what you get.

So Backpacker appears to be using this as a way to stockpile some potentially really great photos for its magazine. It's cheap -- and wrong.

No, I have not posted this on "the other side." I'd like to write more of an open letter to them, not angry, but stating my feelings and asking why they seem to show no respect for photographers and if their budget has been cut a lot.”

“My photo contest rocks! lol

I'll be posting the winner over on the other site in an hour or so :)”

“Here's a story from the world of PHOTO RIGHTS. I had a Midwest weekend travel story in the Des Moines Register a few years back. It was accompanied by a photo, for which I think they paid some paltry amount, like $10 (to contrast, the Waterloo Courier paid $25/photo and the Minneapolis Star/Tribune paid, umm, I think it was $50)

Anyhoo... maybe a year later, they had an article on the Mississippi River in a different editorial section. There was MY photo -- now called a "Des Moines Register file photo" -- illustrating the article.

I got on the horn, called them and asked the photo editor what was up with that. He explained that all photos from correspondents become property of the Register. Apparently to run at whim, without further pay. Hmmm... I can't remember if they took exclusive rights or not.

I never had a contract with them so didn't know all that. Had I, I would never have given -- and I do mean GIVEN -- them my photo to use forever for $10.

Individual, indepedent freelance photographers and writers fight to keep the rights to their work and yet get decent pay. It's a continuous battle. Seems Backpacker mag is taking advantage of that, as well as photographers who don't know legal rights.”

“lizs - Did you post this message over on Backpacker?
You should, you might just get to join Ed. LOL”

“LOL! Exactly. Well, I'm pretty darn sure (like 100% sure) that Ed is posting over there. ;-)”

“Right on, StoveStomper.

Lizs, it's the American way.

Hmmmm! This is turning into a political thread.”

“Yep. How many Second Place photos might they glom on to? Could it be more than a hundred every month, now Property of Rodale in perpetuity?

Sure sounds like a scam to me.


I suppose the real fun might begin if you sold one of those photos to someone else later....”

“Can't they just take selections from Webshots?

Second Place?”

“Washing clothes on a Friday night would set me to drinking.

LOL”

“NS, you are just too spunky today. What gives?? :-)”

“Ya definitely have to be careful about releasing ownership of your pictures. It's not a good idea unless you're being paid ridiculous amounts of money -- and even then you may want to consider why you are being offered ridiculous amounts of money for the picture and consider alternatives.

That being said, Most of these pictures are being completely released to Rodale for free, and one winner (I don't even know how that's being determined) gets a $25-dollar prize? They're going to have to do much better than that if they want ownership of my picture. I guess that for most amateurs, the idea of getting published sounds so cool that they completely forget about legal considerations.”

“Lizs - It's just that I am reminded of you everytime I come across a pretty girl, while searching for something on the Internet.”

“Wow, I always knew Rodale was slightly slimey but here they seem to think that being published in their crummy mag is kudos enough. Not only do they obtain copyrights to the picture but the financial "prize" is pathetic. How about $500 worth of gear or something like that? I bet their gear storeroom is overflowing with stuff. That's just pathetic. I'm glad I stopped subscribing about two years ago since they seem to be getting so greedy with all the cashing in their doing on the backpacking trend. You can bet I'm not gonna tell them about a single one of my "secret" trails. Feck off, eh?

Way to go Liz a.k.a. Howard Clark!”

“And not just the rights to the winner's photo but to EVERY photo.”

“I'm with you on this one Lizs. I'm going to flood 'em with my porno collection (you don't mind do you?).”

“Go ahead Snake Eyes, I know the rest of us want to sit back and watch!”

“I'm sure their eyes will burn with those photos of your ma. yeeech!”

“Would bpacker mag pay me $100 for this shot? I know at least one person that really likes it . . . lol!

”

“damned red x!!!

http://community.webshots.com/photo/131317464/131341583GuQEYw "target="_blank">well how about this?”

“Talk about thread degradation.”

“Just thank God those threads AREN'T degraded.”