Another time photographers should exercise caution is when they enter a contest. Photo contests can be a great way to get recognition for your work (and even win some prizes in the process). Unfortunately, many companies use photos contests to collect images cheaply for marketing and advertising purposes.
What these contests do is commonly referred to as a "rights grab." The sponsor designs the contest rules so that just by submitting an image—even if you don't win the contest—you grant the sponsor the right to use your image for any purposes without paying you. Therefore, when you submit your beautiful sunset shot to one of these contests, it can end up in a huge advertising campaign and you don't get a dime for it. Some contests add insult to injury by charging you for entering photos.
Read the rules or terms carefully before entering any contest so that you know what rights you are granting to the contest sponsors. The same language as identified above, such as "copyright transfer" or "unlimited license," are clues that the contest sponsors are taking more rights than you may want to grant to them.
Because these rights grabs contests are rampant, the Pro-Imaging organization has prepared a list of rules that it believes are appropriate and fair for photo contests. You can review Pro-Imaging's "Bill of Rights for Competitions" at pro-imaging.org. Pro-Imaging also maintains a list of photo competitions that meet its Bill of Rights standards and a list of those that don't.
Online sharing sites and contests make it fun and easy to share your photos and to get recognition for your work. Just make sure that you don't take uninformed risks that could ruin those rewards.
[Carolyn E. Wright is a licensed attorney dedicated to the legal needs for photographers. Get the latest in legal information at Carolyn's website, photoattorney.com. These and other legal tips for photographers are in Carolyn's book, The Photographer's Legal Guide, available on her website.]
Don't think that if you've transferred Grandma Sonia's photo albums or Uncle Howard's home movies onto digital files that you've preserved them, says Katie Trainor, head of the Museum of Modern Art archives, a repository of 26,000 films in Hamlin, Pa., just east of Scranton.
"Because of the quick obsolescence of equipment, who knows if new technology will be able to 'play' an old movie in five to 10 years?" Trainor says.
"The physical DVD or CD is not a stable, long-term media for preservation," says Grover Crisp, senior vice president of asset management for Sony Pictures. "One of the few ways to make sure you have files for the future is to constantly access them, make sure they work, and migrate them to newer and, hopefully, better media."
"And don't throw out the original film or photograph," Trainor advises.
In her capacity as cofounder of the Center for Home Movies, Trainor finds that "once people transfer their home movies to digital, they often throw out the original material. But that CD it's stored on might get scratched. So, keep that film or negative, keep it cool and dry."
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning photo from Sept. 7, 1965, a Vietnamese mother and her children wade across a river, fleeing a bombing raid on Qui Nhon by United States aircraft.
Newspapers get in trouble for their choice of photos — the Russell Williams front-page pairing in his favourite outfit and then in military uniform is one example — which amazes me, being a wordster.
I notice that the editor asks in the news meeting every morning, "Are we pictured up?" It's terrifically important that a front page be instantly graphically interesting, a punch in the attention gland for the jaded Toronto reader still searching in the morning for his head which seems to have gone missing as the children howl and the bus to work roars past, untaken.
He doesn't say, "Are we worded up?" because he naturally assumes that great clumps of words are already coming out, like a cement mixer with its funnel aimed at a great big empty.
See, I could just have said "hole." But I didn't. Writers are so special.
But the fact is that even as news photographers rage that their profession is disappearing, they are as crucial as they ever were. Before, you had to paint the news. That's why in art galleries, most portraits show people sitting down. Painting and posing, so dreadfully tiring. Then came photos, TV, colour TV, online, and YouTube and beyond. News photographers are panicked that only moving images can win, that if a skateboarder isn't filmed slamming his crotch directly into a concrete pillar, it might as well not have happened.
GEORGE LESSARD
Information, Communications and Media Specialist
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