Competition or Stock

[steve_johnston9]

<p>Hello I am a professional portrait/wedding photographer, but I have quite a few travel photographs that have been taken over the years and just left on my hard drive. I was looking to do something with these photos, my thoughts were to either enter them into competitions, i.e. Reputable competitions, not one that takes your copyright and run or put them out to stock.<br>

From most of the agencies/ competitions I have read you can’t do both. Is there any benefit of entering competitions, have you heard of photographers winning getting additional benefits other than the main prize, i.e. the image being picked up directly by image purchasers, or additional contracts through raised profile?<br>

Or should I just put them out to stock and see if anyone bites? Serious answers please, I haven’t go time for people on this forum who just feel the need to slate other photographers.</p>

[terrygilroy]

<p>I haven’t go time for people on this forum who just feel the need to slate other photographers.<br>

Exactly what you are doing with this comment.</p>

[steve_johnston9]

<p><strong>I haven’t go time for people on this forum who just feel the need to slate other photographers.</strong><br /><strong> Exactly what you are doing with this comment.</strong><br>

No I'm just mearly pointing out, that there is a minority of people who are more interested in having a go at the questioner, in order to make themselves feel bigger. Or pick on one section of the questioner's post to make themselves feel superior, as you do.<br>

Unfortunately this forum is getting a reputation for this, and know of some photographers who have stopped using it for this reason. I am not prepared to stop using this forum because of this, as there is a larger majority who are prepared to be helpful. I'm sorry you feel that you can't be part of that larger group.</p>

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[Charles_Webster]

<p>I don't understand that it's an either/or situation.</p>

<p>You can't you submit your pictures to a stock agency, while still entering them in competitions?</p>

<p>Frankly, I don't see any benefit to competitions. Unless you win one of the 3 or 4 big ones, you aren't going to see any benefit. But I don't see much benefit to submitting travel photos for stock unless you have traveled to truly unique places.</p>

<p>Before submitting to a stock library, search to see how much of their stuff is like yours. That'll give you an idea of your chances for making sales.</p>

<p>Search here for the many replies to the "can I make money off my photos with stock" question.</p>

<p><Chas></p>

[enlightened-images]

<p>I've never seen a contest where the rules said anything about restricting sales of any entered image(s). Do you have links to a couple that you could share. Are these real 'artsy-type' competitions?</p>

[steve_johnston9]

<p>I am referring to the fact that many stock libraries such as Getty want exclusive rights to the images. I may have got this wrong, but I have assumed that entering the images into competitions would contravene this exclusivity cause, as the competitions require the right to be able to publish the images free of charge to promote the competition in the future.</p>

[mariosforsos]

<p>First get your images accepted by Getty (or any of the other larger agencies). Second, WIN all those competitions you seem so certain of winning and THEN, if the rules of the competition state you cannot offer your images elsewhere (something I've never seen stated), then you can remove those images from the site.</p>

<p>There are, to my knowledge, but a few, VERY few international competitions which offer the POTENTIAL for SOME sort of publication deal for the winners, but those usually tend to be EXTREMELY hard to win by some travel shots taken some time ago gathering virtual dust in a computer - they tend to be highly focused story-telling approaches.</p>

<p>I truly hope you win - I just thing you should approach the whole thing with a bit of humility first before worrying what's gonna happen if you win one of the most prestigious competitions in the world. It's kinda like worrying what security system you're gonna install on the garage you're gonna have to buy when you win that Ferarri at a worldwide competition...win first, worry later. Competition rules are ALWAYS clear, so you'll know in advance and you'll be able to make up your mind...</p>

[steve_johnston9]

<p><strong>I just thing you should approach the whole thing with a bit of humility first before worrying what's gonna happen if you win one of the most prestigious competitions in the world</strong><br>

I didn't say I was going to win and I don’t believe I am approaching this with any arrogance. The simple fact is I don’t want to endanger my good reputation by getting myself disqualified from a competition or breaking stock agency rules. It’s simply being professional. I’m not quite sure how this implies <strong>arrogance,</strong> to me this implies <strong>professionalism.</strong></p>

[Charles_Webster]

<p>Exclusivity to a stock agency means just that you cannot submit them for sale anywhere else.</p>

<p>You should not give up your right to use them or enter them in competitions when you sign up.</p>

<p><Chas></p>

[steve_rasmussen]

<p>Be careful out there folks, this is a moderated forum. Quid pro quo personal attacks are not something that is acceptable here.</p>

<p>The problem with competitions is that one has to compete with what I call the "lucky shot club". Thousand of average shooters submit their lucky shot and frankly, these competitions are harder to win than being published by the more traditional means. I suggest marketing your own shots, over using a stock agency to do it. This has worked best for me.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>I have contracts with both Getty and Corbis, together with a couple of other agencies. I do not believe that entering an accepted image ( or a defined similar ) to an accepted image would breach agreements with them. I do think that such agreements will often prevent you from <strong>licencing </strong>such an image or similar to anyone apart from through the stock agency. So beware the competition that requires you to provide the competition operators or their agents a licence to use the image, even only in connection with the competition. That would I believe, even if no consideration applied, risk breaching many stock agency agreements.</p>

<p>There are agencies that accept images on a non-exclusive basis, though these tend not to be the larger players on a rights managed sales model.</p>

<p>I don't necessarily agree with Steve's suggestion that its better to market images yourself. This might be the case if you have a strong specialism and good knowledge of how to reach a limited target market. Or a long-standing relationship with clients who can buy reasoanble volumes. But starting fron scratch in 2010 with a general travel portfolio and marketing it yourself is a likely recipe for a lot of work in building and marketing your website and little return. When you have another business it's doubtful IMO whether most people could make this work. </p>

<p>That said, as at least one person above has indicated, the travel market is grossly over-supplied. This means that the better agencies with the broadest distribution are really rather hard to get into and even then sales are often not high. In general the harder to get into , and the more selective, the better the return per image they do take. </p>

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