There is a very unfortunate trend it seems with photography competitions worldwide. On the surface these competitions look great. They offer the people who enter chance to win an excellent prize (like a Canon EOS 30D or 5D plus lens). It all seems above board and fair enough, and the winner would no doubt see it as good value to get a camera in return for a photograph. But you have to look at the bigger picture.

It’s all about the value of a photograph. To an amateur, no matter how good the shot, it’s just eye candy. They can’t sell it (or don’t know otherwise) but they do want to be recognized as being good photographers. Competitions give them that opportunity. And with the amazing uptake of

[tag]digital photography[/tag] in the last decade or so, there are a lot of snappers around. Chances are some of them are going to be quite good at it as well. Just how many digital photographers there are in the world is of course impossible to even guess, but consider this. Infotech, a leading Research company estimates that there will be 100,000,000 digital cameras sold in 2007. That’s right – 100 million! It is also estimated that 80 BILLION new images are taken every year. It’s enough to make every photography student in the world consider changing career to accountantcy 🙁

So, there’s a lot of photographers out there. Of course the vast majority of these competitions are national, not worldwide. But let’s take one miserable little competition as an example. This one, randomly found on the net, is in the UK, on a website called computeractive. So let’s do some sums here. The UK has roughly 60 million people. Even considering only 5% of those are photographers with a digital camera (the figure would probably be more like 30%), that’s 3 million people. Let’s say three quarters of them don’t even go on the web (I bet 90% do). That narrows it down to 750,000 people. Let’s say only a quarter of those people will see the competition (and these competitions are heavily advertised), and only 10% of those people actually enter. I’m trying to be very conservative here to make a point. The total number of entries using those calculations is just under 20,000 entries. That’s 20,000 photographs. And people can only enter one, so they make it their best one. Let’s say about half of these people are kidding themselves and couldn’t take a good picture of Elle McPherson. That still leaves 10,000 very good pictures.

Now we need to read the fine print. Have a look at the terms and conditions (not online anymore) of entry in this particular competition, particularly point 7. Here it is here: By submitting your entry you agree to grant to VNU a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to store, use, edit, adapt, use, publish or otherwise reproduce and license or sublicense the storage, use, editing, adaptation, publication or reproduction of the Work in all forms and media (including but not limited to online publication on the internet), according to all rights granted to an author under the copyright and design rights laws of the UK, foreign countries and international copyright and design rights conventions. One entry per reader only.

Got that? They can do whatever they like with your photograph, worldwide for as long as they want. They can on sell it, they can edit it, whatever. So the reality of the situation is that they have bought themselves the rights to 10,000 excellent photographs for the miserable sum of ₤1500 (prize value) plus a few thousand quid (no doubt) of advertising. A few thousand dollars for 10,000 pictures. How much does that work out at? 30c per image? 40c? As far as I’m concerned that’s highway robbery. As far as a

[tag]professional photographer[/tag] is concerned, that’s a whole lot less work for him. Already many big companies are using stock images instead of hiring photographers. This just exacerbates the problem. No doubt the multi-nationals view it in a different way. How can we utilise the fact that there are millions of shooters out there with very flash digital cameras? How can we get the best shots they have without paying for them? I know, says one bright spark. Let’s run a competition and give away a camera (ironically, anyone who entered already had one).

I don’t know. I have nothing against someone winning a camera for giving away a good shot. If I lived in the UK I’d be tempted myself. But I think the terms and conditions are unjust and commercially, very very wrong. Good pictures have a value – even if they are taken by amateurs. Giving them away just makes it a whole lot harder for those who are trying to earn a living off taking great shots.