Oregon Wild Photo Contest - What Do You Think

Several weeks back there was a post about a photo contest that claimed unlimited rights to use all entered images after the contest. People were split on whether they would enter the contest or not.

Today I had a similar dilemma. I was contacted by Oregon Wild with an invite to enter their annual contest. Below is my response to them. Am I off base here? I'd love to hear what you all think.

Hi Oregon Wild,

I took another look at the contest and remembered that I had seen it last year and decided not to enter based on rule number 9 in the official contest rules:

"Entrants grant Oregon Wild permission to use their photo(s) in any publication, marketing or fundraising materials and on the Oregon Wild web site. All photos used will receive captioning where allowed."

I greatly support the work that Oregon Wild does and appreciate the fact that it is a small, grassroots organization. However, as a professional photographer who supports his family by selling and licensing his photography, I count on being paid when my photos are used in "publications, marketing and fund raising materials". That is the entire basis for my business. While I often work with environmental organizations and try to find a fair price for use of my photos that fits within the budget, I am not able to simply give my photos away for unlimited use. I do enter many photography competitions. I'm OK with competition organizers posting winning photos on the web and using them in the material that will advertise the contest itself. However, I steer clear of contests that encourage photographers to enter a bunch of photos with the stipulation that the organization retains unlimited rights to use all entered photos as they see fit. Getting free use of hundreds or thousands of photos in this way, under the guise of a photography contest, seems underhanded. It also takes away a potential job source that would exist for professional photographers if Oregon Wild were willing or able to pay for their needed photography services.

If there simply isn't a budget for Oregon Wild to pay for the use of photography, why not just be up front and ask people to donate photos? I know many people who do not make their living in photography who would love to. On more than one occasion I have donated my photos to support a cause. On the other hand, if Oregon Wild doesn't need the free photos, then why not take rule number 9 out of the contest?

I would really love to be able to participate in Oregon Wild's photo contest in the future. But until the rules are changed, so that it really is a photo contest with the purpose of showcasing wilderness photography, bringing awareness to Oregon's wild places and honoring the winning photographers, instead of a guise for getting free access to a large bank of new photos each year, I will have to respectfully decline.

Sincerely,

Sean Bagshaw

Well said Sean. I am by no means a professional, but I would even go as far to say that non-professionals and hobbyists should also avoid these types of contests. Ultimately they can undercut the pro's ability to charge a fair price for their work.

You are spot on Sean - just say no. What many of us DO puts FOOD on our tables and pays for the health insurance. Ask em to pay your health premiums if they want rights to your images.

We are no different than any other service provider - we have to pay the bills just as a lawyer or plumber has to pay the bills.

Can you imagine how you would feel if Oregon Wild used an image and someone else came along wanting to use the same image, for a fair price, but asking for exclusivity and you had to turn away that money cuz you allowed someone free access to your work? No thank you. You did the right thing. Unfortunately there are many others out there who are willing to give away their work for free so Oregon Wild should have no problem getting the images they need.

Same Sean.... I've run into this a few times myself and have taken the same stance. These guys would gain by folks like you having images places as to increase the awareness of that is here in the magnificent state as well as awareness of how we need to protect whats here for the future. The reality over the course of things we aren't talking a lot of investment. We are just talking "free".
JG

Excellent response, Sean. Oregon Wild does some good things, but they shouldn't be asking for such a broad range of rights for all photos entered in the contest. Let's hope your letter prompts them to change the rules.

Good response Sean. Even though I would not even come remotely close to classifying myself as a professional I definitely won't give away free photos for the sake of possibly winning a contest. There are other ways to get your name out there and I have all of the patience in the world for that to happen. I have donated smaller prints and other things to people, such as a younger lady who is battling cancer, bed ridden, and not able to enjoy life. All she has is the internet to look at the scenery she would love to visit in person so donating some smaller prints to brighten her life is no issue at all and I didn't even bat an eye at doing it.

I have yet to enter any form of contest just because I don't trust them, especially when you read the fine print. They can get away with it because there is never a shortage of people who are willing to submit their work and I won't just hand things over for free. I am slowly becoming a little more fluent in the business aspect of photography and perhaps one day my work will grace the walls of some of the finest galleries in the country, or perhaps the world. The sky is the limit, that's for sure.

While I appreciate your argument (very thoughtfully stated), I don't have any issue with what they're doing. Most of us use freeware; isn't that depriving some software programmer of an opportunity to charge for a program? The free market at work imo, though, understandably, we're all a little more sensitive to it when it hits close to home.

I doubt that most people participating in the contest are doing so altruistically; I suspect that the majority are hoping for the opportunity to have their images published, generate visibility for their work, etc.; they're hoping to benefit personally. That OW is attempting to benefit as well doesn't seem out of line.

I think your suggestion to request donated images in lieu of a contest is creative, but if I'm OW and I want the best images possible to promote OW and its mission, a contest is more likely to yield higher quality images than a request for donations.

Rick, I too am fine with Oregon Wild putting out the call for images and wanting to get the best images they can for free. However, I think they should be very transparent about their purpose. When we use freeware it has been willingly offered up by the programmer. We haven't put an open call out to programmers to write software for a contest, while writing contest rules that allow us to own rights to every piece of software they enter (although I'm sure someone out there does this, and programmers should rightly be upset about it).

Perhaps if they stated something along the lines of, "Oregon Wild needs the best outdoor photos to use in their efforts to protect and promote Oregon's natural places. Donate your top photos to the cause. Winners in each category will be honored." My initial impression of the contest was that it is about showcasing and recognizing top nature photos and photographers in Oregon (which I'm sure it does). However, only in the list of rules does it state that Oregon Wild also intends to obtain thousands of dollars of photo licensing as well.

Sean,

In looking at the website, my guess is that they wanted to run a contest to draw attention to their cause, their sponsors want to be associated with them and outdoor photography. I'm guessing that they don't have a lot of resources to monitor the use of the photos and to avoid disagreements in the future they're requiring a pretty generous license. In other words, they're asking entrants to trust them. And, since there isn't a time limit on the rights, your're being asked to trust them 10 years from now even if your're a world famous photographer whose reputation earns you $1,000,000/year and they've become a lobby to support off-shore oil exploration. (Not sure how likely either event would be, but you get the idea.)

I don't know anything about them and it sounds like you really don't trust them. I'm curious if that's because you have a reason not to or because you generally don't think it's worth the risk?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that you're bringing the objectionable part of the terms to their attention. I really hope they respond and at least explain why they want that liberal of a license. The only suggestion I would have had is giving them a suggestion of what more favorable terms would have been. ("Winning entries will be published in an upcoming issue of our newsletter and displayed at our annual meeting." or whatever.)

If you want a resource for this kind of thing, check out Pro-Imaging which has a "bill of rights" for photography contests.

Rick,

I bet if you were to contact a non-profit organization, tell them your're a photographer looking to donate some work in return for some exposure, and ask them what sorts of images they might need, there is a good chance you'd get a favorable reponse. The organization gets a chance to use high quality images that meets some specific need while you get exposure. Obviously you'll want to negotiate terms of use for your work the same way you would with a commercial client and it might be worth keeping the dollar value of the donation in mind. If you can honestly tell yourself "I could sell these rights to this image for $X and donate the proceeds of the sale to this organization or I could just donate the rights directly," then your're probably making a fair donation. (You might even ask for a letter that states the value of the donation to show to your tax person. I have no idea if this is actually something you can write off, but if you do this, pick a values that will survive an audit.)

Sean

Sean W. - I think you may have misunderstood my last statement. I was responding to Sean B.'s suggestion that OW request image donations in lieu of holding a contest.

My comment was that OW is more likely to get higher quality images via a contest. If they were to simply request donated images, I doubt that many people would donate their best images; they'd retain those for other purposes and likely submit 2nd-tier images or image of lesser value to them. A contest brings out our competitive nature, and that works to OW's advantage.

As long as they're being transparent and clear about the usage rights - which I think they are - it's up to the photographer to decide if it's an equitable arrangement.

Thanks for the the various perspectives on this. I don't want to make it a bigger deal than it is, but I also feel it is an important topic for discussion.

They are a grass roots environmental organization which works to support and promote wild areas in Oregon...hard to find fault with that. I'm also sure the contest prizes are very nice and the publication and party are a great tribute to the winning photos and photographers. I just feel that for their own credibility they need to state, up front, that part of the purpose of the event is to generate a stock of images that they can use for their purposes for as long as they want, free of charge. If that isn't the purpose, then take that language out of the contract.

A year ago, when I first came across this contest on my own, I read the rules and decided not to enter. No big deal, nothing more said. What prompted me to write to them this year was that they solicited me. Oregon Wild emailed me to say that they had seen an article about my photography, liked my work and thought it would be worth my while to enter their contest, which was very flattering and I was prepared to enter. I just wish the invite also mentioned the fact that if I did enter the contest it would be good for them too, because they would get unlimited, free use of my photos for as long as they wanted.

There are a lot of good points in this thread. And I don't really find fault with any of them.

However, I am in full agreement with Sean. The prominent issue here is transparency (no pun intended). It's an effective and legitimate way for OW to get quality images, but "...for their own credibility they need to state, up front..." that they want free pictures to use in their marketing.

Wow, Sean. I missed the part about them soliciting you to enter the contest. It does sound a little fishy.

Well, I hope they respond with a reasonable justification for the broad request for rights (or better yet, restrict the rights they've asking for in the rules).

Sean

At the risk of running this thread into the ground, but also in fairness to Oregon Wild and in the interest of sharing all the pertinent information, I am posting their response to me and my response to their response.

Sean,

I appreciate your thoughtful response upon reviewing our photo contest guidelines. The issues you bring up are ones that we address constantly when it comes to our photo contest and how to use the submissions that we receive.

You're right, we are a non-profit organization and the budget for high-quality photography is pretty tight. In the past, we have often relied on staff photographs to augment our publications and in some cases we still do. Occasionally, we do also contract with professionals on specific and important projects, but we really are extremely limited in this regard. As you mention, many fine photographers donate their images to campaigns that they believe in and we have been the beneficiary of their generosity in the past. We have worked closely with numerous professional photographers on past, some of which choose to enter a shot or 2 into our photo contest, and some of which, like you, respectfully decline. We completely understand. The fact that selling your photographs is your bread and butter makes it understandable why you wouldn't want to share them for free.

We sincerely believe that our use of submitted photos isn't underhanded. It is certainly not intended to be so. We receive submissions from a broad spectrum of photographers, professionals, and amateurs alike. We appreciate the support of folks who share their photos with us, many of whom are often honored to have their photos featured in our outreach materials. We put a lot of work into providing enticing prizes for the winners of our photo contest and we specifically try to highlight the fact that submissions may be used in efforts to protect special places (in printed materials and elsewhere) as an added bonus of entering the contest. One of my favorite stories is that Senator Ron Wyden has a print of a past photo contest winner in his office.

You described many of the reasons we originally chose to put on the photo contest: getting people to see amazing photography, building awareness of Oregon's special places, and honoring winning photographs at our annual benefit. The proceeds from prints auctioned off at our annual benefit help create the necessary funds to support our Wilderness, Roadless, Old-Growth Protection & Restoration, and Klamath campaigns, among others. A photographer told me once that if one of her photos could help us do what we do, she was happy to see it sold to the highest bidder.

In the past we have discussed the possibility of splitting the contest into professional and amateur categories. Perhaps we will do this in the future and augment the rules to reflect the concerns you bring up, though in that case we would likely require a fee for submission, as opposed to holding a free contest, as it is now.

Like I mentioned, on [rare] occasion, we do buy professional photographs and hire photographers to assist us with special-needs projects. We will certainly keep you in mind and consider you for future projects. Your work is magnificent.

Again, thanks for taking the time to write a thoughtful response - and for your dedicated work taking amazing pictures of Oregon that help people to realize what a special place we have here.

Best,
Oregon Wild


Hi Morgan,

Thanks for your response to my response :-)

First let me say that I truly appreciate and respect the work that Oregon Wild does and that I enjoy getting the newsletters and event updates. I also appreciate that Oregon Wild organizes a photo contest that heightens awareness of Oregon's wild areas and showcases great environmental photography and photographers. I'm even OK with the fact that the contest doubles as a source for OW to acquire images for their use (and in hindsight, perhaps my use of the word "underhanded" to describe this was a bit strong). I do feel, however, that OW should be more open about this purpose. In my view, the way OW promotes the contest is less than completely transparent. I was very flattered by the fact that you contacted me and encouraged me to enter, and was prepared to do so. However, I would have appreciated knowing the full intent of the contest right up front. Even the main content of the contest web page doesn't mention OW's intent to use the photos outside the contest. The only place I found it stated that OW will retain unlimited rights to contest entries is near the bottom of the list of contest rules, making it likely that some photographers may overlook, or fail to understand that detail.

From my perspective, it seems that OW obtaining unlimited rights to photos is a fairly important reason for having the contest. If it is an important part of the purpose, then why not be completely up front about it? It seems doing anything less opens the door for people to question the motives. Why not not just come right out and say, "Oregon Wild wants your best outdoor photos to use in their efforts to protect and promote Oregon's natural places. By entering the contest you have the chance to be published and win prizes. Additionally, Oregon Wild will also reserve the right to use all contest entries in its future publications, for auctioning off prints, marketing and fund raising materials and on the Oregon Wild web site."?

I can see that you have a good understanding of the "goods and services" value of professional photography and why some photographers may not be able to relinquish free rights to their photos. I think your idea of initiating a second, paid entry category to the contest, in which OW's reproduction rights would only be related to the contest itself is great. I am not opposed to paying an entry fee. Most of the contests I have entered use a similar system. It would still allow people to enter in the free category in return for use of their photos, but it might also attract more high level photographers as well.

Thanks for taking the time to have this discussion with me and thanks for the work you and the rest of the people at Oregon Wild do. If your are ever in need of my photography services I would love to work with you. I also look forward to participating in future editions of the Oregon Wild photo contest.

Best regards,
Sean

I think this is a GREAT conversation and I appreciate Sean B. sharing his communications with OW. We all amatuer and pro alike have to deal with this issue from time to time.

It is up to each of us when considering such a venture to READ the fine print as Sean B. did. And I thank Sean B. for asking the forum for our thoughts because that step allows us all to learn and grow.

The business side of photography is fraught with many pitfalls. The more we all share the more we all grow.

Good thread to read through. Thanks for posting Sean! Someone forwarded the link to me to enter this contest and I chose to not enter too for this same reason after looking into it. It's one thing when a winner of a contest is giving up rights but another for all entries. It's a tough topic but I am avoiding the free contests all together unless the rights do not get lost which is rare.

And I hear you about supporting good non-profits with nice photography but how it's done is important. I did allow one of my photos of Goat Rocks Wilderness to grace the cover summer newsletter this year of GPTF. But they came right to me and will be helping me in other ways to balance it all out.

Thanks for taking your valuable time to share the views of Photographers with OW. It's unfortunate that in todays world so much business is handled in this way (non-transparently). Most people in this fast paced life fail to read the very fine print or don't consider the ramifications(cost).
Thanks also for sharing your conversations with OW, with this forum. If more of us took a little time to respond, in this fashion, to whomever is offering these really good deals for us,
;-) maybe they'd modify the terms to be more appropriate. Well at least the non-profits !

Most people in this fast paced life fail to read the very fine print or don't consider the ramifications(cost)

I think that's absolutely true, and I guess that's where I have my little hangup - if people aren't willing to take 60 seconds to read the rules, well... that is the problem.

I totally appreciate that someone might not want to surrender the rights to their image (I wouldn't do that for any of my higher quality, more valuable images). But, it's a whole different thing to say that they are being deceitful.

If stating the requirement explicitly in the rules and expecting people to actually read and understand those rules constitutes being underhanded or less than transparent, that's such a sad sad state of affairs.

I mean, you can't even know how to enter the contest without reading the rules. And they have "official contest rules" displayed in BOLD, ALL CAPS and a 12-pt font at the top of the page on the website. And, in the event you miss it there, it's repeated again on the entry form, just above where you have to sign saying that you have "read and consent to the rules".

Man, those OW guys... they are downright devious.

[/end soapbox]

I absolutely take your point about personal responsibility Rick, and I agree that OW has not done anything unethical. For me it really comes down to a credibility issue. If a non-profit organization with ambitions of serving the public wants to run a contest with the dual purposes of promoting wilderness photography AND garnering a collection of images for their free use, then I feel both purposes should be equally stated and publicized. To energetically promote the photography/wilderness/awards angle of the event, while only mentioning the claim to usage rights as one of the rules doesn't feel like a fair representation of their complete motivation in holding the event. In order for me to support an organization like OW, I would want them to ALWAYS make their complete motivations clear. In this case, an explanation of why they feel they need to hold rights to all the photos and what they intend to do with them in the future. I would probably be OK with publishing on the Web or in a newsletter, but if they also plan to sell prints and publish posters and calendars, I'd like to know.

I find it interesting that they mention in their reply that they print and auction off some of the prints for profit for their cause. This to me is shocking. It's one thing if the images submitted are used in advertising to promote next years photo contest, but to me, it's quite another that they would print and frame submitted images to sell at auction without requiring any additional consent from the photographer that took the shot in the first place.

One reason why I have never entered any of these competitions.

I haven't been posted for awhile, but thought I should respond to this thread, since there are a number of allegations against Oregon Wild that really aren't fair. I have entered ten images into each of the past two contests, and was one of the winning entries picked in both. Oregon Wild handed each of the winners a very generous prize assortment -- the sum total of mine was worth at least $1,000 in both occasions, and it wasn't junk: generous gift certificates at outdoor stores, a guided llama trip in the Wallowas, a guided raft trip, and so on. So there's the self-motivation, if that's what you're looking for.

For Oregon Wild's part, they auction off beautifully framed prints of the entries as a fund-raiser, and also use them in their ads and publications. They've used several of mine already, and in the one instance where they used a full-sized image w/o a photo credit, they called me and apologized for the oversight. If you are looking to sell yourself (I'm not), their publications get a good amount of circulation among the very kind of people who buy photo art, so it's not a bad marketing opportunity.

For me, I considered the images I entered to be donations to Oregon Wild, an organization that I have belonged to since they were the Oregon Wilderness Coalition in the 1970s. In other words, I've "sold" the rights to those images to them at no charge, and would no more expect to re-sell exclusive rights to those images than to any other image that I've sold rights to. I really don't see a distinction. Oregon Wild has basically offered some prizes and publicity in lieu of paying cash for photography.

I can't speak to the larger issue of people who make a living from their photography, vs. amateurs like me. I suspect if you're distinctive enough in your photography, you'll do fine, no matter how many amateurs are out there "giving it away". But I also reject the notion that there's anything wrong with donating photography, any more than there's a problem donating any other kind of art. That's really more about the decision of a person building their livelihood on selling their art than it is the reality that there will always be amateur artists (and photographers) who are not looking to be paid for what they produce.

Tom

As an amateur photographer, I have entered a couple of similar contests. I have not thought twice about doing so, despite knowing that I would be giving away certain rights of reproduction of my pictures. I assumed all such contests were vehicles for amassing usable photographs.

However, I might feel differently if I were a full time professional. Furthermore, that they contacted Sean and invited him to participate, knowing he made a living off of his photography, raises questions about the OW's credibility.

I think Sean's idea for OW to phrase the contest in more transparent terms is a good one, and would not detract from the contest in any way. It also would likely serve to increase the esteem of OW in the eyes of professionals photographers. And in the meantime, I think they should stop soliciting professional photographers for such contests.

Here's a little more cynical view for ya.

A non-profit business is still a business and the only way any business can stay alive is to bring in more money than it puts out. that's called profit. non-profit is a bit of a misnomer. It just means that growing the business isn't the primary goal. But make no mistake, many non-profits' executive staff make huge salaries. I don't know about Oregon Wild, but the big non-profits like Good Will, Salvation Army, etc. pay their executives incredible salaries. The executives are making a nice tidy profit.

My point here is that, non-profit or for-profit, business is business and in order to stay afloat, they have to bring in more money than what goes out, and to do that, most businesses will be less than transparent about one or more aspects of their dealings. For OW, it happens to be their extensive use of contest photos. they are not doing anything illegal, but they are certainly trying not to be very transparent about what they intend to do with the photos they collect via the contest.

I don't agree, that they should not solicit from professional photographers. They are a business and they have just as much right to solicit as any other business.