Canon Calendar

I have been contacted recently to submit some images for a calendar for Canon Japan. They call it the "Official 2010 Canon Calendar". After reviewing 10 images, they have responded, saying that the team loved my images and said they would like to select 13 total out of 26 or so to present to Canon. They said they would pay 150,000 yen per image, a total of 13 images, $1500 per image(This seems like a lot to me). The next step, after they select the 13, will be for me to send high-res files for the presentation. They requested that the images have not been published, appeared on any commercial website, and that I would need to take them off of my personal website if chosen for the calendar. Tom Boatman from Native Creative Services Y.K. is the person who contacted me. Has anyone been contacted for this? Before I send out anything I figured I would do some research first. I figure if it seems legit, I will request a contract, and make sure that they don't intend to take the rights to the images. The request to remove them from my website is a new one for me. Any help or suggestions about this would be really appreciated. Thanks, Chip

That's a tough one. Taking your best images and removing them from your site is a pretty big request--especially for a calendar that will be sold in Japan. Looking at your site, if I were to remove your 10 best images, your portfolio would take a pretty big hit. All your images are awesome, but its those top 10 that really show your skill.

Chip,
I was also contacted about 3 weeks ago for the same thing. It was my understanding that they would not use the images even if they had been displayed on my website. The guy said that the 13 images could not be used in any way until after 2010. Sounds like a jury chooses from a bunch of submissions. Oh yah, the images all had to be horizontal as well. My collection was not large enough to fulfill their needs so I asked him to keep me in mind for the future...kind of sucks, but those are some tough guidelines to follow!

The guy I was talking to was Takafumi Suzuki from art.signature.co.jp Let me know if you want to see an example of the past calendars, I also have those. Hope this helps.

Wayne

Interesting....So do you think this is legit? If it is, for that price and the exposure it might be worth it for me. I don't have a very big portfolio either, but it is slowly growing. My guy said it was ok if it was on my website, I'll just have to take it off. Could you show me an example of past calendars?
You can email it to: phillips_chip@yahoo.com Thanks for the help!!

If that is legit that is awesome. A few things to consider would be calling canon and finding out if it's true. Ask for a small percentage up front at least 10 percent. Copyright laws don't work very well over seas. I have had a guy ask if he could borrow images and he would pay me later after they were sold in Korea. Your images are worth something before you would get a lump sum like that. I would post this in every forum you submit to.

I'm sure it is legit. However there are several companies around who will be pitching to Canon. All the companies have the same stipulations each year. Guy Edwardes did the 2007 calendar. The difficulty for most photographers without a large portfolio is that usually their top shots have already appeared on various websites. For example if you have posted a photo to the OP or Digital Camera gallery, they can't be used. So many photographers will in fact be digging out of the second rung material.

Does this hold true for images in my own personal portfolios on these websites? Like Flickr, Pnet, D.Camera, etc?

from the names you dropped, it's legit.
for 13x1.500,- you could remove them from your website (and other websites) for a year or so, right...?
reality however is, there are most likely still "a couple" more portfolios in the race (usually they need photographers with large pofos and images from around the world) and you should do the best to make this work out for you. payrates in japan are approx. 3x the average. good luck!
georg

Hi Chip,

Like Wayne, I was contacted from art.signature to present a portfolio about Portugal from Canon Calendar 2009, but I not sucessed in being the selected, all the best for you and wait from good news
Think that's one of the biggest things it could happen to you on photography, your name associated to a big company, all your images showned around the world, and they pay very well, so I wish you more luck then I have

I believe flickr & Pnet are okay. Digital Camera, being a commercial site is not. Which is the reason I don't post on such sites unless it's a competition.

I've been in the running for the Canon calendar and their rules did not allow for the images to have been "published" anywhere including personal websites, forums, blogs, and of course more traditional forms of publishing. They wanted photos that have never been seen by the public.

They wanted photos that have never been seen by the public.

Oh man! I've got LOTS of those!

Thanks for the responses. It sounds like this company has slightly less strict guidelines than some of the others.

Chip, you better check again with those you are in contact with. I believe it is Canon that requires that the selected photos have not been posted or published elsewhere. If the company your dealing with goes forward with images already published or posted I'm sure Canon will check this out. Also make sure you get the facts on when your images will be released for publication. I'm sure you can make a lot more than 1,500 on each image through gallery sales of limited edition prints etc. If all the facts are as stated I'd sure go for it! Thats almost as much as I' cleared in gallery sales all year. Also as stated above it sure wouldn't hurt having Canon as a customer on your resume. Best Wishes let us know how you make out.

Hey all, from what I can tell, there are numerous design firms competing to 'win' the contract from Canon. These firms contact numerous photographers to try and find people with unpublished but good images. So this is really a photo contest for the photographers with the ad agencies picking the entrants. As a photographer you have to decide if the terms are acceptable to you, and if the gain in income is worth the loss of circulation of the images for two years (2009 and 2010). Good luck to those who have entered! Darwin

I tried to work this out with Canon a couple of years ago and could never get past the unpublished requirement. It would have been easier if they wanted my bad stuff. :) It is legit - the current year's calendar is from a NPN'er.

Who is on the current calendar?

I think that Vincent Favre is on the 2009 calendar. He has posted several photos on NPN.

http://www.cristaldegivre.com/accueil.htm

Seb