Photography Comp

[Pa]

I found this link some of you folks might be interested in..Great prizes

http://www.photoartgallery.com/Communit ... fault.aspx

[stubbsy]

Good prizes for the comp (a D3 or a 5D MK 11 + lens) so I waded through their FAQ:

Who owns copyright? Answer:
Put simply, you maintain copyright of your images. You can invite friends and family to buy your work themselves through the Public Gallery at a profit to you...Other members and the passing parade of public patrons can also buy unlimited numbers of your work here as well. Should your work be exceptional enough to appear in the Collectors' Gallery as a limited edition, you will still maintain copyright.However, in this instance you will grant us an exclusive license to sell it. This means you cannot sell this work anywhere else, publicly or privately. Ever.

hmmm so far so good, but where does the money go? From the FAQ

How do I make money? Answer:
When your work sells you will recieve a commission...How much you receive depends on which Gallery it sold from, and also how much image info you entered when you submitted it. Basically the more image info you submit the more commission you receive....The base price of all work sold through the Public Gallery is $50. If you have filled in your image information correctly and therefore scored five illuminated bars, you'll get your full commission which is 50% of the purchase price. So that's $25 to you and $25 to us. If you have only filled it in enough to receive one illuminated bar you will only receive 10% of the $50 - two bars means 20% and well, you get the rest...

Ok, so what about the Collectors' Gallery you ask? ...the Collectors' Gallery prints work on the same commission structure...ie the more image info you put in, the higher the commission you earn. The thing to remember here is that the Collectors' Gallery sells limited edition prints only (20 of any size and configuration) so they sell for more. The first 5 sell for $100, the next 5 - $125, the next 5 $175 and thelast 5 - $250 each. That means if your image is 'sold out' or if a commercial buyer or collector wants to buy the whole lot in one go you can make up to $1625.00... art submitted to, approved and sold through the Collectors' Gallery is limited and sold through an exclusive license through the Gallery. So you can only sell it here and only 20 times. This does not preclude it from being available for sale for future commercial options eg. packaging or advertising. The 20 printed limit only applies to wall art.

Ahh at last they talk about dollars - images get sold from a starting price of $50 (plus GST) of which they keep a minimum of 50% (they keep more if I don't put enough keywords in). Finally this...

Under the terms of the General, Collectors and Public membership agreements...Ph.Art Gallery reserves the right to retain all earnings accrued by any member unless they exceed a specified amount AND a redemption request is lodged. The current specified amount is $50 but this amount may be amended from time to time by due notification to all members on the website...If Ph.Art Gallery does not receive requests for the payment of credits...the credits will remain on the members account for a period of 12 months from the date of accrual. In the event that members have credits sitting on their account Ph.Art Gallery reserves the right to void the credits should they remain dormant on the account for a period of greater than 12 months from the date of accrual.

The bottom line as I see it:

• This place is a slightly up market micro stock site. It's pretty slick though (ie I like how it looks)
• If I sell an image I get $25 per image sold ($50 if they consider it good enough to be a limited edition print run).
• Images submitted to the comp are owned by me, but can be sold by them ($25 to me per sale though).
• Until I've had two sales I get no money. Even then I have to ask for my money to get it. If I don't ask within 12 months of the sale I lose my money

Will all of the above dissuade me from entering the competition? No. If I enter the comp I may win the prize. I retain ownership of my work (VERY important) and even if I don't win may make a tiny amount of money from the image in sales.

Would I load a lot of my images here for sale? Probably not. To me $25 per image sale is not much and in my opinion debases the value of the photograph. Essentially all images here are given equal value (two tiers though) and I'm not sure that makes sense. 50% "commision" to me when they sell my image seems a touch low as well.

It's better than RedBubble though  PS one final thing - the place is pronounced fart - not sure that's a terribly cool name either

[ozczecho]

Thanks for the summary Peter. I cant access the site at the moment but will check out later.

It's better than RedBubble though

...what problem do you see with this mob?

[stubbsy]

It's better than RedBubble though

...what problem do you see with this mob?

Mike

My only problem with Red Bubble is the low return - most sales from what I can tell tend to be postcards and the like which entails very little revenue from your images. As for service and quality all I hear is good.

[Glen]

PS one final thing - the place is pronounced fart - not sure that's a terribly cool name either