GUP Magazine - Rare open call

[Huss]

I totally agree. I've seen several major corporations soliciting photos for a contest. One was send your cute pix of your baby in and if we select it your photo will appear in our national ads. What mother wouldn't want to see their babies picture in a diaper ad? They get tens of thousands of free photos for future ads. The weather channel solicits current weather photos. No need to pay local sources when thousands of folks are eager to get their images on TV.

A digression but sites like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc do the same thing in essence. Their Rights of Use that you have to agree to in order to use them gives them the right to collect and use your images that you posted on their site in any way that they see fit, royalty free.

Here's Instagram's statement:

Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service's Privacy Policy, available here http://instagram.com/legal/privacy/, including but not limited to sections 3 ("Sharing of Your Information"), 4 ("How We Store Your Information"), and 5 ("Your Choices About Your Information").

 

[x-ray]

Huss that's one of the reasons I no longer post images on Facebook. I never used the others.

I have mixed feelings about these platforms. Granted they're leeches but they're good platforms for generating business. I turned my nose up to them for a long time and a friend who's a social media specialist set up a Facebook page for me. I decided to give it a try and it wound up generating art print sales and commercial assignments.

I haven't done this but if I get the urge to post more images I'll watermark them.

Clients are doing the same thing. I used to shoot a lot for DIY network and HGTV. Scrips networks started cutting fees they pay for for assignments and requiring the photographer sign over all rights if they want to shoot assignments. They've built up a huge library of images they're selling now. Sorry I had to move on. I'll sell rights for the right price but not giveaway prices. I guess though there are plenty of hungry shooters willing to do that.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Exposure by unknown magazine?
It just a mark in portfolio. Which isn't bad thing at all.

 

[Timmyjoe]

There have been quite a few articles written about my work over the past couple of decades. One article resulted in a New York gallery carying my work which rested in commissions for several major corporations. One was a huge comission for the Marina Bay Sands Casino. In all that gallery has sold around $250k (my half) of work. It resulted indirectly to my work being purchased by many collectors and now hangs in the collections of two museums.

X-Ray, you're talking about a totally different thing than the magazine listed above. You're right, articles written ABOUT your work by a major publication can do wonders for your pocket book.

That's not what the magazine listed above is doing, and not what this discussion was about. The magazine above wants you to submit your work so they can publish it and make money off of it, all the while not paying you a dime. They're not looking for photographers so they can do an article about that photographer. That's a totally different animal.

 

[codester80]

For better or worse I've submitted my work to GUP. I did this for a couple reasons.
1. I've been away from photography for awhile and would like to have a few new clippings in the portfolio.
2. Judging from the content on the website GUP will at least produce a decent product with (hopefully) my images between the covers.
3. It doesn't state anywhere in the call for submission or anywhere else on the GUP website about compensation or lack thereof. There are some big names (Gilden is currently featured) on the site and I'm sure they're not giving their stuff away for free. If they are then I'm in good company.
4. I had already finished producing a series of images for myself and getting some of them published may help when it comes to approaching galleries, curators, etc. when and if I ever decide to pursue that avenue.

I see this call from GUP no differently than the call from many of the popular photography magazines for readers to submit their best to the monthly reader's page or portfolio exposure section. Has anyone picked up a National Geographic lately or browsed their website. There are almost as many if not more images from readers than staff (does NG still have staff photographer?) and contract photographers.

 

[photomoof]

https://benrobertsphotography.wordp...agazine-feature-my-work-but-dont-let-me-know/

Not sure I could say what GUP is.

 

[sevres_babylone]

Thanks for that link, photomoof. The comments after the blog post contain an interesting discussion of fair use, and whether there are differences between mini-reviews or introductions to recent photography books or gallery shows, and doing something similar with websites in the print magazine. FWIW, I noticed that in a couple of recent issues, they are no longer doing the latter, in the print version anyway, which was the subject of the blog post.

I gather that a lot of commenters are not familiar with the magazine, although I also accept the view that one should always be paid. I don't think they're raking in the dough, but I also expect their staff is paid. As I said initially, it's my favorite photography magazine. The print quality is excellent. It has a good mixture of work by known photographers, and introductions to unknown photographers.

I don't see it quite the same as "Readers Photos" features,where a clear distinction is made between those photos and the "real" content.

I'm just looking through a 2012 issue on "Mexico." 176 pages. Ads are as follows: a 2 page Leica spread on pages 2 and 3, a full page ad on page 9 from foto factory, which appears to be some kind of private photography school, a full page ad for Spyder on page 14, a full page Blurb ad on page 19, an "ad" for Elephant magazine, which is probably some kind of contra deal, on page 146, and ads for "paper desk" and "vandemberg", 2 Dutch companies, on the inside back and back pages respectively. I don't think they're raking it in from advertising🙂 It's a good "reading" experience.

It was $14.99 then, and the current issue, which I haven't bought, is $18.99 (Canadian prices, and some of increase may be due to our sinking dollar.)

I don't think it would be a bad thing to be able to say you had a series published in a magazine that has had stories on Graciela Iturbide and Antonio Turok.

I have no personal connection to the magazine. I was excited to see their call, and thought if I got the word out to even one other RFF member who might otherwise have not seen the call, but who might be interested, than that would be a good thing.

As always, some good discussion, whichever position people take.

 

[nongfuspring]

Winning the open call might result in some really beneficial exposure, but there are many other ways of developing a presence that don't have the aspect of exploitation there is here. If you're an emerging "photo based artist" the well worn path today for getting more exposure is via competitions (with awards), funded residencies, non-commercial art space open calls, government grants for projects - all of which either pay artist fees and/or include other benefits.

I have nothing against magazine features, I've been featured quite a few times without any pay - but for a for-profit magazine to run a juried competition without any actual prize I think is a step too far and not something I believe anyone should support.

 

[jsrockit]

I think with exposure, it comes down to if you are trying to get into the Art world or if you are trying to grind out a living doing jobs... if you are trying to make a living doing non art photography, then exposure isn't going to do much for you. If you are trying to get into the Art world, then there may be avenues that are smart to take a risk on.

 

[codester80]

Reading through the comments on the blog post is very revealing. There seems to be a lot of ignorant photographers when it comes to the publishing industry, copyright, and fair use. No question GUP was well within the law. Everyone seems upset the magazine didn't contact (and it's actually not clear they didn't attempt to) the photographer before featuring the review of their website. As the GUP publisher stated, they have run the review section for years without complaint. I wonder how many photographers never respond to emails from GUP thinking it's a scam and simply trash the email without ever reading it.
Based on the list of advertisements in the current issue GUP is not making a profit. So while they are a for-profit magazine, they are currently not turning a profit and if they paid for all the content between the covers would be out of business. It's a sad reality but most magazines are in the same state. Contributors provide content because it is a platform for getting their work out to other people. And maybe one day the magazines they support will become profitable and begin paying. This is a standard practise in literary magazines and art magazines. If we all refused to contribute, there would be no niche magazines left.

 

[photomoof]

Reading through the comments on the blog post is very revealing. There seems to be a lot of ignorant photographers when it comes to the publishing industry, copyright, and fair use. No question GUP was well within the law.

Reviews of shows, or blogs, containing overall page images are probably well within current case law. But GUP has repeatedly stepped into more than reviews, and appear to be on a very thin edge, posting specific images. But GUP is of course not officially sold in the US, so must conform to EU case law, which in some cases has been more restrictive than the US.

Lately case law on reproduction of posted images in the US has become rather murky, especially after the Richard Prince instagram use, which has not yet been litigated. It will be interesting to see the result.

Fair use is poorly defined by current US case law, there have been so many conflicting decisions.

It is also not clear what GUP is exactly, in the spectrum of art journals. My guess -- well who knows what might be looked at or sell?

 

[sevres_babylone]

For comparison's sake, I looked up Communication Arts' photography competition. An alternative avenue for exposure, albeit with a more commercial bent. There, if you win, you get a hunk of aluminum; on the other hand, you have to pay to enter. There is no payment to you.
NOTE: CLICKING ON THE COMMUNICATION ARTS LINK below may lead you to get ads for subscribing to Communication Arts on some websites you view (In my case -- I see it on the Toronto Star site):

http://www.commarts.com/competitions/photography

Both GUP and Communication Arts have quality reproduction. I don't think GUP is being pirate-like.