I've decided to submit 10 images to "JPG Magazine":http://www.jpgmag.com/ for Issue 8. However, I have only 16 hours left to get my submissions in and then only a week after that to get you all to vote for them like mad. So, I'm a bit behind. Will you help me out?
Browse my "Photoblog":http://djamesphoto.com/arranginglight/, run through "my Flickr Account":http://flickr.com/photos/revjim/, skim through my "old Photo Archives":http://photos.revjim.net/photography, and dig back into the "depths of revjim.net":http://revjim.net/site-archives/.
Look for outstanding images that fit into any of the following themes: "Tourist":http://www.jpgmag.com/themes/1, "Intimate":http://www.jpgmag.com/themes/20, "Embrace the Blur":http://www.jpgmag.com/themes/22.
Send me an email (daniel AT djamesphoto DOT com) or comment here and let me know what you find.
*THANK YOU!*
When I first heard about JPG Magazine a few years ago, I wasn't too sure I liked the idea.
These days there are many programs that take advantage of the plethora of amateurs photographers with high-end equipment. The satisfaction of publication and payment in an over-saturated world no matter how small the distribution or paycheck is enough to keep many amateurs interested. With enough photographers submitting work and the fact that, every now and then, even the worst photographer gets a really lucky shot, the publication manages to sell. And, of course, the proceeds go straight to the publisher. So, the photographer gets a very small amount of money and some very limited exposure while the publication makes out like a bandit.
Take iStockPhoto, for instance. They sell Royalty Free images to advertising people for $1 an image. First of all, this is significantly lowering the bar for costs of advertising photography. It's also setting up a trend to purchase non-exclusive rights to photographs in the end, hurting the brand image of those company's that choose to use them. Then, for every image sold, the photographer makes only $0.20. That's 80% profit to iStockPhoto who does little more than what Flickr does for thousands of users for free everyday. Finally, once placing an image on iStockPhoto it makes that image mostly worthless to the photographer since any sale of the photograph in any form that amounted to the cost of printing that photograph plus $1 would be more than could be afforded by buying the image through iStockPhoto and having it printed yourself.
I assumed, incorrectly, that JPG Magazine was one of these programs. But, on closer examination, maybe it isn't.
First, the magazine is only $24.99 for a one year subscription (6 issues): that's $4.17 per issue. The last issue was 112 pages long. At Lulu.com, one can self-publish their own books and magazines. I don't know what the distribution of JPG Magazine is but, assuming it's 10,000 or so, each copy would cost $16.61 to print there. Now, obviously JPG Magazine is printing somewhere other than Lulu.com, but it's a good measuring stick to use to gauge what producing something like this yourself might cost. There is work from only 70 photographers in the last issue. This is far fewer than I expected which means that each photographer gets that much more exposure. That's a plus. Of course, there are ads in the magazine. Not being in advertising, I have no idea what these advertisers might pay, but I'm sure it's substantial.
So, in conclusion, I'm sure JPG Magazine is making money. They'd be silly not to at least cover their printing costs in the price of subscription. Photographer payment only amounted to $7,000 in the last issue. It is fairly safe to assume that they made at least $7,000 in advertising dollars. But, despite the fact that they are making money, I don't think it represents an injustice to it's photographers. If anything, it's certainly less evil than iStockPhoto.
