Sunday, April 23, 2006

Michigan's "Send us your best shot!" Guidelines
Here's a cool idea- although there goes my dream job. If you just have Michigan residents send in pictures, you don't need to pay anyone to go take them! Right? ;-) Oh well...

Still, a great way for us rookie photogs to participate. I wonder what kind of response this will generate- a lot of people aren't going to know how to get their shots under 500k and still look good- only those who have played around with web display and picture manipulation will get it. Maybe there are more of those people than I think, who knows.

I think I'll dig through my stuff and send them some shots.


Submit your digital images for display on the Michigan.gov portal for the "Michigan Album".

The State of Michigan is seeking photographs to be featured on the State's portal, Michigan.gov.

We have established the following rules for the submission of images.

Image Requirements for the Digital Photo

Must be a Michigan image and appropriate for display on our state portal.
Image may be black and white or color.
The image display size must be between 640 x 480 pixels and 320 x 240 pixels.
The file must be 72 dpi, high quality, JPG or PNG file
The file size not to exceed 500 kb

Photographer/Copyright

Do not submit images taken by someone else. You must be the sole owner of the copyright of any digital image submitted. By your submission, you acknowledge that you are the author and copyright holder of the photo.

By your submission, you are giving the Michigan.gov staff permission to use the image on the Michigan.gov suite of sites.

An album for all submitted images will be available. Each accepted image will be displayed and captioned with details provided for the image as well as a credit for the photographer.

What makes an image eligible?

Michigan places, things, people, or experiences are perfect subjects. Subject matter must be suitable for publication on the State portal and must be appropriate for viewing by the general public. Michigan.gov retains the right to determine what will constitute inappropriate content.

Use of Pictures for Featured Photo on Michigan.gov

All images submitted will be considered. Only pictures deemed acceptable and selected by the State of Michigan Portal staff will be displayed on Michigan.gov.

Release Forms, Photo Subject Restrictions

If the photograph is of a person or persons, the photographer affirms the person(s) photographed has(have) given their permission to be included in the photograph and for the photograph to be displayed on the Michigan.gov State Portal home page without any fee or other form of compensation and, further, provide written proof of such consent.

Pretty standard stock photo guidelines. Gotta watch out on taking pictures of people- the reason I don't do a lot of "people" shots is that you must have a release form or you can get sued. (The baseball shots I take and display can fall under the category of "journalism", I believe. I do know that I cannot sell them without consent of the Whitecaps and probably the Detroit Tigers. But publishing them here? They would be stupid to complain because it is free advertisng.)

The state should probably provide a link to a legal form that people can download and print- I think I'll stick with nature, myself.