terms and conditions

Magnum now process photographers through a number of initiatic(?) stages, and the end of which, after a number of years one is presumably admitted to the inner circle of Full Membership.

This is all very well, and it may just be very good, but noone knows, because noone is told exactly what the terms and conditions of these stages are.

They do not exactly advertise any facts, which for an association of photojournalists is pretty naf.
Pretenders to membership are surely entitled to know where their work is to be kept, whether it is held by the photographer and copies held for sale and distribution in the various offices,
and what cut goes to Magnum, and what cut to the photographer. Well, sorry, but noone knows, and it is VERY important that we do know because there is no guarantee whatsoever, things being what they are these days that Magnum will actually respect:
1: that the photographer and the photographer alone holds sole intellectual, moral and copyrights.

2. That copyright remains with the photographer alone and after his/death royalties on works published and sold continue to generate income for their descendants unless the photographer has specified otherwise.

3. That the photographer has access to his/her work at all times.

4. That photographers decide between themselves who handles what commisions- whereas I believe that at present these decisions are made by people there who do not take the pictures.

5. Etcetera- and all made public, all written down etc such that the deal is known NOW, not after submission and/or acceptance.

These are minimum measures needed legally to prevent theft of work by Magnum, which is a business, and these are what neophytes need to protect them from the casting couch mentality that still exists in the industry where those talented enough and/or keen enough to get in will do ANYTHING and put up with ANYTHING that will increase their chances of "sucess".

Several years ago I sent TIFFS on a DVD
recorded delivery to Stuart Franklin at Magnum. He did not ever reply. I phoned several times, and I emailed several times and staff on the end of the phone said they had received nothing there from me at all.

I have also knowledge of actual theft of the work of over 40 equally good photojournalists by staff left in charge of the negatives in our absence years ago.
I have not subsequently ever seen these negatives which constituted three VERY full-time pro photojournalism in London in the 70s.

There was then merely a gentleman's agreement between myself and the boss that if I left my work would always be available to the cooperative.

There was no question whatever that it was all my work, and all my own copyright, just as it was all their own work, the other 40 or so photographers who were robbed.

But I and the others lost years of work to people who deny utterly that they have any knowledge of these thefts at all, though one of us told me years ago he believed they had been offerred to Getty after the boss died and the coop broke up.

So things do need to be said and warnings made and stuff like this pointed out to all and sundry before you release your work to anyone.

Make sure you get a signed receipt from any agency or coop who is raking in images from allover.

You can of course merely direct them to a website where your stuff is relatively secure-

It might also help to ask Magnum exactly how they protect their images from theft on their website and get advice on how to supply them in the same way-

I'm sure thry'll be only too pleased to help.
But if you post stuff, make sure it is sent Special Delivery and that it is signed for and insured.

Something I failed to do, and mine could have got "lost in the post" .

see above- slight confusion

In case you are confused I have not personally ever had anything to do with Magnum, the work mentioned was stolen by members of another cooperative in London- not the same thing at all.Even so, there are lessons to be learned.

Do you want to be put in the same position as us? I have teenage children who have never seen any of this work. I have no prints to speak of: I have absolutely nothing to show for those years of work.

And of course no income from it all. No means of using that work then or later to get commisions because it was never available to me after I left, even though it was all mine- I paid for all the film and took all the pictures. If you leave Magnum what then?

I wrote several times to get access, noone replied at all. Seeing the fuss about a certain other agency now, perhaps there is a need to be a little better grounded in the realpolitik of bourgeouis greed- since many of us do better work outside of the systems these organisations represent.

Even Magnum seems to not understand dpi

I can't decide if it is funny or sad that the submission guidelines state, "The resolution of each image must be 100dpi and cannot exceed 1000 pixels on the longest side."

"100dpi" is absolutely meaningless unless associated with a print size. For instance if they called for "8x10 images of at least 100dpi" one would know that they must submit images whose pixel dimensions are at least 800x1000.

Simply stating "100dpi" means nothing at all.

If they plan on printing images at a certain size for review, they should state the minimum pixel dimensions... but instead they state a maximum of 1000 pixels on the longest side.

This would seem to imply that the images will be reviewed on monitors and they want them to fit on the screen at 100% zoom. And if they are viewing on a monitor, a dpi requirement is completely superfluous.

Take that same 800x1000 pixel image, for instance. It will look the same on a monitor whether it is saved at 1dpi or 100000dpi.

100dpi Comment Ammendment

I earlier submitted the comment regarding the senselessness of requiring photos be submitted at 100dpi. I thought more on the subject and all I can figure is that they'll be using an action to add text to the images and want the font to appear at the same absolute size on every image. If that's not the case, then I can't see any reason to have that requirement.

DPI

Hi
Using DPI loosely like this shows complete ignorance on the part of the writer and must thus call into question their judgment. An image size of 1000 pixels is really quite peculiar and is too small to allow anything but a cursory look.
But I often get asked for things like 3 meg size, whatever that means. I am surprised that a body like Magnum does not understand such simple arithmetic.

dpippic3po

The image size demanded is the file size for online transmission, you silly people.

If you are allowed to send prints, and London and Paris ONLY accept digital files, they must be at this size. If other offices permit prints there obviously isnt any limit to their resolution!!!

People DO use film. And do want to send in prints. And if you print from digital files you can use any size and resolution you like!!!