Hi-Res rip off?

Who else but Getty would demand a portfolio of images given them at a resolution of 3000 pixels on the long dimension saved at 300ppi at a quality of no less than 8?
20-25 portfolio images from each entrant, who should be charging THEM to enter, since there is no protection for the poor photographer under such conditions at all.

They are not stupid: have a look at the Magnum website and see how they advocate protecting your work: it is not like this!!

Photo contests rip off?

As far as I am aware, every photo contest requires a fee from each photographer who want to participate.
Considering the business around the contest and the fact that it runs only thanks to these photographers, they shouldn't be asked to pay.
Many festivals require something like this:
The photographers pay to enter the contest
The participants of workshops pay for the workshops
The attendee of the events pay for attending.

Who gets all that money? And where does it go?
Prizes values are very low considering the volumes.

Am I missing something out in all of this?

Photo contest

In this case GettyImages won't charge any fees, but yes, in many cases photographers are expected to pay even though their work won't be showcased, and this is not fair.

Sam

This a grant, not a photo contest

Getty are giving out grants, not a award as far as I can see.

They do not have to.

It must be difficult to carry on supporting a part of photography that eats up other peoples money and spits out morality through a system of value judgements.

But they carry on supporting it still so good for them.

The real question is why photojournalism is structured to give out precious resources by judges in closed groups for the benefit of so few?

It is a judgemental structure that decides where the money goes based on personal discretion and a meritocracy based on the subjective decisions of the few.

So the career incentive will always be skewed towards pleasing the jury instead of communicating with audiences. It will always skew the requirement to network the insiders of the photojournalism club/community/family/members to get ahead, get that award, win that prize etc, etc, just to survive.

Surviving means being friends with this closed network. They all do it - Magnum, WPP, VII and the rest of them all give out industry authority based on subjective personal decisions in one way or another (portfolio reviews, grants prizes, awards, letting them into their co-operative).

It is an awful way to build a meritocracy and there is very little incentive to give up that personal power - like in a despotic dictatorship!

It has become an industry that is actually incentivised to talk to itself and that is such a shame when a huge amount of the work itself is stunning.

This a grant, not a photo contest

Getty are giving out grants, not a award as far as I can see.

They do not have to.

It must be difficult to carry on supporting a part of photography that eats up other peoples money and spits out morality through a system of value judgements.

But they carry on supporting it still so good for them.

The real question is why photojournalism is structured to give out precious resources by judges in closed groups for the benefit of so few?

It is a judgemental structure that decides where the money goes based on personal discretion and a meritocracy based on the subjective decisions of the few.

So the career incentive will always be skewed towards pleasing the jury instead of communicating with audiences. It will always skew the requirement to network the insiders of the photojournalism club/community/family/members to get ahead, get that award, win that prize etc, etc, just to survive.

Surviving means being friends with this closed network. They all do it - Magnum, WPP, VII and the rest of them all give out industry authority based on subjective personal decisions in one way or another (portfolio reviews, grants prizes, awards, letting them into their co-operative).

It is an awful way to build a meritocracy and there is very little incentive to give up that personal power - like in a despotic dictatorship!

It has become an industry that is actually incentivised to talk to itself and that is such a shame when a huge amount of the work itself is stunning.

human rights

THe jist of my complaint is the hypocrisy involved. We have here a foundation that is, let's face it, extremely rich, offering a prize worth less than the Gadget Show's is worth every single week, in return for an enormous influx from needy photographers of material sent in at archival resolution quality from computers that are then all identifiable by Getty themselves.
Now, IF after such an event you were to be contacted by the organisers of the competition with requests from them to see you and your work because it has certain qualities, that would be a good thing, but this does not happen at all, and one has to ask why. Do you get letters of interest through the mail, signed by somebody who wants to do business with you? Do you get phone calls from people who identify themselves straightaway and make you offers, giving you first their own names and a genuine telephone number and email address you can get back in touch with them?

Do ANY of these grants and competitions do this at all with the dozens of very talented individuals who enter in the hope of winning at least a subsidy for something they have been working on for years.?

If the answer is no, then we must ask why, as before the internet this is what happened all the time.

But then, you had not already given your work away!!