Get published - two bright lights??

sphynge wrote: HI there

I'm Caroline and I work at Two Bright Lights. I just joined - before that I was a pro photographer using their service

So how this works is it's for photographers who want to get featured in magazines / blogs. Think a feature from an editor. If that's what you want to do today, you have to find your editor, prepare a submission with their ToS, format everything, then wait until the editor has reviewed your submission for publication, and hopefully you're selected for a feature. If you don't, you have to start the process all over again. That's why few wedding photographers get published in general - it's just too much work.
With Two Bright Lights, that process is easier. So you select which editor you want to submit to, and if the editor says no, it's a 3 click resubmit to another editor. Simple.
So this isn't an alternative to *selling* your photos, it's not a stock site, and it's definitely not a spam your photos around site. This is an alternative to the submission processes that exist today to try to get you PR. You have a list of editors you can choose from, so it's not like you don't know - you are the one selecting which sites you're submitting which photos to. No editor can just find your photo without your consent and publish it - so it's a lot more like doing your own PR.

Hope that makes sense!

Caroline
Two Bright Lights
Sphynge Photography

How do you know which site has right clicked turned on or off? Are there any size requirements or uniform size for all?

Many of the editorial partners seem to be blogs - do bloggers pay for photos? I wouldn't expect that most would but then I don't read a lot of blogs.

The way the Tour page is written doesn't come across to me in a way that seems written professionally. I just get the impression this site could be more a way for blogs to acquire photos than for photographers to be published and be compensated for their work.

icepics wrote: Many of the editorial partners seem to be blogs - do bloggers pay for photos? I wouldn't expect that most would but then I don't read a lot of blogs.

The way the Tour page is written doesn't come across to me in a way that seems written professionally. I just get the impression this site could be more a way for blogs to acquire photos than for photographers to be published and be compensated for their work.

I was thinking the same, it's more tailored for the bloggers than the interest and effectiveness of the photographers.

Smells funny, I'd walk away

I'll try to answer in order...

Richard: the photos you submit are for PR - the idea there is that the more they are published, the better. All editors are required to give credit. You can discuss watermarking with editors you submit to, but the goal of most publications is for brides to clearly see the photos, so most editors will give credit in the article. Same goes for magazines - editors give credit outside of the printed image. I wouldn't submit any photos you are afraid might get pinned on pinterest or shared, since the goal of Public Relations is to spread the word about your business.

Tamgerine: yes you have a list of 400 editors to choose from. If you find an editor that does not use Two Bright Lights, you can still use the system to share your photos with them. You'd upload the photos and then use the "Share" function to email them a link to your photos. That being said, we always want to hear about great editors to add to our list - we do vet them and they have very specific copyright rules to follow to be part of our editorial fleet though.

Little Kate - the photos you are submitting are for public relations, so the goal would be for those photographs to be shared. We suggest uploading high resolution photographs if you want to submit to a print magazine; the system automatically resizes the photos to fit the publication you have chosen to submit to, this way you don't have to upload multiple versions of the photos every time you want to submit.

Icepics - most of our editors are bloggers; we have a variety of print magazines as well (Inside Weddings), large online publications (Green Wedding Shoes, Wedding Wire, Project Wedding). I was published last month in DIY Weddings Magazine so it's definitely possible to get published in print (note: I submitted to that publication wayyy before I joined the Two Bright Lights team, so this was a regular user experience). I would just note that the turn around times for prints are much, much longer than for blogs, and they tend to be exclusives, meaning you can't have it republished in another print or blog. It's up to you what strategy you opt for; just like in regular public relations, the bigger the publication, the more likely they are to ask for an exclusive. To reiterate: this isn't a stock photo site, and this is NOT a Getty Images. This is a public relations platform, so you're doing with $129/year what a PR firm would do for you for $5,000/month essentially. The goal here is to get photographers a lot of publicity so that brides can find them and so they get more credibility by getting their photographs published.

Happy to answer any other questions - remember though that Two Bright Lights has a free trial so you can check out how a lot of it works with a trial.

Caroline

Two Bright Lights
Sphynge Photography

Icepics - this is great feedback. I agree that our pages could use a revamp, and we're working on it. We definitely need to explain what we do a lot more clearly. Keep tuned!

Hmmm, will take a look

You hereby grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free,Irrevocable,perpetual, worldwide right to use, reproduce, edit, market, store, distribute, have distributed, publicly and privately display,

See now this is where I see a problem. If I or anyone chooses to end our accounts you retain rights to use the photos even if we have closed the account and deleted our photos, because they are stored on your server. Or am I reading this wrong? Seems to me if I end my account with you then you no longer should have use of the photos and when I ask they be taken down this should be the case. This is especially true since you are being paid for the service.

That sentence you quoted Joves is a deal breaker for me every time (and I feel like I'm reading similar terms a lot lately).

I would think that promoting/advertising your work locally would be a better option for a photographer to reach potential customers in their area; I don't know that prospective clients would be likely to find or use this type PR site to find a photographer.

icepics wrote: That sentence you quoted Joves is a deal breaker for me every time (and I feel like I'm reading similar terms a lot lately).

Well I am waiting for sphynge to address that one. Seems it should have been in the first round defending the site, but then I am not in the photo stealing business. And that is what these sites that have these terms are doing is gaining royalty free photos to profit from. So please sphynge prove me wrong. It seems to me the only one making out is TBL, and the vendors who get unlimited use of peoples photos as well.

If you choose to publish to a magazine, send everything to the editors, and the magazine accepts your submission, publishes it in print, and afterwards, you decide that you no longer want it in the publication, we can't make them unprint them.

icepics wrote: That sentence you quoted Joves is a deal breaker for me every time (and I feel like I'm reading similar terms a lot lately).

I would think that promoting/advertising your work locally would be a better option for a photographer to reach potential customers in their area; I don't know that prospective clients would be likely to find or use this type PR site to find a photographer.

+1

sphynge wrote: If you choose to publish to a magazine, send everything to the editors, and the magazine accepts your submission, publishes it in print, and afterwards, you decide that you no longer want it in the publication, we can't make them unprint them.

Do I have to bold type every point. I was not merely speaking of print. Your answer is an obfuscation of the central point, and that is that you as a company give yourself irrevocable rights when someone submit photos to your site. I am not stupid enough to think someone can take something out of print. But you and your company give yourselves the right to someones work without limitation, and expect people to pay you for the right to do so. Oh that is right they get credit. To me if I was a wedding or any other professional, I would expect that if you were promoting me and my work, that I would expect to see profit from the venture. Instead what I see is that publishers and other paid users get free content, and the shooter merely gets a credit.
The central point is you as an entity state you have irrevocable, perpetual rights, which is legalize for forever, to somebodies work, and therein lies the problem.

Joves this is exactly what Public Relations is: you submit your work for credit. As stated, this isn't stock photography, this isn't work for hire, this is PR. In PR you submit in the hopes of being featured - the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times almost never pay for their features, but companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to PR companies in the hope of getting featured, because that kind of editorial exposure builds credibility and awareness. If your goal isn't credibility and awareness, there's no question Two Bright Lights is not the right tool for you.
Also you'll know that if there are no permissions associated for the photos, no editors would ever accept the content, which is why permission is given before the submission as opposed to after acceptance. I would suggest only putting forward the photos that you want to promote to gain credibility & awareness, not your entire body of work (but then, that's really up to you).