For God's sake!

Stop scamming picture.com. I gat 1000$ from them last year, you can have a look at my picture under the name Fifa Kanreyka! What was good about them - they did not ask you to buy a single thing from them, although the keep promoting them - the books, the winning cups, etc.

I wander, wher does this negative info come from? On their website, you can find the winners' list, some of the photographers listed tere, especially the grant prize winners have their own websites, so you con google them and ask if they ever received the prize. That's what I did, out of interest, had positive reply and received my oun prize pay-checkafter a while. Pitti I did not take the 10,000 one...:-)

Good luck to all!

Any reason you didn't post this on the thread it actually applies to?

B/c if he posted it on the thread that this pertains..pourtains..purtains...uhhh....anyways...to, then only 3 ppl would see it b/c usually ppl read the post b4 them and the first post of the thread. So this way it gets the point across better..

...thats a theory. ;-)

you could also try googling something like picture.com rip off or scam and read thousands of tales of woe from people who have fallen foul of this or one of its other clone schemes. nothing comes without a fee one way or another except for the initial free entry itself.

Here are the known companies that are all the same organisation that run these ‘contests’ both in photography and poetry:

International Library of Photography (ILP)
Picture.com
ephotograph.com
The International Library of Poetry
International Poetry Hall of Fame
International Society of Poets
Photography Laureates
National Library of Poetry
Poetry.com
International Poetry Hall of Fame
Watermark Press
Birthwrites
International Lib
Pegasus Press
International Society of Photography
Arts and Kids


And here is a breakdown of the contest costs involved after you submit your free entry:

To have your picture printed in one of their monthly showcase books (actually little more than a brochure) will cost you: $60-70. Ordinarily this print appears at about the same size as the thumbnails you see here on this site.

If you want any bio information adding to your picture in the book this will cost you an extra $40.

After you go through all that process you will then be invited to one of their regular prize giving conferences – usually in Vegas – to collect your ‘Outstanding Achievement in Photography Silver Award Bowl’ prize, a glorified spittoon that is supposedly cast in silver and valued at $200 but when independent consumer researchers in California tested it, it’s combined value of materials and manufacturing was actually closer to $5. Everyone who attends the conference gets one regardless of their achievement, outstanding or otherwise.

You have to make your own way to the conference of course as well pay as for your accommodation but to actually get through the conference doors and get a seat will set you back a staggering $600 plus an additional $300 for any guest you drag along with you.

If you feel you are unable to attend the conference they will post your five dollar spittoon to you. For a fee of $169. really.

If you have been brave/stupid enough to do all that – you will also be charged annual membership to the club for $70 a year.

So in total if you were to submit a work, buy a book for yourself and one for your family as a gift, attend the conference and pick up your prize – including a couple of nights stay in the hotel, and sign up for membership you’d be looking at the thick end of $2,000 – just to see a thumbnail of your picture in a pamphlet with your name next to it.

These companies do hand out $30,000 a year in grand ‘prizes’ but this I suspect is to avoid prosecution and you have to take that in context of the vast amounts of money they generate out of all the other entries – it was reported last year that they were making $70,000 a month in ‘book’ sales alone.

So please don’t fall for this crap or try and promote it on these forums as anything other than what it is – a money making machine that has little or no legitimacy as a contest at all.