Exhibitions in Eastern Europe

[audiafour]

There are currently numerous calls for submissions to photographic competitions and exhibitions in Eastern Europe, some with FIAP patronage. Most just require uploading of images, some apparently don't even seem to require prints. Has anyone submitted anything recently, or have previous experience/comments?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You have links?

[louoates]

I've heard that some of these are fake offers that result in stolen images that later are sold as stock images on shady sites.

[RSL]

Are you surprised, Lou?

[louoates]

I'm not surprised at the scams out there. But I'm surprised in the gullibility of folks to blindly send away their best images. The stock photo scam artists have resorted to creating fake stock sites to solicit images for resale then copy them to other quasi-legitimate stock photo sites to sell to buyers with no commissions ever going to the original artist. Pretty clever, eh? The photo contest scams are a more recent, more sophisticated scam that caters to a wider, non-professional, more naive sucker-base than the fake stock photo site scams.

The stock site scams go something like this:
"We're really impressed with your photography and would like to represent your work on our world-renown stock photo site "----" You can make big money by simply having us market your images to "-----" million buyers worldwide every month. To qualify simply "ftp --------" your ten best images in highest quality jpg format for approval. Once approved you can download your entire portfolio and begin immediately making as much as "$------" every month".

I have large portfolios at the three largest stock photo sites with no problems except for the random theft most stock contributors have.

I haven't been contacted lately by the contest scammers so I guess I should feel insulted.

[RSL]

It reinforces my happiness that I'm not trying to make a living in photography.