Guest Post Month

While part of the Photography Life team is on the road filming our next video course on landscape photography, we thought it would be a good idea to start a guest post month dedicated to posting content from our readers. Last year’s guest post month was amazing and we got so many great articles, which were both very educational and inspirational. Well, it is again time to give the chance for our readers to speak out and show off their work! Because many of our readers are as passionate as we are in sharing their knowledge, they often share articles with us in the form of Guest Posts, the best of which we often feature on the site. We would like to invite our dear readers again in participating in a knowledge sharing contest, in which we will reward every writer when their article is posted on the site. If your article is published, we will reward you with a $50 gift card from B&H, Adorama, Amazon or any other store of your choice as a token of appreciation, or if you prefer to be paid instead, we will transfer the sum to your PayPal account. This way, you are rewarded for your contribution even if you do not win the ultimate prize, which speaking of, is going to be amazing this time around! The person who submits the best guest post will be rewarded with the Fuji X-T10 mirrorless camera kit (see our detailed review of the Fuji X-T10), or the equivalent sum towards the purchase of any camera or lens valued at $900, in addition to a full year of SmugMug membership (see our review of SmugMug). We will not limit your contributions, so you could submit as many articles as you would like and get paid for the work. Sounds exciting? Then read on!

Below you will find submission rules and our guide on the type of content we are looking for.

What to Write About

If you don’t know where to start, please take a look at the guest posts that we have previously featured on the site. Basically, we are looking for any kind of content, as long as it is photography related. You could write “how to” articles, guides, tutorials, essays, reviews of camera gear, interviews, your travel adventures – you name it. Everything counts, as long as it is educational, or interesting to read / engaging. Our first priority is obviously sharing knowledge, so we prefer that you submit articles that educate others. But if you have something else up your sleeve that will truly resonate with our readers and engage them in discussions, you can submit it too. We won’t grade your work on its type, but rather on other factors highlighted below.

Winner Selection

So how will winners be selected? The criteria for selection will vary by content, but here is a list of items that we will surely look at:

1. Content Quality and Length: while length is not particularly important, the quality of content is key.
2. Quality of Images / Illustrations: if you write a piece, showing off your work in its glory is important – it establishes credibility.
3. Reader Interaction: a strong article usually creates discussions between other readers, so their engagement and participation will also count.
4. Social Media: every article will be promoted to our Facebook fan page, Twitter and Google+. The more likes, retweets and shares, the better.
5. Other Criteria: we will also look at other criteria like your sense of humor, writing skills, etc. as part of evaluation.

By the end of the month, it should be pretty clear who the winner is based on the above, but if we have a hard time picking a winner, we will engage our team at PL for making the decision.

Contest and Content Submission Rules

It is important to also establish contest and content submission rules, as they are very important.

Contest rules:

• The contest is open to participants from all countries, not just USA. Some countries might have import restrictions, value-added taxes, high shipping costs and other fees. The winner will be responsible for all those fees, including shipping. If we cannot send the camera for some reason (perhaps due to high shipping costs or import restrictions), we will have to change the prize for cash value / gift card.
• Participants must be at least 16 years old to participate.
• To claim cash prize (whether for the articles or the camera), participant must have a verified PayPal account. For sums amounting to over $200 USD, we will be able to send a check to a postal address (only for US and Canada residents).
• Image copyright will be retained by the author. PL agrees to never publish any of the submitted content or images, except in other content and material (whether free or paid) published or referenced on the site.
• All contest rules are subject to change any time by the contest organizer.

Content submission rules:

• Photographs / Illustrations: All images must be extracted at 1200 pixel long resolution or higher (2048 pixels preferable). Maximum image width should be 2048 pixels on the long edge. Images should be extracted at 80% JPEG quality minimum, sRGB color space. All images must be copyright of the person submitting the article, or properly licensed (license proof must be submitted with the article). It goes without saying that images taken from other people or “borrowed” from other websites will be rejected. If it is an educational article and you don’t need to use images, then an illustration will also work. A minimum of one image must be provided.
• Text Originality / Plagiarism: All content must be original and must be written by the author. We have zero tolerance for plagiarism and if we find any traces of it, your article will never be published, no matter how good it is. You will also be permanently banned from participating in this and other similar contests in the future. Use of references and quotes are OK, as long as the source is provided.
• As always, we want to feature artists and help promote their work. Please don’t forget to include your short bio, along with a link to your website/portfolio. We will add that information on the bottom of the article.

Submitting Content

Submitting content is very easy. Put all images, along with the text version of the document (preferably in Word or plain text format) in a single ZIP file, then upload it through our Submit Content page.

We are looking forward to seeing amazing content from our dear readers!

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