I saw an interesting post on Street Shooters UK yesterday and uploaded 3 pix to be included as part of the Greenwich Gallery's call for entries for its "Crowds" project, the call for entries are all done on-line via the Award-io platform which is a tool for curators to solicit photographic entries for exhibitions all over the world.

The advertised fee for entry was penny's less than £15 for a portfolio of 3 pix and the prize offered was to have your work exhibited at the gallery in Greenwich, London for 2 weeks.I had no problem with the Greenwich Galleries prize but became less impressed by the Award-io platform.

The fee for 3 entries was almost 30 quid not the £14.95 advertised, the other thing that surprised me was that below each image opened on the site a button appears offering the viewer the chance to "SHARE" your entered image on Facebook or Twitter. I am aware that any image posted on line is easily copied and posted elsewhere but I'm not sure that a site that claims to champion photographers should be actively helping others breach hard won copyright rights.

The images I uploaded were still on view the last time I checked despite my efforts to delete them, its less than reassuring to know that Award-io will archive my images forever on public view.

Apart from the money stuff this Award-io platform does not appear to be well considered, it appears to offer the greatest opportunity I have seen to ensure that your images become copyright orphans of the future.

The Greenwich Gallery appears to be using the platform to curate an exhibition and is not to blame for the problems I discovered, however I think it should pick its partners more carefully.

Keep it real-io !