Portfolio Submissions & Photographic Requirements

There are 5 steps to becoming an affiliated photographer with Horse Source Photos:

1. Download, read and review the Photographers Agreement.
2. Carefully review the photographic requirements listed below and ensure that your images and workflow meet the standards.
3. Make a selection of your best 10 - 15 images and send them for approval along with a brief description of yourself. On CD, send them to Attn: Photographic Submissions, Horse Source Photos, #105 - 26730 56th Avenue, Langley, BC Canada V4W 3X5.  By Email, send them to photosub@horsesourcephotos.com
4. If your initial submission is approved, you can start to send images for inclusion in the catalogue.   You will receive instructions on how to upload to the web site directly. (Competition images need to be keyworded and uploaded immediately following an event.)
5. Mail or Fax the signed Photographers Agreement and we will countersign and return one copy to you for your records. Mail it to Horse Source Photos, #105 - 26730 56th Avenue, Langley, BC Canada V4W 3X5. Or Fax, 604-607-0533.

What We Want:

The highest quality images in terms of lighting, composition and subject material. Picture researchers do not want to wade through dozens of lower quality images to find the ones they are looking for and will soon go elsewhere, so ultimately our overall sales potential depends on you uploading the best material possible. As an event photographer, fast digital workflow and the uploading of your images immediately following an event is critical.

Competition Images:  We are only interested in competition images from high level events featuring the worlds top riders and horses. We do not want low level local competitions (although, for example a great photo of a child riding a pony over a jump with a model release would certainly be used in the stock section). Photographs from all top level events in all disciplines will often go first into the 'Latest Events' section of the site for immediate use and then transferred into organized collections several days later. Please note that competitions covers all aspects of equestrian sport i.e. jumping, dressage, eventing, polo, western, racing, driving, etc as well as the Olympic disciplines.

Stock Images:  Anything to do with the equestrian world!! Including horses, breeds, horse people, circus, military, police, farming, etc, etc. Our aim is to be a one-stop shopping service for editors, picture researchers, advertisers, etc and to offer the widest range of equestrian images available in the world. Please review the section on "Licensing Images" to decide if you want to offer your images Rights Managed (RM) or Royalty-Free (RF).

Photographic Requirements:

1. The minimum file size is 11MB (not interpolated to this size). Files should not be more than 50MB.
2. Files must be saved as JPEG images with compression set to minimum (i.e. maximum quality in Photoshop with a setting between 10 - 12).
3. Save files with a naming convention that includes a combination of your initials, current date, and sequence number. (i.e. GM_2008-07-25_4375.jpg)
4. All images must be in RGB format using the Adobe RGB (1998) color space and should be at least 8 bit.
5. All files must be clean of dust, scratches, and ready for use. Ensure that your spotting/cleaning is done in a professional manner - there should be no visible evidence of what you have done.
6. Images should be color corrected as necessary.
7. Do not sharpen your images - sharpening will be applied by the end user.
8. Images must contain full caption information and keywords in the relevant IPTC Fields. (See Below)
9. Only digital images will be accepted with the exception of older archives. If you have images in a non-digital format that you would like to be considered, please contact us BEFORE making a submission.
10. DO NOT digitally mark (watermark) your images in any way. Such marks severely restrict the possible use of images and will result in rejection.

Licensing Images (Rights Managed & Royalty Free):

1. ALL competition images MUST be rights managed. As it is generally not possible or even desirable to obtain model releases at competitions you cannot set the license type to royalty free. In fact no image where the person is recognizable and you do not have a model release should ever be licensed royalty free. In general competition images will be offered for editorial license only other than where the individual rider or owner is purchasing the license for there own advertising/promotional purposes.
2. If you think your stock images may be suitable for use in advertising (and you have either model releases or they do not require model releases as they have no recognizable person) you may be wise to choose a rights managed license
3. Royalty free images tend to sell many more times than rights managed, as they are lower priced and have fewer restrictions. You may find that with certain types of images a royalty free license may be more suitable
4. Note that once selected a license type cannot be changed.
5. DO NOT upload essentially similar images, one royalty free and one rights managed as this may have legal implications to our customers.

Keywording:

• Do not include words that refer to the orientation of an image i.e. horizontal or landscape. The orientation is automatically selected for each image at the time of uploading by reading the data recorded from your camera.
• Do not put your name or the file name in either the caption or keywords fields - your name is assigned automatically by the system and the file name is also automatically applied.
• Keywords must be RELEVANT. Do not apply keywords that have nothing to with the image. This practice known as keyword spamming will result in your images being removed from the catalogue.
• Do not repeat any words that are used in the caption/description or IPTC data, as these will be automatically searched.

IPTC Data & Keywording Requirements:

Software: