Photo Submission Guidelines
| Besides credits, copyright notice and links to their web sites, photographers who contribute photos receive free copies of any of our iBird apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Android phone. |
Introduction
We are excited about the opportunity for photographers to showcase their work on our web site and smartphone apps. If you are interested in having your bird photography appear on the species pages of Whatbird.com and our popular iBird smartphone app, please read the following details carefully as it will answer all of your questions.
Whatbird.com (link) is an extremely popular and heavily visited website. It’s known as one of the best sites on the Internet to identify birds and is consistently ranked at the top of a search in Google. Whatbird’s parametric search engine (link) is still unequaled as the most accurate way to ID a bird when you only have a small amount of information. Our species pages combine both photos and illustrations, which is unusual even today, and include the songs and calls of almost every bird in North America, range maps, and a huge amount of detail we’ve spent the past 7 years accumulating and organizing. Here is a link to one of our typical species pages for the Indigo Bunting. Typically we get over ½ million visitors a month who read over 2 million pages and consequently the site has a very high page rank. And as some of you know, page rank is a form of currency in today's world. Along with the search engine, the content of the Whatbird species pages are also available in iPhone, iPad and Android apps called iBird Explorer. iBird allows you to take the entire website with you on your phone and does not require an Internet connection. Apple loved our app so much they featured it in an iPhone television commercial and it remains the most admired app for North American species. We hope the same will become true of our iBird UK product. You can learn more about iBird at this link.
The photographers showcased on the Whatbird.com species pages, and also in our iBird products, are among the best on the planet and we go to lengths to expose their talents. If we select your photos for the species pages, and for use in iBird, we will give you credits in several places. In the case of the web page, we will display your name and copyright immediately above the photo along with a hyperlink directly to your website, blog or gallery. Therefore, if a visitor likes your work and wants to learn more about you or purchase your photos, they will be able to find you with one click. We also add your bio and photo to our contributor’s page. In the case of the iBird apps for the iPhone and Android, we will display your name under the photos and your name and web link in the contributor area of the apps About page. In the case of iBird for the iPad, we have a very cool Photo section for each species that displays your photo, along with your name and a link to your site right on the page. Additionally, we provide a mechanism on the iPad that allows the user to see a slide show of just your photos accompanied by the songs and calls of the species being viewed. We hope to add this feature to the iPhone and Android apps in the near future.
Given the number of visitors to Whatbird and viewers of iBird, we believe this exposure is quite valuable and we treat it so, for example, exchanging the currency of the whatbird page rank and the exposure in return for presenting your photos to the birding community. We have no ownership of your work and we do not sell it. All this exposure is a selling opportunity for you so we do suggest you set up some way for visitors to make a purchase of your work.
Whatbird.com Photo Page
Here is an example of how your photo will appear on the Whatbird species pages. There is a headline displaying the name of the photo, a copyright notice and the name of the photographer that is also a link to your webpage. This web link will be viewed by thousands of people each month and, therefore, it is likely your website or gallery will receive a good deal of traffic.
We also add your bio and photo to our contributor’s page (
link) so our readers will know who you are.
iPhone and Android Photo Page
Here is how your photo appears on the iPhone and Android smartphones. Name and copyright appear under the photo. The page scrolls vertically to reveal additional photos.
| iPhone and Android Photos |
| |
 |
 |
| Before Full Screen |
After Full Screen |
iPad Photo Page
The iPad platform allows for even more features. Your photos appear on the gorgeous iPad screen at 576 x 720 pixels. At the bottom of the screen is a credit area where we display your full name as the photographer on a button that opens your website. You can tap another button to see a slide show accompanied by the species song of just your photos so you can use it as a personal exhibition gallery. The point is that this is a feature for promoting you and your work. There is a scrolling set of thumbnails for the species on the left. You flick it to scroll it up or down. When you tap on any thumbnail, it instantly opens in the full-sized image.
There are other features we will be adding, including a description page where customers can learn more about how you took the shot.
| iPad Photos |
| |
 |
 |
| Photo page. Note links to photographer web site, just his or her photos and slideshow button |
Slideshow for single photographer showing Owl collection |
What are we looking for in a photo?
Identification is our Goal. The photos we show on the pages are meant to help people learn to identify a particular bird; they are not so much about art as they are about education. Thus, we are looking for photos that show off ID marks that are representative of the coloring and plumage found in typical species. This means we are seeking photos that show the entire bird’s body filling most of the frame, backgrounds that are not overpowering and allow the subject to show up, and subject and lighting that shows off the birds features. We want photos that are sharply focused (not fuzzy). We also accept photography of birds in flight.
Examples of Photos We Can Use and Can't Use and Why
Here are examples of photos that we can use and can't use and the reasons why. Please read this carefully as it will prevent you from wasting a lot of time and effort and will help you understand what kind of photo we wish to present to our visitors.
| We Can Use These Photos |
We Can't Use These Photos |
 |
 |
Turkey Vulture by Jeff Wendorff. Correct portrait mode 576w x 720h x 72 ppi 24-bit PNG NON-interlaced, bird fills the entire frame, field marks are clear, focus is strong, head is clear, feet show up well. |
Incorrect landscape mode instead of portrait, bird is too small in the frame and is obscured by branches. |
 |
 |
American Robin by John Schwarz. Photo is a great profile of the species, focus is good, all field marks are clear. |
Photo is in correct portrait format but too small, hard to see entire body because it is covered by the tree branch, head is turned away so you can't see its profile well. |
 |
 |
Acorn Woodpecker by E.J. Peiker. Good field marks, and the green sheen is apparent, background is a nice green, and you can see the barring on the breast. |
While this is a good family study the birds are so small in the frame they can't be easily seen unless the image was zoomed. It is also the wrong ratio and is too tall. |
What we looking for in a Photo
This is the format we need in order to use your photos. We use this single format for both the web page and the iPad and iPhone/Android.
1. Size should be 576 pixels wide x 720 pixels high. Resolution is 72 pixels per inch and image type is 24-bit PNG non-interlaced. Note we can only use portrait mode photos; landscape requires too much work getting it to fit properly on our pages. If you experience some loss of quality or color, or you experience a color saturation issue, you may not have a color-calibrated workspace. To mitigate this, make sure the files are converted to the sRGB color space before saving as a PNG.
2. Photos must be in portrait format (not landscape).
3. Please include the species name in your file name. Use the name as it appears on our website, and include sex or phase if known; only include dashes if they are in the official name. The species in the photo must be identified in order for us to be able to use it, so please identify the species of bird. We will double-check the ID, but unless it’s identified initially, it will be too much work for us to figure it out. Names like “sparrow” or “hawk in California” won't work.
Submitting Example Photos
Given that the response to our photo project has been overwhelming, if you have photos you would like to submit, we ask that you first send us a link to a website photo gallery, such as Picasa or Flickr, so that we can review them. If you don't have a gallery, then we ask that you submit only a few examples. Please ZIP up 3 or 4 photos in the format we specified above and then send them using the ”submit sample photos” link below.
Please do not send multiple photos as it makes it difficult for us to manage. We appreciate your submissions but we can only use photos that have the bird filling most of the frame, are in sharp focus and sized properly. Once we receive your photos, we will contact you if we plan to use them on the website, and we will provide you with additional instructions.
If we have contacted you directly about your photos, and you are ready to submit multiple images, please respond to our email and we will establish an FTP connection to which you can upload.
Click this link to submit sample photos. Select the category Photography -> Photo Submissions
Specific Bird Species Needed
We currently have over 2,000 photos on our site. However, we are missing photographs for some rare birds that are listed in the PDF (see link below). Species with no photos are in the 1st column and species with 1 photo are in the 2nd column; UK birds needed are listed in the 3rd column. If you have photos of any of these missing species and would like to contribute them to our website and iBird, we would be most appreciative.
If you have any questions regarding photo submissions to Whatbird and iBird, please email michelle@whatbird.com.
Jane Wright
Whatbird.com Senior Editor