I mentioned JPG magazine a while back, but I’ll give you the full run-down this time!

JPG is a real-world print magazine with user-created content submitted through the website. Each issue has themes, which images are submitted to, and are voted on, by members of the website. Images for the final magazine are chosen through a combination of direct votes and a ‘hotness’ scale which is somehow determined by the management They say it’s determined by the amount of views, votes, comments, etc that the photo gets.

They also encourage submitters to write articles and photo essays for inclusion in the magazine, and on the website.

I’m generally pretty reluctant to get involved in online communities, but I bit the bullet and signed up for JPG a while back – and I’ve not looked back! I’ve found it to be a friendly place where you can get to know other photographers and their work and get exposure and feedback on your own. They are not about criticism though, so maybe it’s not the place to go for improving your work, but I do think it’s more than just ego-stroking.

If there’s any more incentive required, any image chosen for publication wins the user a years subscription to the print mag, plus £50! Some of the monthly themes also have other prizes, for example, the ‘Surroundings‘ theme was backed by Samsung and offered prizes of new Samsung G800 camera phones to 5 winners, as well as $600!

So – cutting to the chase – I have an image up for submission in this months mag under the theme ‘Creatures’ and would love it you come along and vote, then sign up and join in yourself!