St. Louis Section
of the
American Chemical Society

Photo releases ... please use them!

Yes, we’re a speck on the world of news and human interest photography in a backwater of the flow of earth-shaking events, but lawyers and courtrooms have made it to St Louis. Even li’l ol’ StL–ACS can be sued.

If you are photographing a public event and want your pictures to be considered for publication in the Chemical Bond or on the local section website, you must obtain properly executed photo releases from your subjects.

The only exceptions, as discussed at the local section board meeting, are

1. subjects who are active members of the section and are themselves representing the section at the event; these subjects are “public figures” whose permission is implicit in their attendance; and
2. people in “crowd scenes”, background figures who are peripheral to the actual photo subject.

When you submit a photo for publication by or for the section, you are confirming that you have a properly executed photo release, signed by the subject, if an adult, or by the subject’s parent or guardian, if a child.

Please bring or mail the photo release to the chair of the Publicity and Public Relations Committee no later than the board meeting following the event. Please do not submit a photo for publication if you do not have a signed release.

Download the Photo release (pdf, 43 kb). You can fill in the constant information about the event and the photographer. Then print it and take plenty of copies to the event with you. Thanks!