2008 Photography Contest - Contest Rules

READ THE RULES AND GETTING STARTED
Even though you may have entered the Southern Photographer of the Year competition, or other similar contests, for several years, you, the entrant, are responsible for reading through and following these rules. The contest chair may disqualify your entry for not following any of the below instructions. All decisions made by the contest chair are final. Should you have any questions not covered or too ambiguously described below, send an e-mail to contest@southernshortcourse.com.

ELIGIBILITY
The Southern Short Course in News Photography annual contest is restricted to professional photographers or photography or photojournalism students currently enrolled in school or taking part in a journalism internship program.

CONTEST FEES AND DEADLINES
Contest entry fees are non-refundable and can be paid either by check or by using PayPal using our online payment form. If you pay online, be sure to include a paper copy of your PayPal Payment Confirmation page with your entry, if mailed, or a PDF or digital copy if sent via FTP. Again, the contest entry fees are non-refundable.

(Entrants whose checks are returned unpaid for any reason will be assessed an additional processing fee of $75 (U.S.). Any returned check issues must be cleared up before the contest entry deadline for your entry to be judged.)

The contest entry and Short Course registration fees are separate and must be paid separately. Do not include your Short Course registration fee with your contest entry or include your contest entry fee with your Short Course registration. If the contest fee (or a paper copy of the PayPal Payment Confirmation Page) is not included with the contest entries, the entry will NOT be judged.

Fees have changed slightly this year, and with new categories, so have the potential entrants. Fees are always payable in U.S. currency. Please read through this part carefully.

The fee for individuals who enter the Southern Photographer of the Year competition for categories 1 (one) through 13, detailed below, is $35. Your maximum of 20 entries may consist of: 1 (one) portfolio, two (2) multimedia entries in category 13 and no more than five entries per other category (1 (one) through 12). For an extra cost, you have an option of entering up to two (2) additional multimedia entries for $10 each, but you are still restricted to the 20-entry maximum.

The new category, Team Multimedia, may be entered by publications/Webzines at a cost of $75 to enter five (5) Team Multimedia entries in category 14. The option to enter up to five (5) more entries is offered at $20 for each additional entry. A more detailed definition of the category appears below.

SENDING YOUR ENTRIES THE OLD FASHIONED WAY
If you wish to send a CD instead of using the FTP option, send it for delivery to: (NEW ADDRESS in 2008)

Southern Photographer of the Year Competition
c/o Rich Glickstein
The State - Photo Dept.
1401 Shop Road
Columbia, SC 29201
U.S.A.
 
E-mail questions to: contest@southernshortcourse.com

Entries hand mailed (via the U.S. Mail, FedEx, UPS, carrier pigeon, etc.) must be postmarked on or before March 7, 2008, and received by March 10, 2008. Any entry postmarked after that date will not be judged. Late entrants' checks will be returned, un-cashed.

Entry materials that are mailed will be available for pickup at the Southern Short Course. Materials will be discarded following the Short Course and will not be returned by mail.

SENDING YOUR ENTRIES THE NEW, COOL AND HIP WAY
For the first year, The Southern Photographer of the Year will accept FTP transmission of entries to its contest. In order to transmit via FTP, entrants MUST pay for the contest via PayPal and include a PDF of their proof of payment in their contest entry transmission. Transmission information is given upon payment.

Title a parent folder or directory (whichever you call it) using your unique photographer's code and the phrase "SSC Entry." (It would look like this: nrblx SSC Entry.) In an organized fashion, place your entire SSC Entry inside this parent directory. Move your parent directory to the FTP server.

Entrants will have privileges to upload files and folders only. No deletion or downloading is allowed or possible. Don't try it. There will be a log file of activity kept by the computer during each operation. Penalty for attempted deletion or downloading will be disqualification from the contest. There will be no exception.

Deadline for receipt of entries is 7 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time, Friday, March 7, 2008. The access password will be changed at that time and, again, there will be no exception.

GENERAL RULES
All entries must be submitted in digital format. No slide entries will be accepted. Unpublished images will be accepted. Still grabs from video WILL NOT be.

INCLUSIVE DATES
Pictures taken or first published between March 29, 2007, and December 31, 2007, may be entered in the Southern Photographer of the Year competition. This shortened eligibility period will be for this year only. Starting in 2009, the competition will base its entry eligibility on being taken or first published in the previous calendar year.

A maximum of 20 entries per individual photographer will be accepted. Your 20-entry total may consist of one (1) portfolio, two (2) multimedia entries and no more than 5 entries per category. Individual entrants have an option of exchanging two (2) of their 20 entries for two (2) additional multimedia entries at an additional cost of $10 per entry. Total cost for individuals will be $55 if you enter the two additional multimedia entries.

A new category in the 2008 contest called "Team Multimedia" is open to publications (including Web magazines). For $75, a publication may enter no more than five (5) team multimedia entries. Publications have an option of entering no more than an additional five (5) team multimedia entries at a cost of $20 each allowing a maximum of 10 entries per publication. The information presented in the Team category must have been collected by a minimum of TWO (2) people. This includes neither producers nor editors. Total cost for publications would be $175 if it entered the five additional entries.

IMPORTANT: Photographs may be entered only once in single picture categories, once as part of one story and may appear only ONCE as a part of a portfolio.

The contest chair reserves the right to disqualify entries that do not conform to the rules.

CHOOSING A CODE
Choose your unique photographer's code. This important code will be a part in naming all your files. Use a lower case FIVE-letter sequence (example: nrblx). Not four (nrbl). Not six (nrblxy). Five. Every photographer must have a unique code, so do not spell words or names. If you are preparing entries for multiple photographers, be sure their codes vary and don't all start with a similar prefix.

A photographer's code might look like this: nrblx (don't use this exact code – it's only an example).

PREPARING YOUR ENTRIES
We recommend using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or later to prepare your images, although it is not required. Macintosh computers using OS X (10.4.11 or newer) will be used during judging. It is the entrant's responsibility to ensure your submitted files can be viewed using this platform.

The image orientation must read in normal viewing position, with top of the image being at the top. We will not flop or rotate photographs. Again, it is the entrant's responsibility to ensure proper orientation.

For all multimedia entries: Your entry MUST RUN IN A WEB BROWSER as it was presented when published on the World Wide Web. Safari, Firefox and Netscape will be the available browsers used during judging. It is unclear if there will be Internet access in the judging room. Make sure to SEND YOUR ENTIRE MULTIMEDIA ENTRIES on disc or though FTP with the appropriate instructions on how to run it. In the directory or folder containing the multimedia entry, include a text file (entitled readme.txt or readme.doc) explaining how to open your entry. If this instruction file does not exist or if it only contains a URL where to view it online, the entry WILL NOT BE JUDGED.

SIZING YOUR IMAGES
Scan or adjust image size to 72 dpi with the longer dimension (width or height) no longer than 12 inches.

CAPTIONING YOUR PHOTOS
Using Photoshop's "File Info" option (under the File menu), caption the photo using a concise 25-words-or-less description. Following the caption, add your photographer's code and a title.

For example: Karen Smith stretches to reach the finish in the 100-meter final of the World Track and Field Championships. nrblx Big Stretch

Use the File Info option, not a captioning plug-in. Even if your photos are already captioned using a captioning plug-in, re-enter the information directly into File Info. You will not be penalized if you are using an older version of Photoshop or another image-editing program that does not offer the File Info option.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT include a hard copy of your captions. It will be discarded.

For photo stories, include a story summary of no longer than 40 words as well as a caption in "File Info" in ONLY the first image of the story. Include a caption of no longer than 25 words in each of the other story slides, if you choose. Captions for each slide in stories are not required, but the summary is.

FILE COMPRESSION
Save and compress the RGB or grayscale file using JPEG compression set to 10, or "high." Use the optimized JPEG option if available. Before compressing your file, make sure you have sized your picture to the correct dimensions. PICTURES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN SIZED CORRECTLY WILL BE DISQUALIFIED with no exceptions.

NAMING YOUR FILES
Name your picture files beginning with the two-digit category number (some will lead with a zero), followed by your unique photographer's code, followed by sequential two-digit numbers corresponding to the number of photos you are entering in that category. Add capitalized, sequential letters to the string for each photo in a picture story entry. End it all with .jpg (Sounds complicated, but it's not).

SINGLE PICTURE ENTRIES
A single photo entry might have a file name like this: 04nrblx01.jpg (04 is the category number, nrblx is the photographer's code, 01 is your first entry within this category, and .jpg is the mandatory suffix). Other entries within the same category would be 04nrblx02.jpg and 04nrblx03.jpg.

PICTURE STORY ENTRIES
Photos in a picture story entry might look like this: 12nrblx01A.jpg, 12nrblx01B.jpg, 12nrblx01C.jpg (12 is the category number; nrblx is the photographer's code; 01 is your first entry in the category; A, B and C indicate the first three photos in a picture story, and .jpg is the mandatory suffix). Picture stories may contain a maximum of 12 images in each story.

Place the files comprising a single picture story together in a folder. Title the folder with the category file name of the photos it contains. For instance, some of the images of a picture story have the file names: 12nrblx01A.jpg, 12nrblx01B.jpg, 12nrblx01C.jpg. The folder they are placed in would be titled 12nrblx01. Again, picture stories may contain a maximum of 12 photographs each.

To clarify, if you have two News Picture Story entries, you will have two folders, each folder containing the photos that make up a single entry.

IMPORTANT: Do not submit a hard copy of your captions with your entry. However, remember that you must include a concise but informative story summary of no longer than 40 words in "File Info" for the first image in the story.

CHECK YOUR DISKS
Before sending us your disks, verify their integrity by making sure they are readable and do not contain any viruses. The SSC contest chair will disqualify any disk that is unreadable, defective or found to contain a virus or other suspicious files.

LABELING YOUR DISKS
Label each disk with your unique photographer's code, your name AND your contact information (phone AND e-mail). Indicate the number of single entries (counting each story as one single entry), portfolio entries, or both.