2012 Contest Rules

READ THE RULES AND GETTING STARTED

While you’re at it, enter the Southern Short Course contest! What does this mean for you, dear entrant? You can take your contest entries for one of three other contests (NPPA's Best in Photojournalism, Pictures of the Year International or World Press Photo), change the file names to SSC naming for our categories (see below) and submit them to us. It also means that you don’t have to worry about changing the digital resolution if you are using the files for one of those three contests.

If you did not enter one of these other contests, please follow the below parameters.

Even though you may have entered the Southern Photographer of the Year competition (or other similar contests) for several years, read through these rules anyway to learn our subtle differences and refresh your memory on how to do things. You, the entrant, are responsible for reading through and following these rules. They’ll help make your entry clean and simple, but also help the contest chair deal with your entry smartly and with no error. Some errors in preparing your entry may keep it from being judged. Go through the following checklist to find those errors and correct them before you send your entry.

• Write your name, code and affiliation on your CD (if you send one).


• Size your images and files appropriately (proper sizing instructions follow).


• Include your PayPal payment confirmation AND your contest registration form. Every effort will be made to get those items, but put them in the first time, please. Instructions on how to make readable digital copies of these follows.


• Use a lead-in title slide and lead-out black slide to begin and end every story.

ELIGIBILITY

• Full-time staff of newspaper, magazine, wire service, etc.
• Regular freelancers for newspapers, magazines, wire services, etc.


• Student photographers in journalism, mass or visual communications programs. If you have graduated you are still elegible to enter if you were a full-time student for at least 6 - months during the contest year. Student portfolio entries must be from an undergraduate or graduate student who has never worked full-time as a professional photographer for any publication before going or returning to school. If you are an intern working for college credit, then you are still a student even if you are being paid. Student portfolio entries are FREE, but if you enter in any other category you will need to pay the $35 entry fee.


• There are no geographic or membership limitations.
  

• Photographs must have been taken or first published during calendar year 2011 (Jan. 1, 2011 - Dec. 31, 2011). There may be some exception. E-mail us with questions to discover what they are.
  
• No photographs previously entered in the Southern Photographer of the Year competition may be entered again.

CONTEST FEES AND DEADLINES
April 3rd 2012.

Contest Registration Form

Contest entry fees ...

• Are non-refundable.


• Can be paid by check or PayPal.


• Student Portfolio is Free. Waived for students entering a portfolio ONLY. If a student portfolio is accompanied by entries in other categories the entry fee is reinstated.

The deadline for receipt of entries is April 3rd, 2012. That is the last day they will be accepted, with rare exception. (And I mean rare in terms of finding an albino alligator.)

• One (1) portfolio (50 images max including photo stories)
• No more than five (5) entries in categories one (1) through 11 and 13.
• No more than four (4) entries for category 12.

Title a parent folder or directory (whichever you call it) using your unique photographers’ code and the phrase “2012 SSC Entry.” (It would look like this: nrblx 2012 SSC Entry.) In an organized fashion, place your entire SSC Entry inside this parent directory. Move your parent directory to the FTP server. FTP connection information will be sent to you in an email after you fill out the contest registration form

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:

Southern Photographer of the Year Competition
c/o William E. Thompson 
Randolph Community College
629 Industrial Park Ave.
Asheboro, NC 27204
E-mail questions to: william@photo-thompson.com

Entries hand mailed (via the U.S. Mail, FedEx, UPS, carrier pigeon, etc.) must be received on or before April 3rd, 2012.

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

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.

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 2012 SSC Entry.) In an organized fashion, place your entire SSC Entry inside this parent directory. Move your parent directory to the FTP server. It would also be a good idea to ZIP or archive your folder for more security.

Deadline for receipt of entries is April 3rd, 2012.

GENERAL RULES

All entries must be submitted in digital format. Unpublished images will be accepted.

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.

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 (For those who do not enter other contests)

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 although PhotoMechanic works too. 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 file using JPEG compression set to 8, or "high." Do not use the optimized JPEG option. It will nuke your caption information. 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. ...but you might think about stepping boldly into the new millenium and use the FTP option. For FTP information please go to the contest registration form.