Rules Supplement

Competition Year 09-10

Read the new competition rules carefully before entering your photographs.

Submission Guidelines

Excepting unusual circumstances such as very poor weather or an unexpected scheduling conflict at the church, all competition will take place on the first Monday of each month, October through May.
Digital entries must be submitted not later than midnight of the Tuesday prior to competition. See “Preparing image files for BCCC Digital Competition” below, for details. All other entries must be logged in before 7:15pm on the night of competition.

Of Special Note

Two major changes for the 2009-2010 club year: there will be no more slide competition, there is now a maximum of two entries per division.
Master Photographers and Grand Master Photographers may compete in all regular competitions but may not compete for Photographer of the Year in any category. Master Photographers and Grand Master Photographers may compete in Photograph of the Year competition. Any photo that won during the year may compete in the end of year Photograph of the Year competition.
Unless otherwise specified, all entries in all categories must conform to the monthly topic.

Current Competition Topics

October	Open	Any Subject, any time
November	Geometric Shapes	This goes way beyond the lines of a building. A bunch of grapes could well illustrate circles just as a path leading to a point in the woods could form a triangle. The shape should be very apparent while enhancing the overall composition.
December	Shadows	The shadow more than the object causing the shadow should be the emphasis.
January	Food	Anything from a hamburger on a bun to hamburger on the hoof, from an egg to the chicken, from an M&M to Bob Leonard's M&M Rainbow - it's food.
February	Travel	The photograph must be taken more than 50 miles from Bowie. A stronger picture would be one that suggests a different culture or geography. The Ernie Nagy Memorial Travel Award will be presented to the entry judged Best in Show.
March	Night	When the sun goes down, the Night photos come out.
April	Nature	All objects must be naturally occurring; no hand of man is allowed; and no domesticated plants/animals. Examples of "hand of man" would be such things as fences, wires, stone paths, vases, etc. The Novice Nature Award will be presented to that judged best of all the Novice entries.
May	Open	Any subject, any time.
May	End of Year Competition	All 2010-2011 club year award (1st, 2nd, 3rd, HM) winning photos are eligible for this End of Year Competition. Actual submission deadline to be announced.

Preparing image files for BCCC Digital Competition.

For your images to be digitally displayed as you would expect, you must prepare them according to the following criteria. Procedural issues require that we follow these guidelines:

A specific file-naming convention is required for your files to be properly identified.
The file size and format specifications must be followed to insure that your images are electronically accepted and will be displayed as you expect.
The color workspace information must be followed to avoid incorrect mapping of your colors.

The projector being used by B-CCC has a native resolution of 1024 pixels horizontal x 768 pixels vertical. The projector and the computer used for competition operate in an sRGB workspace.

Microsoft PowerPoint is the underlying software used for the competition display. The images will be scaled to "fit" the screen. "Fit" means that the entire image will fit within a 1024 pixel horizontal by 768 pixel vertical frame, sometimes filling only a part of the frame if one of the dimensions is shorter than its corresponding limit. This "fit" scaling preserves the original aspect ratio while displaying the image at the maximum available size. Therefore, for a landscape image, you should size your images such that the horizontal size is 1024 pixels and let the vertical size fall where it may as long as it is 768 pixels or less. For a portrait image, set the vertical size to 768 pixels and let the horizontal size fall where it may as long as it is 1024 pixels or less. By default, the background color will be black. If for artistic reasons you wish your image to be presented at a size smaller than full screen, position your picture as desired within a 1024 x 768 black background image. Any scaling will then fit the background and leave your picture proportioned as you intend. In any event the submitted image should be constrained to fit within a box that is 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high.

It is recommended that the background color be black for best viewing of images without distractions. However, for artistic reasons you may choose to place a border around the image in any color.

As you prepare your image for competition, be sure that you are either working in a sRGB workspace or that you convert your image before submission. Failure to have your image defined in the sRGB workspace may result in incorrectly displayed colors when projected.

Images must be saved in a JPEG format for submission. Higher quality settings for the JPEG compression result in less potential degradation. Lower settings result in smaller files sizes for quicker transmission. Typically, quality settings between 8 and 12 (75-100%) yield very good results.

File Naming

Note that the file naming convention has changed with the 2009-2010 competition year for images entered via the B-CCC Web site.
You need only provide the photo title as the file name for you image, with the JPEG extension: (.jpg). Do not include tildes (~) or commas (,) in the file name.

Check the button “Novice” or “Advanced” to select the competition class.

The competition class and your name will be saved with the file and used in arranging the digital competition program and displayed with the images after judging is completed.

Example File Names:

My Great Picture.jpg
A Sunny Afternoon on the Florida Coast.jpg

Images submitted other than via the web site must continue to have a file name in the form of Class~Name~Title.jpg (e.g., Novice~John Doe~My Great Picture.jpg) with no other tildes nor embedded commas.

Competition image files may be submitted either online via the B-CCC Web site (preferred) or on CD. In either case, your entries must be received no later than 11:59 PM on the Tuesday before the competition. CDs may be hand-delivered or mailed to the Competition VP. Unfortunately, we cannot be responsible for any damage or delays that result in late arrival. Electronic submissions may be made by pointing your browser to www.b-ccc.org. and logging in. Select "Upload Images for Competition". Browse to the file(s) on your computer and select "Upload Files" to put your images on the Web site.

Seeing your files listed on the "Your Images" page is confirmation that you have made a successful transfer. By default, your images are entered in the next competition as indicated on the upload page. You can reassign your images to a different competition date as described under "Help".

An important note about names

Please use consistent names and titles when entering photos, for both print and digital competition. This makes it easier to keep track of the entries and winning photographs and results in fewer mistakes when tallying the award points for determining long-term standings.

When entering photos in print competition, it is important to write your name consistently on each entry form and as written on the back of the print. Preferably use the name as entered in the club roster rather than any other names you may use in different circumstances. This makes it much easier to correctly keep track of the competition results.

While a photo may be entered into competition as second time if it has not already won 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd place, it is difficult or impossible for the competition committee to know this unless the title is entered consistently.