Read the new competition rules carefully before entering your photographs.
Of Special Note
| October | Open | Any subject, anywhere, anytime |
| November | Reflections | The central theme must be a mirror image of an object as seen when reflected by a glass, water or metal surface. |
| December | Still Life | An arranged composition using inanimate objects in natural or artificial lighting, indoors or outdoors. The subject, composition, lighting and photographic technique are what count and the photographer must have orchestrated the scene him/herself intentionally to control and produce the photograph. It could be a collection of match books or a formal garden which you have designed and created yourself and photographed in a unique way. The idea is to make a photograph of your own creation, not to photograph someone else"s art. |
| January | Motion | An image that depicts motion, action and/or movement using different photographic techniques, like slow shutter speed, panning, zooming, stop action, etc. Water may NOT be the main subject of the competition. |
| February | Travel | A travel image for the purpose of this competition is described simply as a photograph made outside the Bowie area that describes another place or people or culture. The Ernie Nagy Travel Award will be presented by the judge to the maker of the photograph he or she considers to be the best of show. All submitted images must have originated within the past three years. See the club competition rules for more specific details. |
| March | Abstract | Abstracts are the poetry of photography, free verse written in color and tone, producing poem of mood, feeling, and emotion. Abstracts are characterized by designs depicting no immediately recognizable object. (Definition courtesy of Joe Miller) |
| April | Nature | A Nature photograph is described as one of a landscape, animals or insects or something that appears as a natural object, i.e., vegetation, stones, water. The rules forbid any evidence of the hand of man. The Novice Nature Trophy will be awarded to the Novice entrant the judge considers Best of Show among the Novice Class winners. See the club competition rules for more specific details. |
| May | Open | Any subject, anywhere, anytime |
For your images to be digitally displayed as you would expect, it is necessary to prepare them according to the following criteria. Procedural issues require that we follow these guidelines:
The projector being used by BCCC has a native resolution of 1024 pixels horizontal x 768 pixels vertical. The projector and the computer used for competition operates in an sRGB workspace.
Microsoft Power Point 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.
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 mapped 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 yield very good results.
Files must be named according to the following convention. There will be three sub-fields separated by a tilde (~). The first sub-field will be your competition class (Novice or Advanced), the second will be your name and the third will be the image title. There should be no tilde (~) or comma (,) imbedded in any of the sub-fields. The name and title sub-fields may contain spaces and should be entered the same as you would use on a paper entry form in the other categories. The “.jpg” file format extension is then added as you save your file. If you have not previously competed in the digital category, contact the competition VP for guidance regarding your competition class standing.
Example File Names:
Competition image files may be submitted either electronically (preferred) or on CD. In either case, your entries must be received no later than 11:59 PM on the Tuesday prior to 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 and logging in to http://www.b-ccc.org. Once logged in, select "Upload Images for Competition". Browse and "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".