2010 NEBRASKA NEWS PHOTOGRAPHERS ASSOCIATION CONTEST
RULES AND GUIDELINES
DEADLINES
All STILL PHOTOGRAPHY entries must be received by FRIDAY, MARCH 19th,
2010.
Be aware that entries will not be corrected. If you want your entry
reviewed please send it one week early.
All entries should be submitted by CD and mailed (with your entry fee!)
to
Rebecca Gratz
Omaha World-Herald
1314 Douglas Street, Suite 700
Omaha, Neb. 68102
Then be sure to email Rebecca to confirm your entry:
rebecca.gratz@owh.com
CONTEST FEES AND ELIGIBILITY
The entry fee for a professional is $20.00.
The student contest is free to enter.
We are waiving the fee for professionals who have not entered the
contest for the past 3 years.
Photographers must have lived in Nebraska or worked for a Nebraska-based
news organization during 2009. Only photographs taken or initially published
between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009 are eligible for entry.
Please make checks out to “Nebraska News Photographers Association” to
be included with your contest submission.
There is no entry fee for students. To be eligible for the student
competition a person must be enrolled in a Nebraska college or high school. A
student entrant also may not have had the majority (more than 50%) of his/her
income from a professional photojournalism position during 2009. For those
students who graduated in May or August of 2009 and started working, only
images taken before full-time employment are considered eligible.
CHANGES TO THIS YEAR’S CONTEST
This year, the illustration and multiple picture package categories have
been eliminated. Lack of entries in the
illustration and redundancy of multiple picture packages with photo stories
contributed to this decision. If you
have comments, questions or suggestions, feel free to contact Rebecca.
NUMBER OF ENTRIES
-Each photographer is limited to 25 entries. Photographers may enter in
any combination of single, story, or portfolio categories
-A picture story or portfolio is considered one entry
-A single photograph may not be entered on its own in more than one
category.
However, a photo may be entered in both a single category and one
picture story.
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY CATEGORIES
PORTFOLIO OF THE YEAR – POY
This category, which determines the Nebraska News Photographer of the
Year and Runner-Up Photographer of the Year is a body
of work by one photographer from the previous year. All portfolios will be
judged on their impact as a unit, demonstrating diverse ability, journalistic
value, technical quality, originality and photographic excellence.
A portfolio must contain at least three categories of the competition. A
portfolio may contain no more than 50 images. A photographer can enter only one
portfolio. It is recommended, though not required, that a portfolio contain at
least one story.
Portfolios will NOT be broken down into individual categories for single
picture judging. To enter a photo or picture story from the portfolio entry
into a single picture or picture story category, you must provide a separate
entry.
SINGLE ENTRIES
SPOT NEWS – DON – An
unscheduled news event where no previous planning was possible.
GENERAL NEWS – GNN – A scheduled
news event where some planning was possible.
FEATURE – ENT – General
human interest or a fresh perspective.
PICTORIAL – PIC – A photo
that exploits the graphic, aesthetic qualities of a subject with emphasis on
composition and creativity. Radical darkroom, computer and electronic
alterations of an image are NOT allowed in this category.
PORTRAIT/PERSONALITY – LPP
- A photo that depicts the personality or character of a subject.
SPORTS ACTION – SPA – Action
photo of an athletic event.
SPORTS FEATURE – SPF – Sports
related photo that is not action (reaction, sidelines, coaches, cheerleaders,
crowds, etc.).
PICTURE STORY – OPS – Topics
range from general human interest to news to sports. Stories should be edited
to reveal a story line or point of view and should be arranged in a sequence,
which helps communicate a message. The first photo’s caption must include a
story summary, which will only be read aloud at the judges’ request. While
there is no limit to the number of images to a picture story, judges reserve
the right to stop viewing a story after 15 images.
STUDENT DIVISION
There is a student division of each category above including a Student
Portfolio of the Year.
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY CAPTION INFORMATION
We are using the same caption information as the Best of Photojournalism
contest requires. Please refer to the detailed instructions here: http://bop.nppa.org/2010/still_photography/rules/preparing_images.html.en
Caption information is required and must be attached to the image via
the IPTC field in Photo Mechanic. In Photoshop, this information can be added
under the File/File Info window. Individual captions will not be read, unless a
judge requests it.
Each entry must contain the following information in the File Info or
IPTC field:
City, State, Country – The location where the picture
was created.
Object – (This is the same as the filename) – Your unique 8-digit number
Contest
Identification Code, the category in which the image is
entered, the name of your story (if any), a sequence number identifying where
the image falls within the picture story or portfolio. For single-image categories, each image is a separate
entry, so the number is used to distinguish between the entries. You must use
hyphens between each portion.
Examples: 00011500-OPS-Boxer-001, 00011500-POY-023, 00011500-LPP-002
Category – Select the 3-letter code for the category you wish to enter.
Credit – The photographers name.
Source – Your employer or client.
Caption – This caption may be shown together with your photograph during
judging. Please check grammar and spelling before submitting. Captions should
include the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when and why). For stories please write
SUMMARY below the caption and include the information on the first image of the
story. PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME OR PUBLICATION CREDIT IN YOUR CAPTION.
Transmission Reference – Your email address.
Copyright – Identify who holds the copyright for the image. For staffers,
this will generally be your employer, for freelancers, it might be you, or it
might be the client for whom the image was made.
Time and Date – When was the picture created.
ORGANIZING YOUR IMAGES
DIGITAL IMAGE SPECIFICATIONS – Save each image as RGB (do NOT use CMYK),
maximum resolution is 250 DPI, with dimensions of at least 11 inches along its
longest side, save each file between JPEG ‘6′ or Good or JPEG ‘8′
or High.
LABELING YOUR CD – Label your CD with your name, e-mail address, publication,
phone number, ID code and NPPA number (if you have one). Students, list college instead of publication.
FOLDERS
Single Entry Categories – Use a separate folder for each category. Put
all single entries from the same category in the same folder. Name the folder
using the category code.
Picture Story and Portfolio Categories – Use a separate folder for each
picture story or portfolio. Put all individual pictures from a picture story in
one folder. Name the folder using the category code, followed by an underscore,
followed by the slug. Label the folder containing all other folders with
your ID code.
If you’re sending more than one photographer’s entry on a CD, please put
each photographer’s entry in a separate folder, named with the ID codes.
FINAL CHECKLIST
Picture Stories and Portfolios will not be taken apart for individual
image category judging. Have you separately submitted singles out of your
portfolio or picture stories for the singles categories?
Are all of your files properly formatted and do they fit within the size
requirements?
Is all your caption information correct? Make sure your name or
publication does not appear in the caption field.
Did you create a folder for each Single-image category, and each Picture
Story or
Portfolio?
Have you used your 8-digit Contest ID code as part of each image’s
Object field and file name?
Have you labeled your CD?
Have you included your contest fee with your CD?
Before sending us your CD, verify its integrity
by making sure the images are readable and do not contain any type of virus.
NNPA reserves the right to disqualify any disk that is unreadable, defective or
found to contain a virus or other suspicious files.