Contest Closed!
Opens: Jan, 6 at 12:00pm
The Deadline: Feb, 6 at 11:59pm

North Carolina Press Photographers Association
2011 POY Contest Rules

Eligibility

You must be a current NCPPA member in good standing. All photographs must have been taken or initially published between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011. No photograph previously entered in the POY competition may be entered again. Photographs from a project taken or published over a period of time that begins before the eligible date but extends into the period of eligibility may be entered as long as they have not been entered in the competition before. Each entrant may submit a maximum of 20 entries. Photo stories and multimedia count as one entry.

Each entrant is limited to no more than five entries per photo category and two entries per multimedia category.

Cost

There is a $15 entry fee to enter the POY contest. This fee applies to both professionals and students.

The perferred method of payment is online through PayPal, however if you wish to send a check or money order, contact the contest chair. Only paid entries will be eligible for judging.
Entries must be sumbitted in digital format through ncppaonline.org or through a an FTP client (such as Fetch or Filezilla).
Choosing a Code

Choosing your unique photographer's code is the most critical (and easiest) aspect of this whole process. This is important as you will use this code in naming all your files (photo and multimedia) in each category. It is how we know which photos are yours
All you need to do is pick a five-letter lower case sequence. Every photographer must have a unique code so do not spell words or names and if you are preparing entries for multiple photographers be sure their codes vary. A photographer's code might look like this: bdwrz (this is an example, please don't use this exact code).

Preparing Your Images

We recommend using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or later to prepare your images, although it is not required. 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.

Categories

View the categories and their descriptions here

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. Do not use a return in your caption or it will not show up on the website when uploading. Include your Name and Publication in the "Author" field of "File Info." This will be used to identify your work on the website after the contest.
For example: "Karen Smith stretches to reach the finish in the 100-meter final of the World Track and Field Championships. bdwrz"
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. If you are using an older version of Photoshop or another image-editing program that does not offer the file info option, your photos will NOT have captions.
Sizing and File Compression

Save and compress the file using JPEG compression set to 7, or medium. Do Not "Save for Web" (or Optimize) in Photoshop. This will erases your caption information embedded in the EXIF information of your image. Do not use SSC JPEG. Files that do not meet these standards will be disqualified. (Not to worry, your files will not upload if this step is missed.) Your pictures must be 72 dpi and no more than 11 inches on the long side.

Naming your files

Name your picture files beginning with the two-digit category number, 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 sequential letters to the string for each photo in a picture story entry. Please don’t use spaces or weird characters (&,$,%,@,",') in your file names. (It sounds way more complicated than it actually is, if you have any questions feel free to ask)

A single photo entry might have a file name like this:
04bdwrz01.jpg
(04 is the category number, bdwrz 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 look like this:
04bdwrz02.jpg
04bdwrz03.jpg

Photos in a picture story are named the same way except you need to add sequential letters to the photos in the same category. Again, it sounds more complicated than it is.

Photo story entries look like this:
12bdwrz01a.jpg (title slide/dark slide)
12bdwrz01b.jpg (first image)
12bdwrz01c.jpg (second image)
(12 is the category number; bdwrz 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

Place a JPEG "dark slide" image (same dimensions as your entry images) at the beginning and end of each photo story. This provides a separation from each story during the judging. Your beginning slide may be a title slide, but is not required. Please keep your ending slide all black. Place your synopsis information in the File Info of the beginning dark slide/title slide. Picture stories may contain a maximum of 12 photographs plus the two darkslides: 14 files total. Edit tightly for a strong story line.

Please keep your synopsis of your story short and to the point.

Remember to embed captions into each image in the File Info. If judges ask for a caption on a particular image, it needs to be there.

Multimedia

Multimedia entries may incorporate any mixture of still images, audio and video. There is no limit to the project’s length, but we strongly recommend that it remain well under 5 minutes. Judges are not obligated to view more than one minute of a project.

Factors in judging include the quality of visuals and audio and how effectively they are presented to tell a journalistic story. All entries must have been produced, though not necessarily published, during 2011. The majority of the content should have been collected in 2011. Please remove any credits or publication identification from the project or your entry my be disqualified.
If you are sending a video, please make sure the file will play in QuickTime. As far as compression goes, it's more trouble than it's worth to set exact compression or export guidelines considering the vast amount of video editing software out there. The nice folks over at Vimeo put out some basic things we would like you to follow when compressing/exporting your files and. Please follow the link and watch their tutorials to keep file sizes as small as you can.

A majoriy of a multimedia entry must be produced by a NCPPA member. If a project is the work of more than one journalist, please include a PDF or TXT file including the name of each person involved and his/her role (photography, audio, and/or production). Each photographer may enter no more than two projects. If you were part of a group entry, that counts as one of your two entries.
Please name the multimedia entry and any credit PDF or TXT file using the same method as all other entries.

(Make sure the entry and the credit file match each other)
14bdwrz01.mov
14bdwrz01.pdf

If you are sending a Soundslides project, create a folder using the same naming guidelines as above and include the entire "Publish_to_web" folder inside.
14bdwrz02

In the interest of saving time during the judging period, judges will view all entries in advance of the offical judging period and only finalists will be viewed during the juding period.
Multimedia wins will count towards Staff of the Year and may be considered for Best in Show.

Portfolio Entries

Portfolio entries determine the 2011 NCPPA Photographer of the Year POY. Photographers may enter Student Portfolio or Portfolio, but not both. To enter student portfolio, you must be enrolled full-time in school or have been in school for at least 8 months during 2011 and you could not be working as a full-time professional before October, 2011. Please see the description under the portfolio category for guidelines.

Winners

Certificates will be awarded to winners. The NCPPA POY and Student POY will also receive a prize to be announced.
Winning images will be displayed on www.nccpaonline.org

Common Questions
• Q:Can we enter individual photos from a story into one of the single categories?
A: Yes. The file will need to be uploaded twice. Once for the single category. Once for the story.

Print this Page