1. Enter your name, capitalized properly.

2. Enter your e-mail address. It must be correct because whatever is entered will be used for an immediate confirmation of your entry or entries.

3. Select your competition class. This must be correct, although the competition committee will verify it and change it if necessary.

4. Select the competition you are entering. If you are sending images “For Critique Only”, you must indicate whether you want the critique as part of the next competition when it will be done by the judge for that competition. If you want the critique(s) at the next program meeting, select that button.

5. Enter the title for the first entry. You should use proper capitalization for the title because it will be this text that’s shown during the competition.

6. Click on the button to attach a file. The file should be named according to the posted rules. The name should begin with your initials, followed by an underscore, followed by whatever name you want to give the file. The file name will not be shown during competition.

7. If you think that you may not be able to attend the competition, enter any comments about the image that you want. These will be read if you win an award and are not present at the competition.

8. If you are entering a second image, repeat steps 5 through 7 for that entry.

9. When you are sure that your entries are correct, click on the “Submit” button. If you have entered info in the required fields, you’ll see a “Success” message. If there was something wrong that could be detected at this time, you’ll see a message telling you what needs to be corrected. Note that the form cannot detect if your entries are sized properly. You’ll get an e-mail from a member of the Competition Committee confirming that your entries are acceptable or that something needs to be changed. That message will be sent within 24 hours of the time that you completed the form successfully. Please do not inquire about your entries until 24 hours have passed, although the message from the committee will usually be sent much sooner.

10. If you do not receive an e-mail immediately after clicking on the Submit button, and seeing the Success message, it’s likely that you did not enter your e-mail address correctly or that there’s a problem with the server that handles your e-mail. If this happens, you may choose to wait to see if you get a reply from a committee member or you may use the “Request for Change” page to send a message asking if the entry was received. In the latter case, be certain that your e-mail address is entered correctly. Again, you should not expect an answer immediately, although one will be sent within 24 hours.

11. If you are entering two images, but at different times, just send the second as though it’s your first entry because those fields are required for any use of the form. We’ll sort out the entries.

To some members, this list will appear obvious and perhaps not needed. However, given the many errors, trials and tribulations for the August 2010 Open competition, we thought that this post would be helpful.

As always, in this blog, all comments are solicited, but will be moderated.

First, here is an excerpt from Cliff Lawson’s e-mail that started this discussion:

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The second thing I want to bring up is a recap of our discussion last week about images shot at instructor-led workshops.
A bit of background for those who were not there: I attended a workshop last winter in which the instructor set up specific lighting scenarios and the participants photographed the setup and then shot the image that was a result of the setup. A great teaching/learning device.

A few months later while looking for images to enter, I cam across the one I shot at the workshop. I entered it. It got 10 points and a first. It went to council – did just as well there. It was then I began think that I really should not have entered it at all. It really was not MY image – it was the instructor’s. I just stepped in and shot it. Then last May I attended the workshops in Breckenridge and one of the instructors there made the comment that we need to remember that the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) does not permit the entry of any image shot at a workshop during the hours of the workshop. After hours on your own time with your own equipment is fine.
After all, if you cannot replicate what you learned at the workshop/seminar, you:  A) wasted your money, B) went to the wrong workshop, or C) are not ready to work at that level yet.

I absolutely believe we should never enter an image shot if the setup is supplied by/done by an instructor. Will we make a club rule? I don’t know. There are some workshops that follow a different plan and images shot at those would be OK. For example, I attended the Rich Clarkson Sports workshop two years ago. Instructors never accompanied the participants, but offered critique on what was shot the previous day. In that case, the students had to arrange their own shoots. The workshop made arrangements to allow permission for some venues, but what you did there was up to you. Those images should be allowed.

Photo tours should be allowed. Even though the guide gets us to the location and know the best times of year and times of day, the actual choice of subject and composition are up to the participant.
On the other hand, as an honorable person, if the tour guide tells you to…”put your tripod here, put the left edge of the frame against that tree, and the sun will come up over THAT hill,” I think you should not enter it as you just pushed the button and the tour guide did the set-up. But that is your choice.

There are questionable areas to be sure. I went on an organized “Senior Shoot.” There were no instructors, just a group of about 6-7 photographers of varying skill levels (really good to really mediocre). We took turns posing the models (who were hired for the event). We could use whatever lighting we wanted – we could borrow another person’s lights and reflectors. I would suggest that those images are acceptable as there was no set-up by a professional or instructor. However, even in that situation, if another person set up the whole image and  I just stepped to take my shot, I would be reluctant to enter that particular image because it really is not mine.

So the so-called litmus test is: Did  the instructor (or any other person for that matter) set up the lighting and/or the models? If so, I would suggest it is not really YOUR image.

I think a club rule might be too vague to write and impossible to enforce, but I also think we should understand that some images may not really be ours even though we were able to move a forefinger.

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The comments made by e-mail are reproduced here as comments. To see them and the subsequent comments made directly to this blog, click on the word “Comments” under the title of this post.