Rules and Guidelines for Creating Photo Essays

Although 4Cs photo essay competitions are mentioned during the discussion of rules and guidelines, members should not feel any obligation to create a photo essay for competition. Photo essays shown during our meetings are not judged, only applauded. Fun, interesting, and entertaining essays can be created for display to family members, at parties, or during any social occasion at which guests cannot politely escape.

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Rules

# Because members have expressed interest in entering their photo essays into 4Cs competition we use the 4Cs definitions of photo essays. These definitions are very simple, and allow more room for creativity and expression than our old definitions. During club meetings our members may present photo essays in one (or more) of the following three formats:

Minishow - Traditional slides. Must be under 7 minutes in length and use only one traditional slide projector.

Mid Length Show - Traditional slides. Must be between 7 and 20 minutes long and use traditional slide projector.

Digital Show - Must be less than 20 minutes long and use a digital projector.

(The 4Cs defines an additional catagory "Ben Andrews Show", which must be between 20 and 45 minutes, and may use any number of traditional projectors. Because of time limitations during our meetings, we ask that members not present a Ben Andrews-type show unless prior arrangements are made with Viewfinders club officers).

# Slides must be arranged in a carousel tray by the entrant prior to the showing.

# Digital slide shows must be submitted on a CD or USB JumpDrive-type device (shows to be entered into 4Cs competition should be on CDs).

Guidelines

The following guidelines are offered in the spirit of helping members create appealing, entertaining photo essays:

Definition: A photo essay is a sequence of images and music/narration that are related by some type of theme. The images may be the same subject (such as flowers, or cars), or may follow the chronology of an event (a thunderstorm from beginning to end), or express some other theme.

Subject matter is open: it can be photo travel, nature, pictorial subjects, a "how to", or just pure images.

An essay may have a Title slide, the maker's name (which can be on the Title slide), and an ending slide. The maker's name isn't all that important, but a Title and End slide is suggested. (Essays to be entered into 4Cs competition should not contain the maker's name).

Music and/or narration may be live, taped or a combination of both (shows to be entered into 4Cs competition should not have live music or narration). The computer used for the digital projection will have amplified speakers attached. Members presenting traditional slide shows must provide a means to play the music.

Although we are still learning about the best format for digitally-projected images, we will offer a few suggestions (members are encouraged to offer comments or friendly criticism). These suggestions are based on the experiences of other clubs who use digital projectors . So here goes -- to look their best, images should be a) as large as possible, but not larger than 1024 pixels wide or 768 pixels high, and b) sRGB color space.

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