Call for photos - National Museum Exhibit

[Romy Ocon]

The WBCP, supported by the PBPF, will hold a bird photo exhibit at the National Museum in July 2009 (exact date to be announced later). This is an excellent opportunity for the general public to see our avian treasures up close, in full color and larger than life in many cases. Likewise, this provides a good venue for wild bird photographers to showcase their work.


Some project specifics:

1. Duration of exhibit - July to August 2009 (2 months)

2. Number of bird photos to be exhibited - total of 50 photos, mostly 12"x15" and possibly a few 20"x30"

3. Species coverage - resident forest birds (non-migratory forest birds), both endemic and non-endemic, ranging anywhere in the Philippines.

4. The photos to be exhibited will be new prints and will be framed uniformly. The WBCP will shoulder the printing and framing costs. The photographers will keep the framed prints after the exhibit, but should be willing to have these exhibited again if WBCP requests so.

5. Submission of low-res jpegs for screening is now open, these should be emailed to [e-mail], with the following sizes - 800x640 pixels for 12"x15" photos, or 900x600 pixels for 20"x30" photos. When forwarding your low-res photos, please use this standard title - "Low Res Submission, National Museum Exhibit" - to minimize the chances of your email getting overlooked. Each photographer is allowed a maximum entry of 20 photos, and as many as 3 photos per species.

6. A Screening Committee (SC) will be instituted by the WBCP and PBPF to select the photos for exhibit. Emphasis will be given to aesthetics, image quality, rarity of species, rarity of capture, endemism, and other criteria, not necessarily in this order. Likewise, the SC will prefer representation of as many bird families as possible, and will prioritize photos that haven't appeared in DOT Bird Books 1 and 2.

7. Deadline for submission of low-res jpegs is on Friday, June 12, 2009, 5 pm Manila time.

8. Technical requirements:

- No "major post-processing surgery" is allowed, except cropping, sharpening, resizing, mild noise reduction, and adjustments of exposure, contrast, brightness, levels and saturation. Blurring of background (via blur routines or aggressive NR), or cloning out of any unwanted feature of the photo larger than 5% of total frame area, is considered "major post-processing surgery," and hence not allowed.

- The cropping/composition of the low-res submission should be the same as the high resolution file that will be printed later. When composing, you might wish to leave some space around the subject, as the photos will be framed and space around the edges will be used by the framing.

- As a general guide to image quality, photos should be sharp at the native pixel level (100% view), and minimum native pixel size for 12”x 15” is 1440 pixels x 1800 pixels. For 20”x30”, the minimum native pixel size is 2200 pixels x 3300 pixels. These minimum sizes are native pixels, before upressing (either in PS or in RAW conversion) to 300 ppi for printing . Higher resolution than these minimum native sizes will be ideal, as such will result into even better IQ.

9. The chosen entries will be announced by the SC shortly after June 12, 2009. The chosen photographers will be notified to send via email their high-res jpeg versions (12”x15” or 20”x30”, both at 300 ppi, hence 3600x4500 and 6000x9000 pixels respectively). Such compressed jpegs will be used to evaluate the suitability for printing of the post-processing done. These high-res jpegs may bear watermarks to protect the photographer. The final print will be done by the photographer himself/herself after this, to be submitted to the WBCP later for uniform framing. Such final print should not have any watermark, but may bear the photographer’s name (size and placement of this will be specified later).

10. Requests for more information or clarification may be posted in this thread.


Romy
(for PBPF and in behalf of Mike L. of WBCP)

[Ding Carpio]

I'm in!

Just to clarify:

1. Photographer continues to own the photograph.
2. Use of photos limited to Nail Museum & related promotional literature for which photographer grants ?perpetual? rights to Nail Museum.

[Romy Ocon]

Jun 5, 2009 4:48:53 GMT Ding Carpio said:

I'm in!

Just to clarify:

1. Photographer continues to own the photograph.
2. Use of photos limited to Nail Museum & related promotional literature for which photographer grants ?perpetual? rights to Nail Museum.

Yes, Ding..... the framed photographic print will always be the property of the photographer, though the WBCP may borrow it from time to time for exhibits.

Note that only the print will be submitted. No hi-res digital file will be submitted, except the compressed hi-res jpeg that will be used to evaluate the printing suitability of the PP. But this compressed hi-res jpeg can have a large watermark splashed across it to protect it. No further license to use is granted to the National Museum, nor to the WBCP.

[Ding Carpio]

Copy that.

Now, on the limit of 20 photos per photographer: Is the 20 the maximum one can submit for evaluation? Or is it the maximum number of photos from a single photographer that may be exhibited out of the 50? Nangarap pa!

[Neon Rosell II]

Ok, I'm in as well. Will see what I have here in my HDD. My 1TG HDD back home crashed don't no if I can still retrieve the files

[Romy Ocon]

Jun 5, 2009 8:00:49 GMT Ding Carpio said:

Copy that.

Now, on the limit of 20 photos per photographer: Is the 20 the maximum one can submit for evaluation? Or is it the maximum number of photos from a single photographer that may be exhibited out of the 50? Nangarap pa!

The limit of 20 photos per photographer is designed to make screening easier and faster. If one submits the maximum of 20 photos and all are selected, then one can theoretically have 40% of the exhibit photos (20 out of 50).

If one wishes to submit 3 photos of a certain species, these are counted as 3 photos and the said photographer can only submit up to 17 more. ;D

[Romy Ocon]

Jun 5, 2009 8:06:30 GMT Neon Rosell II said:

Ok, I'm in as well. Will see what I have here in my HDD. My 1TG HDD back home crashed don't no if I can still retrieve the files

OMG..... that's worse than dropping a long L lens into mud. I hope you have a backup. Worst case, there might be some data retrieval firms in Manila that can recover the files by opening up the HDD and reading directly from the disk.

[Neon Rosell II]

Jun 5, 2009 8:15:37 GMT Romy Ocon said:

Jun 5, 2009 8:06:30 GMT Neon Rosell II said:

Ok, I'm in as well. Will see what I have here in my HDD. My 1TG HDD back home crashed don't no if I can still retrieve the files

OMG..... that's worse than dropping a long L lens into mud. I hope you have a backup. Worst case, there might be some data retrieval firms in Manila that can recover the files by opening up the HDD and reading directly from the disk.

Sadly no backup, I know you always say to backup everything but I procrastinate and I kept saying to my self that I need to backup but never did!! Hope the data are not totally gone and can be retrieved when I get back. I've started to burn some files to DVD but majority is still in that HDD.

[Agerico M. De Villa]

Neon, there are specialists who can retrieve your data from your hdd. Go to tipidpc.com. Ask for help or go to fora where the discussion is about hdd crashing. I will not even be expensive.

[Agerico M. De Villa]

I mean "it" will not even be expensive. Mura lang iyan.

[Romy Ocon]

Jun 5, 2009 11:36:21 GMT Neon Rosell II said:

Sadly no backup, I know you always say to backup everything but I procrastinate and I kept saying to my self that I need to backup but never did!! Hope the data are not totally gone and can be retrieved when I get back. I've started to burn some files to DVD but majority is still in that HDD.

Just opened a new thread on the need to back up:

birdphotoph.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=technique&action=display&thread=3115&page=1



Here's a thread at www.philmug.ph/ with some of their highly recommended HD data recovery service providers - one of these offers a "no recovery - no pay" deal.

www.philmug.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=19637

[Romy Ocon]

OMG..... Ding was trying to send me TIFFs for the low res submissions. Folks, just to remind all, we need only jpegs for screening, as stated in the original post. Saving as quality 9-10 jpeg in PS should be more than good enough. If everybody sends TIFFs, God have mercy on my DSL line!

[Romy Ocon]

3. Species coverage - resident forest birds (non-migratory forest birds), both endemic and non-endemic, ranging anywhere in the Philippines.


3. Species coverage - resident forest birds (non-migratory forest birds), both endemic and non-endemic, ranging anywhere in the Philippines.


Folks,

A couple of early birds have sent me their low res submissions, but these include non-forest species. Please note our rule no. 3, only resident forest species will be considered. To those who sent early, you still have until 5 pm Friday next week (June 12) to replace disqualified species.

Romy

[Ding Carpio]

Jun 6, 2009 10:51:46 GMT Romy Ocon said:

OMG..... Ding was trying to send me TIFFs for the low res submissions. Folks, just to remind all, we need only jpegs for screening, as stated in the original post. Saving as quality 9-10 jpeg in PS should be more than good enough. If everybody sends TIFFs, God have mercy on my DSL line!

He-he. Eager beaver.

[Adri Constantino]

Hi Romy and the rest of the National Museum photogs.

Just a simple question about the low-res evaluation requirements.

what resolution do you require for the low-res jpegs for evaluation? I understand it has to be 800 x 600 for 15x12 but what is resolution in pixels/inch? Should we submit at 300 ppi but the size is 800x600 only?

THanks!

Adri

[Romy Ocon]

Hi Adri,

It can be any ppi as long as the absolute size is 800 pixels x 640 pixels.

Romy

Jun 11, 2009 1:05:08 GMT Adri Constantino said:

Hi Romy and the rest of the National Museum photogs.

Just a simple question about the low-res evaluation requirements.

what resolution do you require for the low-res jpegs for evaluation? I understand it has to be 800 x 600 for 15x12 but what is resolution in pixels/inch? Should we submit at 300 ppi but the size is 800x600 only?

THanks!

Adri

[Romy Ocon]

The deadline for submission (5 pm, June 12, 2009) of low-res photos has just passed, and the following photographers have sent in their work (in alphabetical order):

1. Martin A. - 10 photos
2. Tito A. - 3
3. JP C. - 15
4. Ding C - 20 (total of 27 were received, 7 were not considered)
5. Nicky I. - 20
6. Mark I. - 7
7. Manny I. - 1
8. William L. - 9
9. Romy O. - 20
10. Neon R. - 15
11. Rey S. A. - 20

NOTES:

1. Total photos received - 140.

2. Some photographers have submitted multiple photos of certain species.

3. Some photos received are not resident forest birds.

4. If anybody who has emailed photos is not included in the above list, please notify me immediately via SMS ([phone]) or email ([e-mail]). I will hold in abeyance the transmittal of the photos to the Screening Committee until 5 pm tomorrow (Saturday, June 13). After such time, no further entries will be entertained.

Please note that only those who emailed their photos before the June 12 deadline, and who I missed including in the list, will be allowed to re-submit until 5 PM tomorrow. To be fair to those who submitted early, proof of prior email will be asked to be presented.


ADDENDUM:

I've done some accounting of the photos submitted and here's the breakdown:

1. Resident forest birds (endemic and non-endemic) - 78 species

2. Non-forest birds - 20 species


Looks like the job of the SC will not be too difficult, as they only have to knock out 28 species to cut the size to 50. ;D

[Ding Carpio]

Jun 12, 2009 10:08:28 GMT Romy Ocon said:

4. Ding C - 20 (total of 27 were received, 7 were not considered)

Oops. So sorry, Romy. Didn't intend to violate the rules. In my confusion on TIFF vs JPEG and resends, must've screwed up my count somewhere.

In fact, I'm still confused because I'm counting the photos in the folder I sent and I count only 21 (remember the Phil Eagle?). Do you mind PM-ing me the filenames of my submission so I can reconcile? Thanks a bundle and sorry again.

[Romy Ocon]

Jun 12, 2009 11:08:36 GMT Ding Carpio said:

Jun 12, 2009 10:08:28 GMT Romy Ocon said:

4. Ding C - 20 (total of 27 were received, 7 were not considered)

Oops. So sorry, Romy. Didn't intend to violate the rules. In my confusion on TIFF vs JPEG and resends, must've screwed up my count somewhere.

In fact, I'm still confused because I'm counting the photos in the folder I sent and I count only 21 (remember the Phil Eagle?). Do you mind PM-ing me the filenames of my submission so I can reconcile? Thanks a bundle and sorry again.

Ding,

I think you just replaced some non-forest species that you erroneously submitted.

The files were already renamed to standard names so you might not be able to use such. Instead, I emailed you a snapshot of the thumbnails of your pics - those that were accepted (20 pcs) and those that weren't considered (7 photos).

Romy

[Romy Ocon]

In behalf of the organizers of this project, I wish to thank all bird photographers for their enthusiastic support. I'll send the 140 photos to Mike L. after June 13 so the Screening Committee can select the photos to be exhibited.

Because I also submitted photos, I will abstain from joining the SC. I'll request the SC to select some alternate photos beyond 50 because of the possibility that some of the initial 50 selected might not be of sufficient sharpness/resolution to make a decent 12"x15" print fitting to be displayed in the National Museum.


In the interest of transparency, so every photographer who joined will have an idea of the field, I'm posting below thumbnails of the 140 photos received. I was the one who hastily ID'ed those photos without ID... if I erred, the ID will be corrected by the SC. ;D