There are no hard and fast rules, but the more you follow these guidelines, the more likely your photos will be picked up.
Live Posting
Please do!!! Even if just phone shots, please post a few pics throughout the night and use the following hashtags:
#artallnightdc, #artallnightmadeindc
Also tag:
on Twitter: @artallnightdc
on Instagram: @artallnightmadeindc
on Facebook: @Art All Night: Made in DC
Please also include the DC Mainstreets Neighborhood tag (with an @ sign on FB and Twitter, and a # for most on Instagram).
Submitting
Where? The plan is to accept all photographs at our Flickr group: https://www.flickr.com/groups/aandc16/. I think you all have Flickr accounts but, if absolutely needed, I can upload the photos for you under an AANDC account (just give me a dropbox or other shared link to grab them.
When? The quick answer is now, soon and later.
- Now – as attention spans are short, we would like to get 3 or so images from each of you within 24 hours of the even–Sunday afternoon or night. Just pick 3 of different events/exhibits (preferably from different neighborhoods) that stand out to you, give them a good finish, and share them out. These have the highest probability of being picked up as we will be desperate for great picks early (by great, I mean better than what BYT, Borderstan and other blogs are likely to slap up within a couple of days).
- Soon – within 1 week of the event, we would like to get another batch of your best images, fully edited and finished.
- Later – within 2 or 3 weeks (but we will accept them any time) submit the rest of your best.
How Many? You have to be the judge of that, but here are some guidelines:
- We want quality over quantity
- I have limited initial uploads to 20 per day to discourage other contributing photographers from dumping their entire SD card to the group. Please share to the group over a couple of days if your final batch is larger than that
- Please do not share to the Flickr group re-edits, different finishes to the same image (color and B&W), and near duplicates (3 images of the same person doing the same thing). If you are not sure which of a series or which version you like best, post them all in the Facebook group and see what others think
- Here’s how I am looking at it (and this is strictly personal and not necessarily a recommendation):
- If I get 30 really good “event photography” quality photos, I’ll feel good about things
- If I get a dozen of really good magazine quality photos, I’ll feel good
- If I get even a handful of art quality photos, I’ll feel good
- If I get even 1 iconic photo, I’ll feel great!
Bottom line… I’ll be happy to get however many photos you give us, but I’ll be happier with a couple of handfuls of really good images than a couple of buckets of mediocre pics.
EXCEPTION: Try to get at least 1 photo of each location you go to even if not at par with your other best images. However, do not include if none from a location are worthwhile (and that did happen to me last year at one or two spots).
Editing/Finishing: During the event you will be shooting the works of other artists. But, at this point you are the artist. Art All Night is a celebration of the arts, and we want to celebrate your photography as art. So, I will give you NO guidance on editing and finishing. Edit and finish in the style and to the extent that you want to present your art with your name. If you do street photography, give me your style of street photography (monochrome, color, high contrast, moody, whatever you decide). Do what you do and if inspiration hits, be bold. Being daring and creative in your editing is risky but if the risk is seen by me and others as good art (whatever that means), that image will get a LOT of exposure.
Cropping: As with editing, crop as you see best for the image. But, do recognize that standard crops (4×6, 5×7, 8×10, 1×1, etc.) are much more likely to be used than odd cropping. Also, blogs, mags and social media posting tends to prefer either 16×9, 4×6 or 1×1 (this pains me as I love 8×10’s for portraits). Wide pano’s are cool, but please apply sparingly as they are hard to reuse for anything other than cover images on FB.
Can I Watermark: Of course. Indeed, for this project, I recommend using a small watermark to ensure that you are always credited (sometimes people “forget”). HOWEVER, please keep your watermarks rather small and near an edge (bottom left, bottom right) of each pic. Large watermarks or watermarks positioned in a location that significantly distracts from the actual image will never be picked up.
File type: JPG, TIFF or PNG (if TIFF, please do NOT save layers if delivering to me as files)
Resolution: Please allow us to download your images at whatever the highest resolution you allow on Flickr. NOTE: we must be able to download for most uses. We will likely not use images that are less than 1600 pixels on the long edge (prefer 1910 or higher), 150 PPI (prefer 300), JPG Quality of 85 or higher (prefer 100) or TIFF minimum compression (prefer none).
Color Space: sRGB or Adobe RGB
Titles and Captions: We definitely prefer if you provide both titles and captions. Even if your title is just Art All Night DC, that is better than dsc_img_0123409 (ugh!). But, we would definitely prefer either a creative, emotive or descriptive title. Also, whenever possible, please try to caption as follows:
Art All Night Made in DC 2016, [Art Piece Title], [Artist], [Neighborhood], [Venue Name], [Promoter/Sponsor]
Of course, drop the brackets and replace whats in it with real information. Of these, Neighborhood is most important followed by the Artist’s name if you can get it. You can look up the promoter or sponsor from the full program PDF after the fact. The Art Piece Title and Artist will not always apply, and you will not always have time to make a note of it… but when you have it, it helps.