The Coastal Bend Wildlife Photo Contest
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is included in the cactus category? Does it include Yucca, Spanish Dagger, etc.?
A. Only true cactus may be placed in the cactus category, which would include prickly pear. Yucca, commonly called Spanish Dagger, is a member of the Agave family; therefore it would be placed as a Native Plant.
Q. What is classified as Night Photography?
A. Night Photography is any photo that is captured at night or after the sun is below the horizon.
Q. What is the definitive source to determine what falls into the Native Plants category vs. the Wildflowers category?
A. The Wildflowers category includes Herbaceous, soft stemmed plants referred to as Forbs. The Native Plants category includes shrubs, Woody Stems, Trees and Naturalized Natives.
These are additional wild flower/native plant category placements:
- Horsemint or Lemon Beebalm--Wildflower
- Sliverleaf Nightshade--Wildflower
- Violet Ruellia--Wildflower
- Prairie Coneflower--Wildflower
- Antelope-Horns or Spider Milkweed--Native plant
- Honey Mesquite - Native plant
- Blackbush Nightshade - Native plant
- Pink Mimosa - Native plant
- Coral Vine - Native plant
- Passionflower – Wildflower
- Coral Vine – Native Plant
Q. For the individual photographer, what days are counted? Any day on the property, any day one sits in a blind to be ready to take a photo, even if something suitable for the contest fails to show up, any day a photo is shot on the property, or only the days when photos are taken that actually are entered in the contest?
A. Paragraph 12: CONTEST PERIOD…. "A shooting day is defined as a standard 24-hour day beginning at midnight where one or more photos are taken for intended use in the contest."
Q. When intending to submit them in person. Do all the jewel cases for the CDs need “sticky notes"?
A. That will not be necessary.
Q. What is done with the pre-selected photos taken during the contest?
A. You can handle all your so called pre-selected photos taken during the contest any way you wish. Most browsers, for instance, allow you to customize its "Favorites List" or "Category List" to function like the "Holding Folder". But that could take a lot of time, so we offer the "Holding Folder" as a matter of convenience and consistency for over-all organizing and to help reduce renaming errors of those final selections.
Q. The work flow sheet states to resize and convert before saving as a jpeg. What do we resize it to?
A. On your jpeg image the longest side of the image should be 1000.
Q. Am I supposed to put the labels on the DVDs or on the outside of the plastic DVD boxes I plan to ship them to you?
A. Please place the labels with your photographer number on your jewel cases.
Q. The date on my camera was incorrect for some of my shots at the beginning of the contest. Can I submit those photos?
A. Only photos whose original metadata show the correct contest dates may be submitted.
Q. What is the category for Aloe Vera?
A. Aloe Vera is a "naturalized" Native plant; it can be submitted in the Native Plant Category.
Q. What is the category for Pelicans?
A. They are listed under A-22, all other birds.
Q. How are Purple Martins categorized?
A. The photographer had noted that Purple Martins are swallows and I verified that with Silbey Field Guide which would make them A-12, Swallows and Nightjars.
Q. Do we need to fill out image comment forms for each image and if so, what information do they need to have?
A. You do not need to fill out an image comment form for each picture, only fill one out for those pictures that might have two different subject and you would use the image comment form to identify which is the subject of your picture (like which category you used for the picture or if there is some story about the picture that might need an explanation. An example is last year someone took a photo of two dragonflies and the photographer pointed out that the bottom dragonfly had his head under the water. That comment would help the photo make sense if you were looking at it.
Q. What is my three digit code for naming my files?
A. In your orientation packet there should have been labels with your photographer ID number printed on them. Those are to be put on whatever your CDs or DVDs are put in (jewel boxes or CD envelopes) to identify them.
Q. In which category should ants be placed?
A. C-04, Bees, Wasps and Kin.
Q. Which category should cowbirds be placed?
A. In Wildlife In Focus IV there was a photo of a Bronzed Cowbird in All Other Birds A-22.
Q. Noise Reduction is an allowable manipulation according to the packet of information I have. But the process includes sharpening of the image since reducing the noise makes the image softer. I know no sharpening is supposed to be applied to the TIFF files, so should noise reduction only take place on the JPEG files?
A. Noise reduction can be done on both Raw and JPEG files but not TIFFs. The reason is the printers use the TIFF files and they do their own sharpening.
Q. Is there a minimum length or width for the photographs? For example, cropping to a 6MP x 1MP (or 1MP x 6MP) dimension would still be 6MP, but would make for a really long photograph in one dimension and narrow one in another. Would that be allowed?
A. We don't have any restrictions about the size and dimensions. It is a judgment call by the photographer.
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