Best of Photojournalism 2006: Still Photography Rules

Best of Photojournalism 2006 is open to professional photographers, editors and online photojournalists, and there is no entry fee. All entries must have been taken or initially published between January 1st and December 31st, 2005. Photographers do not need to be members of NPPA to enter.

Submitting Via FTP

FTP has become an important part of the Best of Photojournalism contest, and has greatly improved the ease of entering. To submit your images via FTP, you must complete the online Contest Registration Form. Once you complete the form, the FTP server address, user name and password will be emailed to you within 15 minutes. Please save the information so you can find it when you are ready to submit your images.

To reduce upload times, to ensure that picture stories and portfolios are correctly judged as single units, and to simplify troubleshooting if there is a transfer problem, you must create a single compressed archive of all your images in Zip, StuffIt, or tar format, and upload that compressed archive to the server, rather than transferring each image individually. To do so:

Create a single folder for all your images, and name it with your unique 8-digit contest ID code.
Example, 00008250
Put all your single images and category folders in your contest ID folder.
For example, if you were entering images in International News, Enterprise, Environmental Picture Story (with a story called ANWR), Team Sports Action, and Sports Portfolio of the Year, your folders would look like this (in List view)
- 00008250
  - INN
  - ENT
  - EPS_ANWR
  - SAT
  - SPY
Your folder list will look different, depending on which categories you are entering.
Compress that contest ID folder using StuffIt, ZIP, or tar format. You will end up with a file called something like (using our example folder name above) 00008250.sit, 00008250.zip, or 00008250.tgz

This will be a single large file containing all your images in compressed form, plus all the organizational/folder structure information.

If you don't have a compression program, there are free trial versions of StuffIt, WinZIP, and other compression programs online.
Upload this single compressed file to the FTP server, using the server address, username, and password you were sent in your confirmation email.

Submit your entries only once. You will be emailed within a week of the receipt of your images. Please check your entries on the website before February 22nd; we will not accept changes after that date.

Submitting Entries on Disk

Entries can also be sent in on CD, DVD, and Zip disks, in either Mac or PC format. All entries submitted on disk must be postmarked on or before the deadline of February 10, 2006. (For entries shipped using private services such as FedEx or UPS, use the label ship date.)

All disks must be labeled clearly:

Label each disk with your name and organization. It must be legible.
If submitting more than one disk for your entries, please number the disks. (for example, ‘1 of 2’, ‘2 of 2’...)
Indicate on the label whether the disk is formatted for Mac or PC.

Mailing Address:

Please mail disks to:

National Press Photographers Association
Best of Photojournalism 2006
3200 Croasdaile Dr
Ste 306
Durham NC 27705

Confirmation of Images Received

You will be sent a confirmation email listing the images received. (Images will be listed by the information provided in the object field). Confirmation emails will be sent out within a week of receipt.

IMPORTANT! YOU WILL ONLY RECEIVE CONFIRMATION EMAILS FOR THOSE IMAGES THAT INCLUDE A CORRECT EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE TRANSMISSION FIELD!

NPPA recommends that all entrants review the website of contest entries to ensure your images have been received and processed. At that time, you can also make simple corrections to your category, captions, and the like, in case there were typos in your headers.

You will be emailed when your images are ready for preview and editing.

If you do not get confirmation emails for your images by Monday, February 20th, please check the contest site for your images anyway. If you do not find your images there, then contact NPPA via email (contests@nppa.org) or phone (919-383-7246, ext. 11)

Final Checklist

Did you include a valid email address in the Transmission field for all your images?
Did you send your images before the deadline? Remember: all entries must be sent by February 10, 2006.

Online submissions:

Did you use the FTP login information sent with your contest signup confirmation email?
Does your FTP program say the files tranferred successfully?

Disk submissions:

Did you label your disks clearly?
Are you shipping your disks to the correct address?
National Press Photographers Association
Best of Photojournalism 2006 Still Photo
3200 Croasdaile Dr
Ste 306
Durham NC 27705