SFLS Calendar Photo Submission

SFLS 2009 calendar.

The calendar will feature photos of Lapphunds, and it will be up to you all to decide which final 12 photos will feature. As before, this is NOT limited to SFLS members nor SLFS members’ dogs. Anyone who has a photo of a Finnish Lapphund can submit it and anyone who has an interest in Lapphunds can buy it. We expect the price to be the same as last year (so £8 for each calendar including UK postage, with overseas postage charged at cost), but will confirm this later on in the year.

Email your favourite photo(s) of Finnish Lapphunds to sflscalendar2009@googlemail.com. After submissions have closed, we will post them all on the SFLS website (www.sfls.org.uk) where you will be able to vote for your favourites. At the end of voting, the top 12 photos will be selected to be used in the calendar, and the one photo with the most votes will feature on the cover!!

As we are starting earlier this year, we expect to have the calendars ready to send out in the middle of December, so it will make the perfect Christmas present!

Please note that there are some rules regarding the submission of photos and the subsequent photo competition, which we will have to follow strictly. Please read through the rules carefully:

Please submit FULL SIZE images. Although we are happy for you to edit the photos digitally before submitting them, please do not resize the photos or change the resolution.
All photos will be vetted for quality! This is NOT about the photography, the subject or the dog, but about whether or not the photo is of a high enough resolution to be printed. Unfortunately, we will have to reject any photos which we do not believe will print well.
You MUST have permission from the person who took the photo to submit it. We ask you to include with your submission the name of the person who took the photo and, if this is not you, will require you to confirm that you have their permission to use it.
You MUST have permission from the owner(s) of the dog(s) in the photo to submit it. We are happy for you to submit photos that you have taken of other people’s dogs, but we must ask you to confirm that you have their permission to use it.
The photos must feature a Finnish Lapphund. We are happy to see Lappies from both the UK and abroad.
You may submit ANY number of photos.
The photos might be edited. We reserve the right to edit photos by cropping etc to fit the format of the calendar. We will, however, always let you see the edits before the photos are included in the vote for you to agree to these edits. However, should you not agree, this may result in the photo not being included in the vote.
Red eyes or stray leads? We are happy to help out with other editing. If you have the perfect photo, but have red eye or unwanted objects in the photos, please feel free to submit them anyway, and we shall do our best to edit them.
Photos MUST be submitted by 15th October 2008. This will be the final cut-off date for photo submissions. Photos submitted after this date will not be included in the vote.

In summary, for submissions of photos: Please email your photos to sflscalendar2009@googlemail.com. Please send only ONE PHOTO PER EMAIL, however you can send as many as you like. Please ensure you include in the email the kennel name AND pet name of the dog(s) in the photo (and confirmation that the owner has permitted you to submit it if this is not you) AND the name of the person who took the photo (and confirmation that they permit you to use it if it is not you).

Once all the photos have been collated and approved, they will be uploaded to the SFLS website. We will send you an email and post on the Yahoo Group to confirm this. You will then have a short period in which to vote. The rules for voting will be:

You can vote only once.
You may vote for up to 12 favourite photos (in no particular order).
We will only include one dog from each household in the final calendar. If more than one dog from one household features in the top 12 photos, the top scoring dog photo from that household will be included and the others not. The next photo in scoring order will then be included and so on.
If there is a tie in the number of votes, the editors of the calendar (Graham Cossey and Pia Reynolds) will have the final say as to which photo will be included. If the tied photos include any dogs owned by Graham Cossey or Pia Reynolds, Daniel Spencer will be asked to have the final say.
The editors of the calendar will choose the order of the photos within the calendar.
We will announce which photos will be included before you have to confirm any orders for calendars.

Please start emailing your photos NOW! We want lots and lots so keep them coming. If you have seen a great Lapphund photo from a link on the Yahoo Group, why not contact the poster to ask if you/they can submit it.

TIPS FOR THE PERFECT CALENDAR SHOT

All types of photos are welcome, whether they be ‘formal’ shots of your dog in a show pose, an action shot of your dog digging up your daisies, or a snap of a sleeping puppy. You don’t need a ‘fancy’ camera for this, however if your camera has a quality setting, please do set it to the highest quality (sometimes called superfine or similar) to ensure the resolution will be ok for printing. This does result in larger files, so you are will probably be able to fit less photos on your memory card. We are NOT looking for David Bailey quality shots, but if the shots are very blurred or out of focus, they will likely not print too well. However, as mentioned, red eye and ‘stray objects’ in the background need not be a problem. We can most likely edit these problems out. The photos will be printed on the calendar in a size slightly smaller than A4 and the pages will be ‘landscape’ orientation, so landscape photos are definitely better than portrait orientation.

And that’s it. Get your photos in, and remember they have to be in by 15th October. If you have any questions at all, please email calendar@sfls.org.uk.

Click on the images below to see sample months from the SFLS 2008 calendar :