SEPRA's Second Annual Calendar Contest

[JennysMom]

This year, SEPRA is creating a 2010 calendar and we need your help! Once again, we have created a contest to choose the pictures that will be included in the calendar and want all of you to join in the fun! We will be taking photo submissions until Thursday June 18th, 2009. We ask that with each photo you include your name, location, and your pug(s) name.

After the submission deadline, all photos that meet the qualifications below will be posted at http://www.pugged.com/sepracalendar and the voting will begin on Monday June 22nd, 2009. Each vote will cost $1 and you can vote as many times as you want for as many photos as you'd like to see in the calendar. For example, if you want to vote for Jenny and you send in $10 that will be 10 votes for Jenny.

Voting will take place in 2 week increments. After each 2 week period, we will narrow down the pugs by the number of votes and start all over until we get to the final 13 pugs. The number of rounds will be determined by how many pictures are submitted for the contest. The 13 pugs with the most votes will be either the cover pug or a picture of one of the 12 months of 2010. There will also be random pug photos throughout the calendar from the remaining submitted photos.

When submitting votes, you must specify which pug you want your vote to count for. There is a comment section in PayPal to include this information.

We will be printing the calendar using a four-color press, with 8" x 10" pages and full bleeds. This will result in the best photo duplication possible and a very professional finished product. Because of the requirements needed to print at this size and this quality, we have to start with the best photos possible. Your original picture will be in .JPG format, which is compressed to reduce file size. Every time that photo is changed and re-saved, it's recompressed and loses some detail. We can't afford to lose detail printing at this size so submitting the original picture is important. We'll take care of cropping, color adjusting, and everything else needed to ensure a calendar that everyone will be proud to display in their home or office.

Photo submission guidelines:
- To ensure a high quality final product, photos submitted for consideration must be original, straight from the camera.
- Minimum camera resolution should be 3.1 megapixels
- Minimum file size should be 1.5 megabytes (right-click on fine name in Windows Explorer, select "Properties" and you'll see the file size)
- Subject of the photo should fill most of the frame
- If shooting indoors, the red-eye reduction flash mode should be used to reduce the dreaded "blue eye" effect.
- No cropping, resizing, or other modifying of the original photo is allowed.
- No cell-phone camera pictures.

Submit photos to [email protected]. Include the following information in your email: your name, your Pug's name, and your city/state. We'll evaluate the photo to see if it will be suitable for printing based on the above criteria (we are not judging on content, with the exception of the subject Pug not adequately filling the frame).

Once we reply saying it'll work, submit your $ 5 donation to the Paypal address that will be provided in that email or mail your check to the address below:

SEPRA
P.O. Box 1329
Suwanee, GA 30024

Be sure and include all the information stated above with your check.

Please note that SEPRA will retain the rights to use these photos in any advertising or printing in the future. We will also be making packets of note cards with selected pictures from submissions. These note cards will be available at Pugfest and on our web site.

[rachi]

Hey, glad to see SEPRA is doing this again! A great way to benefit the rescue-and it came out really cute last year. I love looking through mine and seeing some familiar faces in there. I have mine up at work and when I flip to a new picture every month my friends come by to ask if "know" the pug featured.

[JennysMom]

Don't forget to get your pics in!