BUIF comp queries

I am considering some photos to enter in the BUIF competition but I'm confused on some of the details. I'm hoping that others here who may have entered can clarify a couple of things. Do all still photos need a border or just the ones in the portfolio categories? Is A4 8.5 x 11 or is it a little bit smaller? Any advice on this would be appreciated as I'm getting down to the wire.

Thanks! Karen

My reading of the rules says for prints is that the paper must be A4 and the border is up to you. A4 is 8.27 x 11.69 inches more or less.

Bill

Thanks Bill. There is no contact address on their site to email a query and I just don't want to enter only to have my photos kicked to the curb for not following instructions!

Hi Karen,

I am not an organizer of the competition, but I am a judge. Jane Morgan, who is the main coordinator is on Jim Abernethy's Shearwater this week!

The intention of the rules is simply to ensure that prints come in at equal sizes - we don't want entries that gain advantage by being printed bigger. We don't get a ruler out and start measuring them!

A4 is a widely used paper size measuring 210 × 297mm or, to quote Bill, 8.27 x 11.69 inches. I realise that using this standard is a bit confusing for photogs from the countries that don't use A4 (particularly the US and Canada, where there happen to be rather a lot of underwater photographers). So sorry for that.

A4 is pretty similar to Letter - quote Wiki: "A4 paper is 6 mm narrower and 18 mm longer than the "Letter" paper size, 8½ × 11 inches (216 × 279 mm), commonly used in North America."

Anyway, as far as we judges are concerned it is up to you how you use that space. Most single print entries are usually printed filling most of the sheet - leaving a small white (unprinted) border around the sides. Some go right to the edge. Personally I think they look better with a small border, but we judge the prints - not the borders!

Printing a small image with, a large border is unlikely to show the details of the image well, and is unlikely to impress us.

A un-cropped (Nikon/Canon) DSLR image is 3:2 in aspect ratio, which on A4 means there will be a slightly large margin in the shorter dimension than the long one. So we see this quite commonly on entries - don't worry about this. On Letter paper this would be exaggerated further.

Have a read of the judges comments from previous years as a guide to selecting your entries - and good luck.

2008 - http://www.divemagazine.co.uk/news/article.asp?uan=4323

2007 - http://www.divemagazine.co.uk/news/article...amp;v=1&sp=

Best regards,

Alex

Thanks Alex, I was hoping you'd chime in on this!

Karen