Information for Contributors to the Photo Gallery
How to submit photos: Please use the gallery upload form for contributing photos.
Criteria for acceptance of submitted photos: All uploads (except for identification requests; see below) are immediately placed into the photo gallery, in an “Incoming Pool”. However the web editor will still make a decision as to whether to keep the photo permanently in the “curated” gallery. Photos included in the gallery range along a spectrum from those that document a rare bird or at least a noteworthy sighting, to those that are just nice shots of common species, with a wide gray area in the middle. Decision whether to accept a submitted photograph is that of the website editor and is necessarily subjective. Here are some general rules of thumb that I usually follow. At the “rare bird” end of the spectrum are photos that serve to document the occurrence of a bird that is rare, or at least out of season or out of place. These photos need not necessarily be of high photographic quality, as long as field marks that support the identification are discernible. If you have a video of a bird flying through a swamp and displaying field marks of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, I will publish it even if some experts insist it is a Pileated. At the “nice shots” end of the spectrum are photos of birds that are common. In this category, I look for sharp focus, good lighting, interesting composition, good illustration of field marks, etc. It's ok to submit photos of species that are already represented in the gallery, but I may be more choosy about those. You might like to use the taxonomic index to look at what photos may be similar to yours.
The photo must be one that you took yourself, or that you have the photographer's permission to publish, and it should have been taken in the Carolinas. I have occasionally accepted a photo taken just outside the Carolinas, especially if the location is one frequented by Carolina birders, but never from distant locations.
You must include the date and geographic location where the photo was taken.
One species per upload: Each time that you do an upload, you will be creating one new page in the photo gallery. The photo gallery is organized by species, so please stick to the rule, one species per upload. Sometimes you may have a photo with more than one species in it. In such cases, pick the species of greatest interest as the species for the upload and list the other species in the "additional species" space. However, do not include a separate photo of a completely different species in the same upload. Instead, do a separate upload for each species.
Likewise, if you have different photos of one species taken on different dates or locations, do separate uploads so that each upload is for one date (a range of a few days is ok) and one location.
One upload per species: A corollary to “one species per upload” is one upload per species. If you have multiple photos of one species at one location on the same date, be sure to include all of them in one upload so that they are saved on one web page. Don't start a different upload except for a different species, different location, or different date.
Deleting an upload: Sometimes a photographer makes an error in an upload and needs to delete and redo it. To accommodate this, if you are logged into the site, you will have a delete button at the bottom of pages that you have recently uploaded. Click this to remove the upload. The button is not available if you are not logged in, or if you have changed your email address. If you don't have the delete button you will need to contact me to delete any upload.
Identification requests: You may upload a photo just to have it identified. On the upload form, check the box for “I need help identifying this bird”. Such uploads will not be automatically placed in the gallery, but will be handled manually. Note: if you check the box “This is a new species that is not on the list of birds recognized for the Carolinas”, your upload will also be handled manually so that the identification can be confirmed.
Records: One of the objectives of the photo gallery is to be a one-stop repository for photo-documentation of significant records in the Carolinas. If you have taken photos that serve to document a significant record–a state record, a county record, a seasonal record, a nesting record, etc.– and have published them on a private web site, please consider also contributing at least one documentary photo for display here. I will be happy to include with it a link back to your own site.
Editing: When photos are uploaded, they are automatically resized to have a maximum dimension of 640 pixels.
The Chat: Sometimes contributed photos are selected for publication in The Chat. Photos that have been submitted full-size are preferable for this.
Copyright: You retain copyright on the photograph, but by submitting it you give the Carolina Bird Club permission to reproduce it on the web, and you also give the Carolina Bird Club permission to publish the photo in The Chat if selected by the Editor.
URL: Photos in the gallery are organized by photographer, and recognition of who you are is tied to your email address. If you have more than one email address, please try to use the same one each time you upload. If you are a first-time contributor, your upload will have a URL that contains your email address. This will be changed to a URL based on your name as soon as I can get to it.
—Kent Fiala, website editor