2008 Fire and Aviation Photo Contest Now Open for Entries

The 2008 NPS Fire & Aviation Photo Contest is now open for entries through May 1st.

The contest this year is completely on-line. We will not be accepting entries via e-mail, mail, or FTP.

The categories for this year's (2008) competition are:

• Aviation
• Fire Apparatus (e.g. engines, ATVs, other fire vehicles)
• Fire Staff in Action
• Public Interaction / Media
• Structural Fire
• Wildland and Prescribed Fire
• Wildland-Urban Interface
• Other

• By submitting my photo to the NPS Fire & Aviation photo contest, I grant to the National Park Service, its representatives and employees, the right to use the photograph I am submitting. I authorize the National Park Service, its representatives and employees, the right to use and publish the same in print and/or electronically without limitations.
  
• IF YOU ARE SUBMITTING A PHOTO FOR WHICH YOU ARE NOT THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Please verify that you have the photographer's permission to submit the photo. In doing so, the photographer grants agreement to the permission clause directly above.
  
• Uploaded photos or images (jpg, tif, png) must be large enough in size and high enough in resolution to enlarge to 8.5" x 11" without pixelization - low quality images will be disqualified.
  
• Photos should not be resized (see Exception), optimized, or have had a digital filter applied.
  
• Exception: Please note that if you upload an exceedingly large image (e.g. over 7.0 MB) your photo may not go through. You can try again during a less busy server period or resize your image to approximately 6.5 mb and it should go through.
  
• Photo must portray proper safety equipment and procedures - e.g. proper PPE - gloves, no sleeves rolled up, no tennis shoes, etc.
  
• If proper safety equipment and procedures are not portrayed, the photo will be disqualified.
  
• The photo must have been taken during the previous calendar year in an NPS area (2008), or of NPS employee(s). No group people photos (e.g. mugging for the camera photos) - but photos may be shots of multiple people working.

• The drop-down menus under the fields for Submitter Unit, Photographer Unit, and Photo Location use a different database than the one we are accustomed to using... In order to include the regional offices and program centers, we used a database that includes everything but the kitchen sink in the National Park Service, so you will see sub-units, districts, etc. - Please use the largest entity you belong to - for example - for those at Zion that work for fire management, please use Zion NP instead of Zion National Park Fire Office, or rather than using Visitor Protect Kaweah Dist, please use Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. For those in the Natural Resources Program Center, please use the option "Natural Resources".
  
• If you upload a very large photo (over 7.0 mb), you may have difficulty getting it through, or it may not go through at all. If you get Page Cannot Be Displayed or Page Cannot Be Found, hit your Refresh button on your browser and it should take you back to the entry form. If the photo is overly large, please downsize it to about 6.5 mb and attempt to enter it again.
  
• Going completely on-line is exciting, but there may still be some technical issues "lurking." If you find an issue, we would like to hear about it - send "issues" as well as any feedback, with suggestions for improvement to - FA_Photo_Contest@nps.gov.

• 1st prize winners in each category will receive a framed 8x10 of their submission and a certificate.
• 2nd prize winners in each category will receive a certificate and their choice of the coffee table book Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy or a polo shirt featuring the National Interagency Fire Center logo.