Calendar Photo Submission Requirements and Guidelines

[Curious Hound]

In order to produce a good quality Calendar, your photo submissions must meet certain requirements. I can do some cool stuff in Photoshop. But I need good stock to work from. Here are the requirements, and a few helpful hints and tips to help you submit good photos.

1. Email your full resolution image files to me at "ericsbenner{at}gmail{period}com (you know how to fix that address). Posting photos here on the site does NOT work. The site reduces the file size and I can't use them. We can also transfer files via Google Drive. But email is easier in most cases.

2. Image files must be 1600 x 1200 pixels OR LARGER. Bigger is better. Size DOES matter. Landscape orientation works best. But I can get creative with portrait oriented images. This will result in large file sizes, often 1.5mb or larger. That is OK. bigger is better. I can make big files work. But I can't create something from nothing. I am willing to help you through email if needed. Contact me.

3. Include the word "calendar" in the subject line. I will set up my email to automatically put these in a special folder so they're easy for me to find in my email. Somebody accused me of playing favorites and ignoring his submission in a previous year. That is not true. I searched my email for hours and never saw any submission from him.

4. In the email, please include some info such as; your user name on the forum, truck info - like year, model, engine, modifications, etc. all the stuff that makes you proud of your truck and this photo. In previous years, I have had to go back and ask a bunch of people for info.

5. A cutoff date for submissions will be announced each year. This is necessary so I have ample time to prepare the calendar and have it ready for ordering at a decent time. I usually try to have it ready for ordering by Thanksgiving weekend.

6. Currently, we are using a Truck Of The Month (TOTOM) and Ugly Truck Of The Month (UTOTM) contest to vote on the photo for each month. Rules of those contests apply.

Helpful hints;

• try to get your pictures on a nice day with sunshine or, if at night, make sure there is good lighting.
• Having the sun in the background makes the visible side of your truck a shadowy silhouette. That's difficult to correct.
• try to get the picture in focus
• try to make the truck fill most of the picture, but not all the way out to the edges. If I have to zoom in to make it look good, we will lose resolution and It won't be as good. But, if I can't zoom out to fit the shape of the calendar page, something may get cut off. give me a little wiggle room around the edges. Most phone cameras take a wide rectangular photo. This can be a problem if your truck fills the frame from edge to edge because the calendar format is much closer to a square. I try to fill the whole page with your image. so, a wide picture may get cut off or I will have to put a lot of ugly white space above and below it on the page.
• action shots are great
• Your truck does not have to be "perfect". As seen in previous years, a well composed artistic picture of an imperfect truck works just as well. This is especially true for our new Ugly Truck Of The Month Contest.
• You may submit more than one photo. In some rare cases, I might create a collage for your truck to highlight a particular feature or backstory. Otherwise, I will try to choose the best of your submissions.
• Please don't inundate me with too many photos of your truck. Quality is better than quantity. Pick your best 1-5 pictures.
• You do NOT need to edit your photos. Sometimes you end up saving the edited version too small. I can fix color and lighting within reason. I also make sure license plates are blanked out to preserve your truck's identity. Several times, I have even able to "splatter snow or mud" on the front license plate to cover it. Someone else asked me to remove a tree that was in an unfortunate place.
• Do NOT send photos taken at funky angles. They will NOT be used. people should not have to turn their heads sideways to view your truck in the calendar. Keep the camera level.

Ok, I think that's what I needed to say.

Here are some examples with comments.

This is an excellent photo. good lighting, good composition, the truck is framed nicely and the action is awesome.

This is a good action shot. great lighting. The truck almost fills too much of the frame. but, even cut off a little bit, it tells a good story. It would be better without the strangers in the background. Sometimes, people don't want to be published in other people's photos.

Excellent night shot. This can be challenging for novice photographers. Notice there is enough light in the foreground to show details and colors.

This shot is almost too wide. But I was able to make it work. This also shows how an artistic photo can be taken of an imperfect truck.

Even in winter, a good photo can be taken. I can sometimes enhance colors, lighting and contrast in photos taken on a gloomy day. This shot was nearly perfect as it was submitted.

I will sometimes use multiple shots to tell a story or highlight unusually unique features.

This photo shows what I mean by bad backlighting. In the original, as submitted, the truck was much darker and difficult to see. I was able to brighten it up a good bit without making the sky look white and unintelligible. A powerful camera flash could have brightened the foreground and improved the photo immensely. Otherwise, I love this photo. the drama of the big mountains and cloudy sky give this image a lot of character. First, is the image I received.

After processing, ready for calendar. Notice the change from wide rectangular image to the size ratio I need for the calendar page.

No. Do not send this. You may like these for your own viewing. But it is not good for the calendar. Please keep the camera level.

Eric B.

 

[Snoranger]

View attachment 104411


Eric B.

So….
No pics of your truck, got it.

 

[Curious Hound]

So….
No pics of your truck, got it.

I knew some smart *** would say that.

 

[Snoranger]

I knew some smart *** would say that.

You can always count on me.

 

[Nancy95]

I switched my camera to shoot in landscape, made sure my truck filled the frame well, and took the shot during golden hour so the lighting looked awesome without needing edits.

 

[Curious Hound]

I switched my camera to shoot in landscape, made sure my truck filled the frame well, and took the shot during golden hour so the lighting looked awesome without needing edits.

Landscape mode is awesome. But, for use in the calendar, only fill the frame to about 75% (around 70% - 80%). Most of our phone cameras take really wide photos in landscape mode. The calendar pages have a narrower aspect ratio (Width x Length). So, filling the frame completely in your phone requires me to cut off part of your truck when i narrow the photo, or leave a lot of unfilled space at the top and bottom of the page. I try to consistently fill the photo pages out to all 4 edges for the best look. I also need extra room for what printers call “bleed”. Bleed has to do with how the printing and trimming process works.

I’ll try to do a short tutorial about aspect ratio after work tonight.

 

[Curious Hound]

Here is a little bit more information about aspect ratio and various Image sizes. The images I need for the calendar need to be a 1.33:1 ratio of width to height to properly fit the page. The minimum size I listed above is 1600 x 1200 pixels. 1600/1200=1.33. Files bigger than that allow me to zoom, crop, and reposition as needed to get the best image for the calendar. Many phone cameras, these days provide much larger image files, which is wonderful for what I am doing here.

Various cameras produce different image sizes with respect to aspect ratio, the ratio between width and height. For this discussion, I will just talk about landscape mode. Portrait mode works the same way except that the width is smaller than the height. so, for example, my Samsung phone camera gives me a default image size of 4000pixels wide X 2252 pixels tall. That is an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. That can be changed in the settings. The iPhone 16 I use at work takes pictures 4032pixels wide X 3024pixels tall. Conveniently, that is the 1.33:1 ratio that fits the calendar project. One of the photos I received for the 2026 calendar was 6000pixels wide X 4000pixels tall - a ratio of 1.5:1. DSLR cameras have yet other more standardized aspect ratios. Actually, I think that may have been a DSLR wielded by SnoRanger's daughter, Maggie.

These large images are great and give me a lot of flexibility in editing. They make life easy for me. One thing to keep in mind, though, is to not fill these pictures completely from side to side with your truck. Because, If you do, I will have to cut off at least one end of your truck to make it fit the 1.33:1 ratio of the final image size. A good rule of thumb would be to keep your truck sized to roughly 75% of the width of the whole picture. 70% can be even better. Then I am able to crop and reposition for the best result.

One other thing that happens is that printers have this term called "bleed". Basically, this is a buffer around the edge of the page where things could get cut off during the printing and trimming parts of the publication process. So, in addition to cropping your picture so the truck fits the aspect ratio, I also need to keep it within the bleed boundary so it doesn't get cut off, yet maintain image in the bleed area so we don't have ugly white space around the edges.

Could I just use images with the wrong aspect ratio and allow there to be white space at the top and bottom of the pages? Yes. I could. But it doesn't look anywhere near as good and dramatic as seeing your awesome truck photo filling the whole page from edge to edge. So I avoid that in these calendars. Here are some screenshots showing the various things I just spoke about.


Here is a photo submitted this year by SnoRanger. This image file was 6000pixels wide X 4000pixels tall - 1.5:1 aspect ratio. The truck fills the frame to almost 80% of the width and this worked, but was right at the limits as you will see in the following screenshots.

Here, I have overlayed a blue square with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio to show the shape of the final image. I have room to move the image left and right to center it. since it is a wonderfully large image file, I can set my work space down to half this size and then have the option of changing the size of the truck within my 1.33:1 window. Files like this make life very easy for the artist and editor.

Here, I have also overlayed a black border around my working window to represent the Bleed area. I want the picture to extend into the bleed area. But I want to keep the subject (the truck) away from it as best as I can.

And here is the final image just showing the cropped image and the bleed boundary. We just barely got it in. But this will look fine in the calendar.

Here is a photo of my truck, very well composed using the photography "rule of thirds". My Samsung phone takes very wide landscape shots. 4000pixels X 2252pixels, a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. It would be easy to get in close to the truck and have it fill the frame from side to side. But that would not be useable in the calendar.

However, by judiciously leaving scenery all around the truck, I can crop this to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio for the calendar and still have a very dramatic photo with the Colorado mountains background.

 

[Curious Hound]

I switched my camera to shoot in landscape, made sure my truck filled the frame well, and took the shot during golden hour so the lighting looked awesome without needing edits.

I forgot to complement your use of "the golden hour". Early morning and late afternoon/early evening are often the best times for ohotography because the sun is lower in the sky. This provides more contrasting highlights and shadows instead of a boring, flat, even lighting level. At least 70% of photography is all about lighting and how to use it to your advantage.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I forgot to complement your use of "the golden hour". Early morning and late afternoon/early evening are often the best times for ohotography because the sun is lower in the sky. This provides more contrasting highlights and shadows instead of a boring, flat, even lighting level. At least 70% of photography is all about lighting and how to use it to your advantage.

My brother's wedding photographer tried to utilize "the golden hour" and you can see her shadow holding the camera taking the picture in the foreground of the picture.

Lighting is huge, in that case it made that shot look extremely amateurish. If you don't manage lighting and shadows correctly nothing else will matter.

That said it takes practice.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

My brother's wedding photographer tried to utilize "the golden hour" and you can see her shadow holding the camera taking the picture in the foreground of the picture.

Lighting is huge, in that case it made that shot look extremely amateurish. If you don't manage lighting and shadows correctly nothing else will matter.

That said it takes practice.

My parents had a photography studio before digital. My mom did the retouch. Those shadows would have been gone.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

My parents had a photography studio before digital. My mom did the retouch. Those shadows would have been gone.

I am too lazy for that, I would just scootch a couple feet to the right lol.

I took our own Christmas photos a couple days ago, that is what I did with the tripod. Shadow would have been in frame so I played around with it so it wasn't, saves a lot of time on the back end.