Every year, a wall calendar is put together for the Dakota Mailing
List. DML members send me photos of their vehicles which I post on
this web site, and then DMLers vote on their favorites. The 12 top
photos make it into the calendar (one per month). The calendars are
sold through CafePress.
How it works is I put out a call on the DML for submissions, which
DMLers snail mail or e-mail to me, prior to the deadline. Then, I put
together a web site on which DMLers can vote, and this voting period
lasts one week, after which time I tally the results, announce the
winners, and collect some brief information from the winners to print
along with their winning photo in the calendar such as their name,
location and vehicle info.
Dates & Deadlines
Photo submission deadline:
Saturday 11/22
Voting period:
Sunday 11/23 through Saturday 11/29
Expected availability:
Sunday 12/7
Submitting Photos
Actual Photographs:
If you are snail mailing me an actual photograph, please send it to the following address:
Jon Steiger
836 King Rd.
Forestville, NY 14062
If you want the photographs back, please also enclose a self addressed, stamped envelope.
4x6 or 8x10 photos are fine, and I can also scan in slides and negatives. If you are sending in an actual photograph, it should be one which has been developed by a photo lab from a film camera. Many photo labs now have the ability to take a digital photograph and "develop" it, giving you an actual, glossy 4x6 photo just as if it were developed from film. However, these photos which have been "developed" from digital photograps do not scan in very well due to the creation of Moire patterns. (Trying to scan in photos from newspapers or magazines creates the same problem.) It would be much better for you to simply e-mail me the original digital photo rather than a print which has been created from that photo. Sometimes it is possible to compensate for these patterns, so if the print is all you have, you're welcome to send it in and I will see what I can do with it, but I can make no promises.
If you are sending a digital photograph, it is important that the resolution of the photo be
high enough for printing. A photo that looks great on your computer may look extremely bad when blown up to print size. The minimum recommended resolution is approximately 2200x1700; that's a print size of 11x8.5" at 200dpi. This would equate to a 3.7 megapixel camera at its highest settings. If you are going out to take photos of your vehicle, the absolute minimum camera which will work for the calendar will be somewhere around 3.5 megapixels. You must also be sure to set your camera at the absolute highest, best quality settings. That's the largest picture size possible and the least amount of compression. (Sometimes the digital camera manufacturers refer to the compression in terms of quality such as "fine", "superfine", etc. You should set it to "superfine", or whatever is the absolute best quality which is available on your camera.)
If you only have a film camera but do not want the hassle of mailing me a photo, some photo labs have the option of putting your photos on a CD when you develop them, and these photos are usually of an adequate quality to use for the calendar. (You do need to be careful though as oftentimes the lab will have several sets of your photos on the CD in different folders, at different quality levels, and not all of them will be good enough for the calendar.)
As always, if any of the above is not clear, or if you have any questions, comments, problems, etc. please contact me at
dmlcalendar@jonsteiger.com. Thanks!