Tips for Photo Success

1. Provide caption information for every photo that identifies people in the photos and tells what they’re doing and who took the photo. 2. Make sure your package is postmarked or your images emailed no later than April 30, 2003. 3. Check closely to make sure your photos don’t show violations of OSHA standards or unsafe work practices. 4. Identify people in the photo by full name and title. 5. Don’t send snapshots of people staring into the camera. Candid photos are usually better. 6. Send only high-quality images: No Polaroids and no out-of-focus, discolored, or torn images. 7. Don’t write on the back of your prints, because this may damage the images. Also, avoid using staples and paper clips on photos. 8. Protect your images. Use cardboard to reinforce your package before you mail. 9. Send only high-resolution digital images as .jpg or .tif files. 10. Enclose signed permission to use the photo if it shows a worker or worksite. 11. Provide your full name, title, and office and a phone number where we can reach you for more information.

Deadline: April 30, 2003

JSHQ wants to portray federal, state, and consultation staff doing their jobs. We’re planning our first-ever photo contest, designed to showcase the work you do on a daily basis to help protect workers.

Everyone in OSHA plays an important role in promoting workplace safety and health, whether in a direct or support role, and we hope to show as much variety as possible. Any photo of OSHA workers, state staff, or consultation employees on the job qualifies—compliance officers preparing for or conducting inspections, industrial hygienists taking samples, trainers conducting safety classes, team leaders conducting staff meetings, support staff taking phone calls from the public, consultants conducting visits, compliance assistance specialists holding outreach meetings, VPP staff conducting onsite visits. The possibilities are endless.

What we don’t want are the classic “grip and grin” shots, or images of people lined up in a row smiling at the camera. We’ve all seen enough of those photos already! Candid photos, or at least staged photos that look candid, work best.

Entries must be color prints or high-resolution digital images. If you use a digital camera, the images must be very high resolution (minimum is 5x7 at 300 dpi), the kind taken with a professional digital camera. If your images can fit onto a floppy disk, they are too low-resolution for the magazine. Also, if you can email more than one digital image at a time, they’re too low-resolution. Send digital photos as .jpeg or .tif files.

To enter, mail or email your submission with basic caption information that tells the who, what, where, when, and why of what’s going on in the photo. That basically means telling us who’s in the photo, along with their title and office; what they’re doing; where the photo was taken; and why the activity is important to OSHA’s role of protecting workers. (Note: if the photo features a workplace or workers, we’ll need signed permission okaying the use of the images by OSHA.)

Winning photos will be published in JSHQ and used in a wide variety of agency products such as publications and exhibits.

If you have any questions, contact the JSHQ editor, by phone at (202) 693-1999.

or

Mail entries to:
OSHA Public Affairs
JSHQ, Attn: Donna Miles
200 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room N-3647
Washington, DC 20210

Good luck! We look forward to hearing from you! JSHQ