Feel like you’ve got what it takes to enlighten us with your photo techniques? Whether you are an amateur photographer or a seasoned professional, come test your creative skills and participate in the 24 hour Lumière Photo Marathon!

The premise of the photo marathon is simple. At noon on Saturday in Stanley Park, you receive a theme card with twelve different themes. You have twenty-four hours to make one photograph representing each of the themes. You return to Stanley Park the next day by noon and let us download your photographs. A panel of judges will then pour over each photograph and narrow it down to the top three photographs for each theme. We will create large prints of these photographs to be displayed at the Field House in Stanley Park on the following Lumiere weekend; all of the photographs made during the marathon will also be displayed digitally! The top photographers will then have large prints of their winning photographs to take home!

This year’s photo marathon with be begin on Saturday, August 6 at noon and end Sunday, August 7 at noon.

We’ve made some changes regarding how the photo marathon will work this year. Read on!

What’s the Same in 2011

1. Start at Stanley Park. Photo marathoners will gather at Stanley Park from 11 am on Saturday August 6th to confirm their presence and their camera details. At twelve o’clock noon, Festival Director Scott Florence will hand out the marathon themes.
2. One theme, one photograph. Our panel of judges will only consider one photograph per theme from each photographer; you’ve got to make sure you note down which photograph is represented by which theme, on your theme sheet. In the worst case scenario, we’ll arbitrarily decide which photograph goes with which theme, but if we have more than one photograph, we’ll only review the first one.
3. Deadline, deadline! We will only accept photographs until the marathon deadline: check in at the Field House in Stanley Park from 10 o’clock in the morning to noon on Sunday, August 7th. Once you arrive, we’ll register your completion of the marathon and download your images. At 12:01, we’ll keep downloading images, but only for people that have checked by 12:00!

Things that are different in 2011

1. Double your creativity! Last year’s marathon was 6 themes in 12 hours – we’ve doubled it this year to 12 themes in 24 hours!
2. We’ve gone digital! It was quite the challenge last year to track down dozens of single-use disposable film cameras, and we knew at some point we’d have to go digital. This year, you bring your own digital camera (or borrow one we’ll have one hand, assuming the donations trickle in).
   
3. You can use your own camera. Everyone’s got one these days. The only thing is, we need to be able to retrieve the images off of it, which may mean that you can’t use your cell phone (some cell phones are a bit tricky to get your pictures off of). Which is why we want you to register on Saturday, to make sure it won’t be a problem on Sunday! One other thing – if you don’t have your own digital camera, hopefully, we’ll have a few loaners on site for people to use!
4. The judging panel. We’ve enlisted some great local photographic talent to help us pour over the mountain of photographs. Click here for the bios of our 2011 judges.

The Fine Print

• Eligibility. All photographs must be taken in Ottawa between 12:00 PM on Saturday August 6, 2011 and 12:00PM on Sunday August 7, 2011. The marathon is open to all residents of Canada, except directors and staff of Lumiere Ottawa.
• Content. We reserve the right to disqualify anything that contains inappropriate content. We’re all for artistic licence, but if it’s gross, blatantly sexual or otherwise offensive, don’t expect to see it show up the following weekend.
• No Post Processing. To level the playing field, no post processing will be allowed on images; we want what comes straight out of your camera.  If your camera is capable of applying colour effects, sharpening or other f/x modes, that’s fine, but please don’t add borders, text or other edit operations or filters from a computer program.
• Granting Lumiere a licence. By submitting your photographs to the Lumiere 2011 Photo Marathon, you agree to grant us a perpetual license to display your photograph on our website. You’re still free to use your photograph however you wish, and we assert no claim over your copyright. You’re just agreeing to let us show your photograph on our website to show how awesome you are. If we think we could use your photograph for something else, like marketting the Lumiere festival, we’ll contact you for permission before we do anything else.
• Cheating. We reserve the right to disqualify any photograph where we feel it’s been modified to fit into the contest rules. This includes altering file information or EXIF data. We’re not technical geniuses, and we’d rather people follow the spirit of the contest to engage themselves with the creative challenge. But we do have some tools at our disposal, and if we think you’ve played fast and loose with the rules, we’ll remove your photo from the judging.

The Marathon is now closed. Thanks to all who participated!

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