Thanks for chipping in Azimbern. Regarding to where the files will go, each entrant will make an account on Scribd, a site that hosts documents, with a social feature as well. Alternatively Google Docs will also host and share documents. Basically we need a link that can be accessed by any member, free of charge, forever. HTML is a good idea, hadn't thought about it, that's allowed too. The number of photos per essay is up to the creator really, if they feel they can do the job with less than 5 then I guess it's acceptable. Certainly no upper limit at all.

WPF allows attachments in Word format, as well as many other forms. The file sizes are perfectly generous for a photo essay - no-one is going to be writing a novel. I see no need to go around using other file hosting sites.

The essay could be written as a post in the thread, erm, just like this text I've just written. Or is that a bit too obvious? ;)

20091213_valdor_01.doc:
Your file of 92.5 KB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 19.5 KB for this filetype.

This is a message that "manage attachments" returned when I tried to upload a file as a test. The file contained 18 kb of text and the balance was of one image only. Quite clearly photo essays can not be uploaded via this route. Am I missing something????????

I think you are.

Keep the text of the essay as a post in the thread, add your images as attachments to the thread post. Do not embed your images into a word document, that is a sure-fire way to have enormous word docs very quickly.

To create a photo essay in .doc or .odt or .pdf or .html is one thing. To try and create and present a photo essay as a thread in wpf would be like trying to write War and Peace while wearing a straight jacket.

I have to agree with Azimbern here. If you look at the essays in the link I posted in the first post they use quite a lot of complex formatting, tex placed on pictures etc.

There isn't a problem with using Scribd to host the finished files, membership there is fast, easy and free and it preserves all the formatting that you'd have in your PDF, .doc or whatever. If everyone posts the link to their Scribd document on the forum at the end of the competition we should be fine.

Sorry folks, in my old fashioned way a photographic essay has a minimum of text - No more than 100 or 200 words allowed for the whole thing no matter how many pictures - It's meant to be a photographic essay - the pictures tell the story. The forum caters for that quite easily I think. If I have to worry about HTML, PDF, IBD then I'll be giving this competition a miss, and as for posting essays somewhere else and having to go there to see and read them.... :mad:

OK here's what I think we should do.

We'll allow both ways. If you want to be like Andy and go for a minimum of text and no formatting - I understand the appeal - then go ahead and post photos as attachments, with text as a regular post. In fact I think I might do that myself ;-)

If you want to have higher-level formatting like Azimbern then make your doc in one of the approved format, upload to Scribd and post the link here.

It's not really about a battle of what photographic essays should look like, as long as we can see and read everything the way you want us to then it's fine.

NO advantage or disadvantage will be given to either method, of course.

You can of course, also embed you pictures directly in the text of the post, as we do on the POTW announcement.

Does the photographic essay have to be based on work what we have personally done or can it be based on a more famous photographer?

Reason why I ask this is becasue I have wrote up an essay quite a while a go for a course course that I did. I think some of the points in it are quite though provoking...

Just thought I'd check.