Tournament Photography

The primary purpose of taking photos at regionals is for inclusion in Contract Bridge Forum, both in print and on the Forum web site. The Forum uses New Life Masters and overall winners in two session events (or four session team games). New Life Master photos are also used on the Western Conference web page.

I/N photos are generally taken in the I/N area and used there on wall paste-ups or commemorative folders. They are not used in the Forum or District web pages.

New Life Masters photos will also appear in the daily bulletins

It's difficult to assign a daily time for photo operation due to varied starting hours of events, and team games finishing at different times than pairs games. However, the photographer cannot be on duty 24 hours so a photo shoot time should be listed in the Daily Bulletin. I prefer just before the 1 :00 session (if you are on 1:00 & 7:30, or just before the 3:00 session if on 10:00 & 3:00).

The tournament photographer should follow these guidelines:

1. Shoot "bust" shots of the winners or Life Masters

2. Select a light background, shoot close up.

3. Use a flash, do not shoot outdoors

4. Keep the subjects' heads close together.

5. If you have a short person and a tall one, ask the tall person to bend knees to level off the picture.

6. Teams may be four, five or six, but get them all in close - you may need to stand some in front of others.

7. Immediately (before you shoot) ask the players their names and list them in order from left to right, using hyphens between each name.

Example: Gayle Andrews - Hal Binder

8. Photo captions should contain two lines only:

Judy Smith

Dallas, Texas

Open Pairs

Judy Smith - Dan Green

Knockout Teams Bracket I

Bill Jackson - Sally Jackson - Tom Lesser - Judy Moore

In photo captions, cities and states are used for Life Masters, but not for overall winners. If someone is missing, do not list that person (or N/A). The photo caption is for the players in the photo only.

If using a digital camera, the photos can be e-mailed to the Forum office, or converted to a CD and sent to the office. This should be done as soon as possible after the tournament. Either way photos are sent, the captions must be clearly defined and easily identified to the photo, usually by number.

One tip to remember: This is the only time they will ever make Life Master and they are thrilled. Try to capture the smile and not a posed portrait.