Submit Your Photos Now for the 2025 Community Calendar!

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Styluss
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Submit Your Photos Now for the 2025 Community Calendar!

Post by Styluss »

It is once again time to submit photos of your sweet ride for consideration in the 2025 Beretta.Net Community Calendar!

For any newcomers to our little family, every year we take submissions from the community and then vote, as a community, on which photos will be included in the following year's calendar. So get that Beretta (or Berettas) out of the garage and get to taking some pics! Remember, we do this every year at around the same time so you can take a photo at any point during the year to catch the best scenery in your area to submit for calendar voting.

There are always some minor exceptions, but these are the general guidelines we've gathered over the years for the submission process.

Submissions: - Closing Sunday, September 15th
Send all submissions to: Ryan.Haenny@Gmail.com - This is the ONLY way to submit a photo and I'll be sure to write back to let you know I got it. If you don't hear back from me in a day or two, bug me to make sure I got your submission. Please include your forum member name and your real name when submitting your photo so I know who I'm dealing with. The other information that we like to include in a calendar feature is as follows; location (city/state), year, model, engine, transmission and car's nickname if it has one. There really is no minimum of information required, save for your name, but don't leave us with just a pretty photo. Give us some details! There is a limit though so if you give me your car's life story it will be whittled down to the prior mentioned info. I will not chase after you for information so if you don't include something, or don't even say anything well, nothing will be included. It's on you to provide the information you would like included in your possible calendar feature.

If you own two (or more) Berettas you may submit them both either in the same photo or two separate photos. While we prefer you submit a photo of a car you currently own, prior owned vehicles are also okay for submission. Older photos are also accepted but come on, a photo of the car you used to own in high school 20 years ago isn't going to cut it. Show us something from the last year or so at least. You may only submit cars you have owned, no faking the funk here son. See the note below about how voting & winning would work for multiple submissions from the same member.

Submissions will be accepted starting now through Sunday, September 15th. That gives you nearly an entire month, no excuses. I must have a minimum of 12 (duh!) good pictures to make this work, so everybody get out there and shoot! You're welcome to change your submission at any time, just email me a different picture and clearly notify me of the change. Everybody get out there and shoot! Remember, Corsicas are more than welcome to submit as well. But you keep that bastard child Cavalier to yourself.

Voting:
Voting will commence on Monday, Monday, September 30th and will end on Sunday, October 13th at midnight MST. This will give Woody, my faithful assistance and calendar maestro and I enough time to get it all sorted out, edited and complete for ordering in time for Christmas! If you submit two or more different cars to be voted on and two or more of them win, only the car with the highest votes will be included in the calendar. You bastards with like six of these things (hey, don't look at me like that) don't need to be cloggin' up this calendar! With that said you may be best to only enter one photo so it can grab more votes!

Submissions Tips & Tricks:
REMEMBER, we're a mighty picky group these days. This photo should be top notch! No one wants to look at a bad picture for a month.
Here are a few pointers from numerous members over the last few years. Honestly, if your photo isn't up to snuff I'll reject it. I MEAN IT. I have been lenient in prior years with some poor submissions and this year I will once again be putting my foot down. It's nothing against you or your car as a rejection will only come from a sizing or quality issue as once formatted for the calendar any low res photos will absolutely look like crap. This includes washed out photos and ones that are too dark. I'm no professional at Photoshop and even it can only do so much so don't scrimp on your photo quality. Here's some tips on taking the perfect photo.

Location. Pick somewhere unique and exciting! Your driveway doesn't cut it. I've shot in front of a mansion, I've seen photos snapped in warehouses, even one of a car driving through a large puddle and one of a car being raced at an Autocross. Rolling shots have become popular over the last few years but they can be hard to get just right.
Lighting. Early or late in the day is best for natural light. Midday sun is flat and doesn't provide much shadow or detail. Colors get washed out. Unless you really know what you're doing don't shoot the shaded side of the car!
Color. This goes along with lighting; washed out pictures are lame-o. Vivid colors = excitement! Filters will need to be sparingly used and black and white photos should be top notch!
Get rid of the junk. Crop out or use Photoshop to remove distractions. There are several members that can help with this but please note we're not Photoshop Gods. I can assist a bit and if you would like something specific done just mention it when you submit your photo. But better yet, just don't take a photo somewhere there's a bunch of crap in the background as it is! Your car should be the focus. No one wants to see your tire tread either. Turn the wheel to the camera and show it off!
Get closer! But not too close... See the note below about cropping. You're taking a picture of the car, not all the crap around it. Unless you're trying to show the scale of the scenery, get close and show us the car! Plus too much random stuff in the background will not help you. People, pets, other cars, trash...
Mergers. Watch out for for two or more objects overlapping. Such as a light pole coming out the hood of your car.
Clouds are your friend. Clear skies may be great for going to the beach, but your pictures will be more interesting with clouds.
Angles. Get high up or low to the ground. If you take a picture of a car from standing height, it's probably going to look like any other snapshot. Take one standing and one kneeling from every angle you shoot from and you'll have twice as much to pick from with varying viewpoints.
Cropping. Take note that the uploading of the photo into calendar format will knock off a bit of the edges of the photo. Make sure the entire car is in the picture with good room to spare on the edges or you may get cut off if you make it in the calendar. If you're worried, take the pic you want then step back two feet and take it again.
Photo Quality. Dude, that old bar phone from 2000 isn't going to cut it. We have image size and resolution requirements that are posted below. Get with the program. This is where any entry rejections will come from.
Pictures must be of high quality. Cropped to 8.5x11 at 300 dpi, or 1280x800 resolution minimum. Better yet, just set your camera to the highest quality it can take and submit that. Any pictures with insufficient resolution will be rejected and the member will be notified. It's 2023 and everybody should have a decent camera nowadays of at least 5 Megapixels.

NOTE: NO AI EDITING ALLOWED. Look, we know this is the age we're being ushered into but for now, we're not having it. Yes, you can still use Photoshop or your favorite tech program to fancy up your photo, but do so by hand and with your own skill set. Simply looping a selector over a telephone poll and typing out "Remove poll and replace with blue sky" isn't a skill. PLEASE, keep your photo editing legitimately to a first hand, manual process.

As always, I'm more than happy to completely rip apart, I mean... critique your submission if you would like some thoughts from a long time calendar submitter. I'll be editing every submission to have a similar look so the calendar flows together nicely. This will be very basic color and contrast adjustments to make the photos pop a tad. If you would like to do your own editing or do not want your photo edited for whatever reason just say so when you submit it.

Let's do it! Our group has grown quite a bit over the last few years and yet our calendar submissions have suffered. Don't be shy! SUBMIT! Again if you'd like some help feel free to contact me here on the forums or over on FB to talk about your submission. The old excuses of "My car's not ready" and "I don't think it's calendar worthy" are just that, old. Wash it, wax it, shine the tires, take a photo and submit it! Go on now, you can do it! I believe in you, and I am tired of only getting 20 or so submissions out of a group of thousands of people. Make, it, happen!

To get you going a bit, here's our most voted for shot from 2024 - Chris Intravia's 1991 GT 3.1L 5-Speed.
Image


1989 GTU - The Nice Car
1989 Euro GTU - The Euro Car
1989 Base Model - The Rally Car
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