Every TORCA Member who attends a TORCA, NCCC, or Corvette event, party, mystery meal, autocross, rallye, etc is encouraged to submit digital photos of your experience. Each of us can't attend every event so it's great to see what other members are doing. We all put a different focus (pun intended) on what we find interesting or photogenic, so submissions from a couple members at an event makes it more interesting. All submissions are welcome, so take your digital camera with you everywhere you go! (Note: NCCC/RMR sanctioned events are given priority over non-sanctioned activities)

However, as the webmaster, since I need to edit these and make thumbnails to improve the speed of website, you can make my job a lot easier if you follow these guidelines, and when possible, also do some of the functions I normally do.

1) Set your camera resolution to 1280 x 960, 800 x 600, or 640 x 480 pixels. Anything larger is just too large to view on the website and takes up unecessary space. If you want to keep your higher resolution photos for printing, try and resize them before sending them to me. That also speeds up emailing the photos. Anything smaller than 640 x 480 does not have enough detail.

2) Turn off your camera's date stamp (shown in red text on your photos). If you have to leave it on, make sure it is set to the right date. I've received photos in 2007 with dates shown as 2004.

3) Try and take at least 8 photos and up to 24. Any more or less makes for a slow or boring web page. There are exceptions of course, when we there are many activities in one event weekend, and when you are trying to capture all the members participating. We want to see and include everybody, when we can. Additiponally, when we post pictures of non-members and their cars, it helps encourage them to join TORCA. Ideas of interest are:

  • Mystery Meals - The gathering of the vettes, scenes along the road (with vettes in the frame - the rear view mirror is a popular shot), the outside of the restauraunt (with its name), group shots of TORCA mebers at their tables or or standing around having fun.
  • Rallyes - You'll be too busy along the way to take pictures, but you can get some of the members and cars at registration/tech, and at the awards dinner afterwards. Especially if TORCA members place and win trophies.
  • Car Shows - A couple general shots of overall show, TORCA cars and members, noteworthy entrants from any participant, members receiving awards. Cute kids, interesting people, sponsors, etc.
  • Autocross - Photos of the cars in the grid, especially TORCA entrants. Wide shots of the course. Closeups (zoom please - we don't want you actually on the course). Try to get angles and shots that show cars close to cones. Folks looking at results. On long drives to events, a few photos taken along the way, especially if you are caravaning. Getting there is half the fun. Pre and post event get togethers. Autocrossers from all the competing clubs will normally gather together for eats.
  • Parties - TORCA has annual Christmas and Superbowl parties, along with after SUYV parties. Just take pictures of folks having fun.
  • Travel - One or more cars might get together for an overnighter or a road trip. If the excursion you made was interesting or had spectacular views and would help others plan a similar trip, let us see your intinerary and what you did. We are all looking for ideas!
4) Preview your pictures first to delete out redundant photos of the same object or view (OK, OK, since you're taking the pictures, your car will most likely show up more often - you've earned the right). Obviously, don't send accidental pictures of your thumb, shoes or sky, and if the photo is terribly out of focus, you might want to deep six that one as well.

5) Rename the files after you transfer them onto your computer to something recognizable, such as 2007_JulyMM_01.jpg, 2007_JulyMM_02.jpg, etc. Cameras will assign names that may be the same as what other folks submit. This will also help me create the HTML page and we will know when and where these were taken.

6) If you can, but not required as we want your pictures, go ahead and make thumbnails of the photos to save me time. These should be no larger than 200 x 150 pixels. Thumbnails can be smaller, but its nice to be able to tell what's the picture is so you don't have to open everyone you see. I just discovered Easy Thumbnails which is a free shareware program which will resize all your photos at once or create even smaller thumbnails and rename them with a suffix in the process. such as 2007_JulyMM_01_th.jpg

7) Delivery options:

  • Email to webmaster@torcavettes.com, The total file size should not exceed 10MB to get past my service.
  • You might consider zipping the files together if there are a lot of photos so that downloading only takes me one click.
  • Save onto a CDR or pen drive (zipping not required) and either mail it to me or bring to the next event or meeting. Torca Webmaster, 1944 Quail Circle, Louisville, CO 80027. I'll return the pen drive but toss the CD.
  • Write a short synopsis of where the evnt was, who was there, how we did, etc. Lynn, our newsletter editor would love to have you submit it as an article as well
  • At this point you are through unless you also want to make the HTML page for the event. Its a simple chore, nothing fancy, if you have been wanting to learn about it. Just copy any of the event pages I've created and just cut-and-paste the files names and title. Then just email it as an attachment.

8) If you have any problems or need help, call me anytime at 303-921-8709.