FAQs
GENERAL QUESTIONS
Q. WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE?
A. The CMS is open to any professional photographer who resides in the United States and Canada.
Q. WHO CAN ENTER?
A. Kids age birth-18 years who reside in the United States and Canada.
Q. WHAT ARE THE DATES OF THE CMS?
A. Photographers may register for the event beginning October 1, 2011. Images can be taken and entered beginning January 1, 2012 through March 16, 2012 at 11:59 pm MDT. Voting will also begin on January 1, 2012 and conclude on Friday, March 23rd, 2012 at 11:59 pm MDT. Finalists will move into the final judging round by Sunday, March 25th, 2012, and the winner will be announced by mid-April, 2012.
Q. HOW DOES A PHOTOGRAPHER PARTICIPATE IN THE CMS?
A. Register your participation at www.charitymodelsearch.org, just look for the photographer section of this website. Registration is $25 and includes unlimited entries into the contest. All registrants will also receive a 2012 Marketing Kit that they can customize to create their own marketing campaign. Registration begins October 1, 2011. Each photographer in a studio must enter separately.
Q. HOW DOES A CHILD ENTER THE CMS?
A. The CMS is open to all children 0-18 years, residing in the United States and Canada. All entries MUST be submitted by a participating professional photographer. Families may not submit their own entries. For a list of participating CMS photographers, please see our Participating Photographer’s Page. NOTE: Each photographer sets their own session fees and pricing.
Q. CAN I SUBMIT AN IMAGE THAT WAS TAKEN PRIOR TO JANUARY 1, 2012?
A. No, all images MUST be taken on or after January 1, 2012. Images taken prior to this time are not eligible.
Q. HOW MANY IMAGES MAY I ENTER?
A. The photographer registration fee includes unlimited entries, but only 1 image per child may be entered. Please choose the image to be entered carefully, as no image replacement will be done once you submit the child’s selected image.
Q. HOW WILL THE WINNER BE DETERMINED?
A. Each eligible photo submitted will be included in the Contest Gallery. Finalists will be selected based solely on paid Votes received. Votes may be purchased for $1 per vote with no limit to the number of votes that can be cast at one time.
The top 25 children with the most Votes when voting closes will move on to the final judging round. Each image will be judged on the theme: “The Cutest Kid”. The winner will be selected by an independent panel of judges made up of photography and modeling industry experts.
Q. HOW ARE VOTES VERIFIED?
A. All votes are logged and saved in our database. We will verify that all votes logged in our database are accurately displayed on the website. All votes will have a corresponding record of the donation made through our Merchant Services. In case of discrepancy in the votes displayed on the website, and the votes stored in our database, the verified votes stored in the database are deemed the official and accurate total, and displayed votes may be adjusted accordingly.
Q. WHAT ARE THE PRIZES?
A. The Grand Prize winning child will win a $500 travel voucher from Frontier Airlines, a point and shoot camera and a $1000 savings bond. Winner is responsible for all taxes, and fees. 2nd and 3rd place runners-up will win point and shoot cameras and a savings bond. NILMDTS reserves the right to substitute prizes of equal or greater value based on prize availability from our partner sponsors providing the prizes.
The Grand Prize winning photographer will also receive a valuable prize package that includes prizes donated by our partner sponsors to include lab, print and merchandise credits.
PHOTOGRAPHER QUESTIONS
Q. HOW DO I GET THE MARKETING KIT?
A. This is available in the photographer section of this website. Once you have registered your participation for $25 and created your account, you will be able to login and download the Marketing Kit. *
Q. IS THERE A SPECIFIC CMS RELEASE FORM?*
A. No, we just ask each photographer to use their standard studio release form (make sure it includes permission to display the child’s image on a public web site), and keep that form on file in the studio. When you submit images for a child, you will be asked to acknowledge that you have this release form on file. It is the photographer’s responsibility to acquire the necessary releases and keep them on file at their studio. All finalists will be asked to submit a copy of the release form to NILMDTS. We will provide a sample template for a release form that you can add your logo to, if you need to create one.
Q. HOW DO I SUBMIT MY PHOTOS FOR THE MODEL SEARCH?
A. Images are submitted in the photographer section of this web site. You must have a registered account before you can submit images. Once you have an account you will be able to access the Image Submission area after when it opens in early January. Make sure you have registered and subscribed to our newsletter as we will notify registered participants when image upload and voting are open.
Q. WHAT FORMATS/SPECIFICATIONS DO YOU ACCEPT FOR SUBMITTING MY IMAGES?
A. To ensure a consistent display of images in the gallery and competitive fairness, we are asking our participants to perform as much of the sizing and modification as possible by prepping images for upload as specified below. We will automatically apply image optimization tools that may affect image file size for web delivery of all images.
The following information represents best practices for resizing your images.
- Begin with your contest image prepared at your typical print resolution, with an aspect ratio of 4×5 or 5×7. Depending on your current pixels per inch, this could be a very large file. When you re-size your image, select the longest edge to modify to 500 pixels.
Please note:
- Your image should not be square, but rather a rectangle where one side is longer than the other. Scale the longest side down to 500 pixels. This will ensure a consistent and professional gallery display.
- Save your image as a high quality .jpeg/.jpg file
- Web image optimization from Yahoo will be used on approved contest images. To use this tool to optimize your images prior to submission – Click Here.
- Images not sized correctly will be returned to you for resizing.
Your contest images will be viewable in two sizes – one higher-resolution with the longest edge at 500px, and a preview resolution with the longest edge at 160px. All preview images will be generated automatically from your submitted image.
If you need additional support on how to resize your image, use these YouTube tutorials as a guide:
For Photoshop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh4k5uImW5Y
For Photoshop Elements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmUvnuAnPH4
Q. WHAT IF I STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?
We respectfully request that you do not call the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation Headquarters Office, as we have only 3 open phone lines and must leave these available to assist families and hospitals in need of our services.
If you still have questions, please click here to send us an email. We will respond promptly to email questions during our normal business hours M-F 9am-5pm Mountain time.