Back in 2001, we were faced with a unique problem at work. We have to hand out 36 digital cameras to people who didn’t know the first thing about digital cameras. How do we get them to use it? How do we teach them how it works? We could have some boring office seminar with me standing up and pointing things out while everyone falls asleep. Boring. Is there something else we could do? Something interesting?

Let’s go outside. Hate being in the office anyway. Okay, got that. Now what? Um, how about a competition? take some photos, vote on them, that sort of thing. Cool, say, take 10 of your best photos and send that in. Great, got that. How about a time limit? Mmmm, 4 hours should do it right? Now, where should we have it? How about a map with boundaries? Makes it a level playing field for everyone. Great, let’s do it.

We hosted the first event at Latte Land on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. Latte Land didn’t really know we were there, we just took over a table outside and had everyone meet up. Figured it was an even trade. They had brisk sales that morning. We had a ton of fun and most importantly, people got jazzed about taking photos with their new digital cameras.

After the event, I talked with several people who loved the idea. The consensus was that we should really do this on a regular basis. Come up with a great name, host it once a year and archive the photos on a website. We came up with Urban Photo Safari and bought urbanphotosafari.com. With the exception of 2005 (took some time out to take care of our new baby), it’s been going on ever since.

That’s great Mr. About Page writer but, who exactly “is” Urban Photo Safari? Urban was created by and is hosted each year by Dean Olufson with the help of several of his friends (most of whom are listed below). So what is Urban Photo Safari? Urban is a photo contest held once a year (usually in May or June). Here is the basic contest outline:

1. Meet up at the designated time and sign in.
2. At the sign in, you are given an outline of the rules and a map.
3. You may only take images within the map boundaries. It’s usually a very large area such as all of downtown.
4. You then have 4 hours to shoot as many images as you’d like using only a digital camera.
5. You can go with friends, family, stop for lunch, shop, whatever you’d like to do during that 4 hours is up to you. Just make sure you take at least 10 images + 1 self portrait.
6. Self portrait can be any image you’d like. Doesn’t need to be a mug shot. You’ll just need to let us know which image it is.
7. After the 4 hours, meet back up and hand in all of your images to Urban staff. We’ll download the images off your camera or card and give you your card back. We’ll only copy them so, you still have all the images.
8. You then have 3 days to decide which of your images are your 10 best (+ the self portrait). Email Urban Staff with your choices. For example, in the email, let us know your full name and the image file names you chose (dsc10096.jpg, dsc10134.jpg etc.).
9. Urban then has 4 days to gather up all the information and place it online. Once the images are online, the voting begins. Contestant names are hidden during voting to make things interesting.
10. You get 10 votes and you can’t vote on your own. One vote per photo. You get 2 days to vote. After the 2 days, email Urban with your votes. e.g. Contestant 01 - image 02, Contestant 06 - image 10 etc.
11. The winner is announced and the contestant names are revealed.

Common Questions

q) What do you win?
a) It’s not really about winning. The idea behind the contest is to get outside and get creative. Creative’s often whine that they never have enough time to just be creative for the sake of being creative. So, instead of whining about it all the time. I made a contest. But, since it is a contest, you gotta win something right? The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to amazon.com, the right to have your winning image featured in promotional materials for the next contest and, the admiration of others. It’s not like winning a car but, hey, it’s just me here. If anyone knows someone at Toyota, have them give me a call.

q) Is it a group lead event? When you go out to shoot, who do you go with?
a) No tour, no group. Just four hours, a map, a digital camera and you. You may enter as a team and share one camera. Take a car, a bus, a taxi, a bike or just walk. It’s up to you where you go and how you get there. We usually all pile in an SUV once we have everyone signed in and drive to different areas of the city.

q) Is this an internet thing? Or, a local event? Where is it?
a) Urban Photo Safari is a local Kansas City metro area event. They’ve since called them “meet ups” so, call it a photo meet up if you will. There has been talk of doing it in multiple select cities but, I have yet to have that amount of time to devote to it. It’s always a possibility though.

q) does it cost anything?
a) Nope. Completely free. Thanks to some great sponsors and a personal credit card, I’ve been able to keep costs relatively low (dang collection agencies). Seriously, it’s a labor of love. What better way to spend a summer afternoon? Hanging out with some friends and checking out what each other shot. The results have been nothing short of stunning. I’m always amazed at what people shoot.

q) I’ve heard you have to sign over the rights of your images to Urban? Is this true?
a) Yes, but. If you read the answer above, you’ll know that it’s just me and some friends doing this. I’m not a major stock house with a cadre of lawyers in my pocket to help me out in a jam. So, yes, in the past I have had people sign over global rights to the images. I am however working to change that. Image rights are a touchy subject I realize but, we unfortunately live in a litigious society. I have to somehow keep it open, free and fun while protecting myself at the same time. I am currently trying to work it so that the rights are similar to what Flickr or Google has in place or something like a Creative Commons license. Something like a shared license would work better and it’s something I’m working on. I won’t guarantee (there’s that litigious thing coming up again) it will be in place this year so, read the sign in sheet carefully. If you don’t like what you see or, are uncomfortable, don’t sign up. It’s good to remember however that this contest is mainly about getting outside and having fun. If you make it about the competition, it won’t be as fun. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me.