photo/image submission information

Photographs and Other Images

Image placement for Contexts include front and back covers, illustrations for individual articles, essays and commentaries, and stand-alone photo essays. Single images will be considered, as well as pairs, trios or sequences that represent related and contrasting social elements. On their own and in conjunction with captions and the text of Contexts articles, images are used to illustrate and call attention to social and cultural complexity. Most photographs are printed in black and white, but full color images will be considered for the front cover of each issue.

Topics and Themes

For more information about topics and themes of forthcoming Contexts articles, please read our Image Formats section of this page below, or request a copy of the most recent Contexts Call for Photographs. Proposals for stand-alone photo essays need not correspond to topics listed in the Call for Photographs and can be submitted at any time.

Submitting Images for Review

For preliminary review purposes, photographs or other images can be submitted in one of the following ways:

• as low-resolution email attachments (JPG's, 360K or less);
• as images posted on a website where they can be reviewed online;
• as high-resolution TIF or JPG files recorded to a CD-R (sent through the mail).

Permissions

Contributors are responsible for securing permission from individuals who own (or are identifiable in) the photographs and other images they submit to Contexts.

Recognition and Compensation

Copyright for images used in Contexts is retained by contributors. All photographs selected for publication in the journal will appear with full credit to the individuals who have provided them. Individuals whose work is published in Contexts will receive a complimentary copy of the issue in which their work appears.

In keeping with the guidelines for submitting articles, Contexts operates as an academic publication and provides an important outlet for intellectual work. Above and beyond recognition and a complimentary copy, Contexts does not compensate contributors whose texts or images are selected for publication.

Additional Informmation

Inquiries about photographs and other images being submitted to Contexts should be made to Amy Johnson Conner, Contexts Managing Editor: amy@contexts.org.

image formats

Cover Image

Cover images should be in color and will appear without visible captions (but a title and credit will appear inside). They must be visually arresting and they should invite speculation about social and cultural processes on their own merits.

Discovery Images

Discovery Images are single images that refer to or illustrate a single short research report. Under the title, "Discoveries," Contexts publishes very brief (1-2 paragraph) reports of recent research. For topics, see the most recent Call for Photographs.

Feature Article/Illustration Array

These image selections are a set of images from varied sources that illustrate or exemplify different themes/concepts embedded in the feature article.

For instance, in Issue #1, Contexts published an article about the push towards English-only instruction in the United States and attendant cultural costs. The article appeared along with six photographs that exemplified some of the themes articulated by the author of the feature article: i.e.; the reality of multi-lingual communities was reflected in 3 images of urban street scenes, in different parts of the United States. Threatened practices of "bilingual education" appeared in 2 images of a public school bilingual classroom for 7-year-olds; and the value of encouraging competence in more than one language was reflected in an image of a highly regarded, private school that offers dual-immersion, French/English instruction.

This Illustration Array approach comes close to what traditional photo journalism tries to achieve, though the editors have made an extra effort to tie images directly to key points of the feature article analysis.

Feature Article/Photo Series

This series is a sequence of related images from the same source that complement the article as a whole, without looking for individual images to match key points of the analysis.

As an example, in Issue #1 Contexts published a feature article about the costs to children of raised without fathers present. The analysis made extensive use of aggregated, quantitative data and examined related policy proposal. As a complement to this article, the journal ran a series of 7 photographs taken by Dona Schwartz as part of a larger study of a single mother and her children. The Schwartz photos provided a visually coherent group of illustrations demonstrating the challenges that this mother faces in trying to provide for her children.

The editors also have included a brief Editor's note to clarify the relationship between what is called a "Photo Series" and the feature article, and each photograph has appeared with a brief caption prepared by the photographer. The photo series requires less text than Context's photo essay.

Photo Essay

The Photo Essay section is a stand-alone set of related images and text that reveals and examines a particular question, setting, practice, event, community, etc.

In the first issue of Contexts, Doug Harper provided the Photo Essay, based on his study of the decline of traditional dairy farming. The photo essay runs similarly to a feature article. The photographs are preceded by an introductory commentary of 500 words and they appear with detailed captions. In this format, the introduction and captions frame, illustrate, and advance an analytical argument within which the photographs appear as essential ingredients.

Photo Permissions Form

If you are submitting a photo/image to Contexts, please download, print, and complete the Photo Permissions Form. (To be read and printed, the document (PDF format) requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free from Adobe.com.)