column, and we should be glad to
hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.

ABOUT OUR PRIZE COMPETITION.

Our annual Photographic Prize Competition has, as usual, attracted a
great deal of attention, not only from members of our Camera Club, but
from many who wish to become members in order to enter the competition,
for as this is the first time that the ROUND TABLE has opened a
photographic competition to all amateurs without regard to age, the
interest is much more widespread.

In order, however, that the younger members may not feel handicapped by
being obliged to compete with older ones, there is a competition opened
for them the same as in former years, and any who have not passed their
eighteenth birthday may enter this competition. There are three
classes--marines, landscapes, and figure studies. A correspondent asks
if pictures of paintings or engravings would come under the head of
figure studies. Pictures of pictures will not be admitted to the prize
competition. All pictures must be original, not copied from any other
picture. This would not prevent any one using a picture as a suggestion
of grouping or arrangement of the subject. Take, for instance, the
well-known picture by Murillo, "The Fruit Venders." A photograph of this
picture would not be admitted in the prize competition, but one might
take two children, pose them as nearly as possible like the children in
the picture, and then photograph. Such a picture would be an original
picture, but not an original idea.

Another question that was asked was if the pictures must be marked, or
if one must send a separate slip of paper with name on, etc. Rule VII.
says that "pictures must be marked with the name and address of the
sender, the class to which it belongs, and the statement whether the
artist has passed his or her eighteenth birthday." This means that the
picture must be marked, and by the picture is understood the card on
which it is mounted. The best place to mark a picture is on the back of
the card mount.

In regard to the size of a picture, a picture taken with a 4 x 5 camera
is meant, though a trimmed print is a little less than this dimension.
The picture must not be trimmed enough to bring it down to 3 x 4, as, of
course, that would bar it from the competition.

Competitors may send pictures to each class, and they are not restricted
as to number.

The students of the Illinois College of Photography are going to