Photography

UConn Photo Database

One component of the UConn brand is photography that captures the essence of UConn pride. When selecting photography, consider utilizing high-definition shots that showcase our proud history and strength as a top public research university. Some examples are below for your reference; these and other University photographs can be downloaded from Media Share.

Merlin Training Resources

Media Share is transitioning to MerlinOne's digital asset management system. The following videos give an overview of MerlinOne:

Image and Icon Resources

A few suggestions for image and icon resource websites:

Metadata Guidelines

Photographic metadata is information stored in the image files that allow users to sort and find images. Information such as the file name, date the image was taken, and keywords can make photographs much easier to find.

File Name

The most basic element of an image's metadata is the file name. Filenames can store a surprising amount of information by following a simple naming convention. UConn's file name convention consist of four parts:

Slug

Include a general category for the image. Use official location abbreviations when applicable.

Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 2019-10-19-a_0008.JPG
Portraits-Faculty-WCB_UCOMM_2019-10-19-b_0008.JPG
~~Really-great-photos-I-took-on-a-beautiful-day_UCOMM_2019-10-19-b_0008.JPG~~ (too long)
~~Pics_UCOMM_2019-10-19-b_0008.JPG~~ (too vague)

Avoid describing the subject of photos in prose.

Avoid unofficial/casual abbreviations as these may be unfamiliar to future users.

Department

Use the abbreviation for the department that produced the photos/digital asset. If you are unsure of the official abbreviation, a full list of department abbreviations can be referenced in the taxonomy field in Media Share.

Campus-Beauty-Shots_ UCOMM_2019-10-19_3458.JPG
~~Campus_University-Communications_2019-10-19_3458.JPG~~ (use department abbreviations)

DO NOT write out the department's name.

Date

Use the date of the shoot in the following format: YYYY-MM-DD. This is the ISO 8601 format. Use the first day if the shoot is multiple days.

Add a letter separated by a hyphen to delineate shoots.

Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 2019-10-19-a_0008.JPG
Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 2019-10-19-b_0008.JPG
~~Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 10/19a_0008.JPG~~ (do not use forward slashes)
~~Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_10-12-12-a_0008.JPG~~ (two-digit year can cause confusion. Is this 10/12/12, or 12/12/10?)

It is best practice to include a letter designation even if you do not anticipate multiple shoots for one day.

Letters can also be assigned to specific photographers if shoot scheduling is handled informally in your department. This ensures distinct file names even if different photographers are shooting the same subject. However, this does not obviate the need to note the photographer's information in the embedded metadata.

Number

Every image should have a four-digit number, starting at 001. If shooting with multiple cameras, separate the files by placing a “1” or “2” at the beginning of the sequence number to avoid duplicates.

Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 2019-10-19-a_1-0008.JPG
Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 2019-10-19-a_2-0008.JPG
~~Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 2019-10-19-a_8.JPG~~ (too short)
~~Beauty-Shots-WCB_UCOMM_ 2019-10-19-a_0000000000023.JPG~~ (too long)

File Naming Best Practices

Be brief. Try to deliver as much information as possible using the fewest characters.

Be consistent. Adhering to guidelines makes sorting and searching through large numbers of image files much easier for everyone involved.

Never use spaces. In HTML, files with spaces in them can%20be%20very%20hard%20to%20read.jpg

Always use underscores between filename sections
Use dashes between words within a section.

Never use special characters like ~ ! @ # $ % ^ * ( ) ` ; < > ? , [ ] { } ' " & |.

Use bulk renaming software if you need to rename anything more than a handful of files. Communications’ Digital Asset Manager can make a software recommendation based on your needs.

If it is important to log a specific time of day in images, be careful in your editing process that the Date Created field is kept intact. See metadata standards for more information.

While it is generally discouraged, there may be certain circumstances which require shorter filenames. If this is the case, best practices include:

Using a three-digit number rather than a four-digit number.
Forgoing dashes in the date field.
Forgoing the slug section.
Using a two-digit year rather than a four-digit year.
It is still very important to separate file name sections using underscores.

In this way, similar information can be conveyed via the following names, depending on the need for brevity.

Campus-Beauty-Shots_UCOMM_2019-10-19-a_3458.JPG
Beauty_UCOMM_20191019a_3458.JPG
UCOMM_191019a_3458.JPG

Embedded Metadata

Embedded metadata is information that is included with the file and is then searchable in Media Share. In addition to information from the camera such as shutter speed, aperture, and sometime GPS coordinates, photographers can add information in photo editing software to make their images easier to find in Media Share.

Some metadata fields are mandatory when uploading assets into Media Share. Please note, if you add metadata in photo editing software, any fields left blank in the Merlin upload form will default to the existing metadata in the file. Likewise, any fields that are filled in will overwrite the metadata in the file.

These are the metadata fields that are mapped to fields in Merlin:

Mapped Metadata Fields

Creator	Photographer’s full name
Creator: Job Title	For UConn employees, enter job title For vendors, enter “Vendor”
Creator: City	Photographer’s city
Creator: State/Province	Photographer’s state
Creator: Email	Photographer's professional email address
Creator: Website	Vendors should use their business website Internal photographers use their department webpages.
Headline	Shoot name Use whatever identifier your department uses to track photo shoots.
Description	Enter caption here.
Keywords	Add any additional information that is not captured in the controlled taxonomy.
Date Created	Shoot date Please take care that the date created field reflects the date the photo was taken, rather than the date the file was exported by photo editing software.
City	Shoot location city
State	Shoot location state
Country	Shoot location city
ISO Country Code	Three digit code, USA
Title	Leave blank (Merlin defaults file name to this field)
Copyright Notice	[Year][internal photographer name] /The University of Connecticut Note: do not add the copyright symbol. That will be automatically added in Merlin.
Copyright Status	Options: copyrighted (default), licensed (typically for 3rd party stock), public domain
Rights Usage Terms	Only applicable to stock photography

Keywords

Keywords offer information about the subject and context of an image. A good rule of thumb is for photo editors to ask themselves, "what is in this image that someone might want to look for later?"

Note that Media Share includes a list of controlled keywords in the taxonomy field that includes information such as asset department owner, physical location, and basic contextual information such as time of day and the number of people in the photo.

A controlled taxonomy is very useful to insure consistent application of certain categories of keywords, but controlled taxonomies cannot predict all keywords that may be useful to users. Photographers should take a few minutes to familiarize themselves with the controlled in the taxonomy field, and use keywords to fill in the gaps.

In general, however, it is preferable to have too many keywords than not enough.

Taxonomy Field

The taxonomy field includes a preset list of keywords for certain categories of keywords that require consistency across the Media Share database. These categories include:

Context – This includes general information about when and how the image was taken.
Subject – This field notes the subject(s) of an image.
Department – This is the subject department of the image. Note that this is distinct from the department owner. An image may have UCOMM in the file name, but CHEM in the taxonomy field. This is because a Communications photographer took the photo of a person or activity related to the Chemistry department.
Location – This notes any named locations that are visible in the image. The list of locations is based on currently available maps for each UCONN campus.

Unlike the keywords field, the taxonomy field can only be applied in Media Share. University Communications reviews taxonomy information of all images that are loaded into Media Share to verify existing entries and add missing information.

Best practice is to add keywords during the photo editing process, with special attention paid to elements of the image that may not be captured in the controlled taxonomy.