By far our whoops! Issue, which we do in april, is one OF the most popular themed issues of the year. In fact we've even done a special stand-alone mag back in the late '90s that people snapped up faster than we could print them. We're excited to once again present some of the best foul-ups from around the nation and beyond. Of course, the very thought of a vehicular screw-up gives many people the shakes, while in our 4x4 world we know that pushing the envelope often causes a bit of consternation. In fact, i've had my fair share of "incidents" as well, but none of which i can show you because darn, i just don't have the photos. Anymore. Or they were too blurry. Or something!
Nevertheless, we love putting Whoops! Together as much as you guys and gals love flopping your rides around. But this annual issue couldn't even happen without you readers sending in your finest foul-ups, and we appreciate every photo we've received in the past 30 years. However, the quality of some of those photos from years gone by is marginal at best, and the last thing you or we want to do is look at fuzzy pics of an indiscernible vehicle stuck in the slop. In fact, some of them we can't even tell what's happening, even with the associated letter to explain it all. But if it's a good enough photo, we might even use it on the cover of the mag like we did this issue. To give you some pointers, here's what we need and don't need for the best quality Whoops!
First, unless you have a waytoo- expensive camera phone, those camera shots just won't be sharp enough for print use. They may work for passing around to your friends and some internet use, but not for printing presses. Also, you might want to think about what you're seeing in the viewfinder, such as the whole truck instead of half, just like the photo of your friend with the top of his head cropped off. And if it's dark, don't forget to use a good flash, and that only works for about 15 feet. And speaking of light, see if you can get your back to the sun, like walk around to the other side of the Whoops! If you can. And finally, please make sure the photo is environmentally responsible-we don't need to give the anti-access crowd any more ammo than they already have!
Send us your digital photos directly to whoops@4wheeloffroad.com but make sure they are at least 1,600x1,200 pixels, or 2 megapixels, and saved as a tiff, Eps, or maximum-quality jpeg file. If you aren't into electronics, send us your snapshot or even a polaroid, but remember we won't send anything back so don't send your original. We'll use the Whoops! You send us all year long, but we'll be saving the cream of the crop for next year's April issue. So start sending stuff!