General Competition Rules
1. Entries for all competitions will only be accepted from members whose subscription has been paid for the current season.
2. Each competition may consist of two sections (for novice and advanced work). Each member can elect at the start of the season which section they wish to enter. Anyone who has a photographic distinction, had significant acceptances in British or International Exhibitions or has won the Novice Merit competition will compete as an advanced worker. However the competition secretary reserves the right to re-classify if he thinks it is appropriate.
3. An invited, independent assessor, selected by the committee, shall judge the merit, annual cups and hosted interclub competitions.
4 The author must own the copyright of all parts of the image entered into a competition.
5. Images must be the unaided work of the Author. Trade processing of prints is permitted.
6. A print or projected image, which has been entered in one of the three "Merit" competitions, may also be entered into an "Annual Cups" competition. Each image may be used only once in Merit or Annual Cups competitions. Overall it is expected that work submitted should be recent unused work.
7. Unless otherwise requested projected images and print titles should be e-mailed to the competition secretary at least 3 days before the competition. Prints are to be taken in by 7:00pm if possible, on the evening of the competition to allow time for collating and preparation.
8. The trophies are held for one year and are returnable before or at the Annual General Meeting.
Prints.
1. Each print shall be mounted. The size of the mount board shall be no larger than 20" x 16" (50cm x 40cm) and not smaller than 10" x 8" (25.4cm x 20.3cm). Prints in the Novice section may be unmounted.
2. Prints entered into Annual Cups and Panels competitions will be marked on the reverse side with authors name, title, and the competition entered. In addition Panels entries should indicate orientation of viewing, i.e. Left - Centre - Right
Projected Images.
The images supplied by members are used in competitions and may be posted on the Group’s website. In order to make the administration and running as easy as possible, it is important that images are submitted to a standard format.
1. Digital projected image files must be in JPG format, compression quality between 8 and 12 to achieve a file size of up to 2MB, and dimensions of 1600 pixels wide x 1200 pixels high.
2. The colour space must be sRGB not AdobeRGB.
3. File names must be in the format Number Space Title.jpg for each section entered.
i.e. 1 Landscape.jpg, 2 Snowscape.jpg, 3 Seascape.jpg.
i.e. 1 Flower.jpg, 2 Insect.jpg, 3 Mammal.jpg, 4 Bird.jpg
4. File names should be written in upper and lower case,
i.e. 1 View of Lake.jpg, not 1 VIEW OF LAKE.jpg nor 1 view of lake.jpg
Please check your spelling, particularly with proper names.
5. Exif data is optional but if supplied should not contain any personal details, notes, titles, keywords etc. merely camera settings. If the copyright is set it should be the member’s name in upper and lower case, i.e. John Smith
Merit Competitions.
1. There are 3 merit competitions during the year (from September to June).
2. The Classification is Open for Prints (monochrome, creative, nature or colour).
3. The Classification is Open for Projected Images (monochrome, creative, nature or colour).
4. Entry is limited to a maximum of 2 prints and 2 projected images in each competition.
5. The subject matter will be the choice of the Author.
6. Each print or projected image will be assessed individually.
7. The Assessor on the evening will award a first, second, third, plus as many highly commended and commended as they think appropriate (total awards being up to no more than one third of the number of images entered).
8. The print and projected image trophies will be awarded to the member(s) who score the highest total marks from all three "Merit" competitions.
Annual Cups.
1. There are 4 sections: Colour, Monochrome, Nature and Creative.
2. Entries are invited in both print and projected formats
3. Entry is limited to a maximum of two prints and two projected images in each competition. You may use any image in the Annual cups including ones already used in the Merit Competitions. The only exclusions are pictures used in previous annual cups which you may not use.
4. The subject matter will be the choice of the Author but must be suitable for the section entered.
5. Each print or projected image will be assessed individually.
6. The Assessor on the evening will award marks out of 20 for each image. This will be translated into first, second, third, plus highly commended and commended up to the limit of approximately one third of the number of images entered into each competition. A trophy will be awarded to the image that is deemed to be the winner in the Advanced and Novice sections.
7. The winning print and projected image from each Annual Cups category will be entered into the "Image of the Year" competition to be assessed on the evening of the Annual Cups Competition.
Annual Panels Competition.
1. There are 4 sections: Colour, Monochrome, Nature and Creative.
2. Entries are invited in print format. These can be 3 prints separately mounted, or 3 prints on one mount. The display stand can accommodate three mounted prints of up to 50cm x 40cm size, in either portrait or landscape orientation, or a combination.
3. You may use any image in the Annual Panels cups including ones already used in the Merit Competitions. The only exclusions are pictures used in previous annual panels cups which you may not use.
4. You may enter up to 2 panels into each of the sections (Colour, Monochrome, Nature and Creative prints).
5. The subject matter will be the choice of the Author but must be suitable for the section entered.
6. Each panel will be assessed individually.
7. The Assessor on the evening will award a first, second, third, plus as many highly commended and commended as they think appropriate (total awards being approximately one third of the number of images entered). A trophy will be awarded to the panel that is deemed to be the winner in the Advanced and Novice sections.
Entry Fees.
There is an entry fee of £1.00 per image entered into any of the competitions, payable on or before the competition.
A panel, whether it be three separate prints, or a triptych, will be charged at £1.00 only.
In the Annual Cups there is a charge cap of £6.00 per Print or DPI section, i.e. you can enter 8 images for the price of 6 in both the Print and DPI sections.