COMPETITION RULES 2024-25
General
1. The Club will hold four trophy competitions each season. All of the competitions will be ''Open'.
2. Only fully subscribed members of the Club are eligible to enter trophy competitions.
3. All entries can be produced by any method and manipulation and composites are allowed, but all parts of an image must be the author's own work. The use of clip art or wholly computer generated images (such as fractals) is not permitted.
4. Images which do not comply with the previous definition or might be deemed inappropriate may be excluded from a competition at the discretion of the Committee.
5. There are two categories in each of the four competitions: (a) Print, and (b) Digitally Projected Image. No image may be entered more than once in a trophy competition. This also means that an image cannot be re-submitted at a later date, but in a different category.
6. A member can submit up to a maximum of THREE entries in each category, ie three prints and three digital images. It is entirely a member's choice whether to submit the full complement of six images, or a lesser number, and in whichever category they prefer.
However, the number of entries per member may be varied at the discretion of the Committee to ensure that the total number of images entered for a competition is not too large for judging in the time available. If this is the case then it is only likely to affect one category (Monochrome Print, Colour Print, or Digital Image). The Competition Secretary will then contact all those who have submitted more than one entry in that affected category, requesting them to nominate the one entry in that category to go forward into the Competition.
7. The hand-in dates will normally be two weeks prior to the competition - the competition and hand-in dates will be published in the Club Programme.
8. During the season, each competition will be judged by a different external and independent judge.
9. The judge will award a mark of between 1 and 20 to each entry. However, the image placed 1st will receive 20, the one placed 2nd will receive 19, and the one placed 3rd will receive 18. These 1st, 2nd, and 3rd placings are exclusive - that is, there can be only one image that receives a 20, a 19, or an 18. Whereas the marks below 18 are not exclusive - there could be several entries that receive a 17.
10. The total marks for all entries, in each separate category, and for all four competitions, will be cumulative and count towards the final result at the end of the season.
11. Members entering competitions do so on the understanding that their entry may be used in any of the Club's approved external competitions, and may also be displayed on the Club website, unless the member indicates otherwise at the time of entering.
12. Whilst every care will be taken when handling prints, the Club cannot be held responsible for loss or damage to members’ entries.
13. The Club's Rules empower the committee to change or vary the competition rules and to arbitrate in any disputes. The committee's decision shall be final in all respects. Amendments to the rules will be notified at the appropriate time to all members.
Prints
1. The maximum mount size is 50 cm x 40 cm (or its imperial equivalent, 20in x 16in), but the actual print size may be chosen by the photographer. Whilst this is not mandatory, the mount size of 50cm x 40cm is also the preferred mount size since smaller sizes can damage other prints in transit, and 50cm x 40cm is also the size required for external competitions.
2. No mount should be used that can cause damage to another member’s print. All Velcro or any other exposed adhesive which could damage other prints must be removed or covered prior to submission.
3. In addition to the print a digital version is also required - this is required for DiCentra and only as a record of the print - the digital version must conform to the naming convention for a normal Digital Projected Image. There should be NO information written on the reverse of the print - the author and title will be taken from the digital version.
4. There must be no identifying mark or title on the FACE of the print or mount.
5. Framed or glass mounted submissions cannot be accepted.
Digitally Projected Images
1. Entries can be submitted on either a CD, DVD, memory stick or by data transfer. Whatever the device, they must be marked quite clearly with the member's name and membership number - and they will in due course be returned to each member.
2. Images should be submitted in JPEG file format (use 'maximum quality' option if this is available).
3. For colour consistency, images should preferably be saved using the sRGB colour space. Images are projected as sRGB files and entries received in other (or no) colour space are converted by the competition software (DiCentra).
4. Images must be resized so that they are no larger than 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels high (including any borders). Note that the maximum height for an image in portrait format cannot exceed 1200 pixels. Smaller images are acceptable, but will appear smaller on the screen and the competition software will fill the height or width dimension with a black background to make it the correct proportion.
5. Prints or digital images can be either colour or monochrome.
6. Files must be carefully named to include the chosen title (max 30 characters), this is followed by an underscore character (_), followed by the photographer's name.
Example filenames:
Beautiful Whippet_Michael Wells
Brasenose College_David Reid
The hills are alive with the s_Cyril Chudley (here the title bit is max 30 characters)
Note that the title itself should not include any punctuation characters.
For pre-judging and during the competition itself, the competition software will remove the photographer's name, and the images will be judged and critiqued anonymously.
Trophies
Scores in each category are accumulated from the four competitions and three trophies are awarded at the end of the season:
i. The Beckham Shield - the highest score in Prints
ii. The Rooney Cup - the highest score in Digitally Projected Images