ANNUAL COMPETITION
This competition is held once during the club year. (Usually at the end of the club year-September). It will be an open competition in slides, digital and prints respectively, in the categories listed below. A slide, digital image or print shall not be entered in more than one category at the annual competition. Only images which have been presented at a club evening during the course of the current club year are eligible for the Annual Competition.
Categories
Nature: restricted to depict observations from all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archaeology, in such a fashion that a well informed person will be able to identify the subject material and to certify to its honest presentation. Human elements shall not be present, except on the rare occasion where those human elements enhance the nature story. The presence of scientific bands on wild animals is acceptable. Photographs of artificially produced hybrid plants or animals, domestic and farm animals, mounted specimens or obviously set arrangements are ineligible as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement. Manipulation includes but is not limited to adding or removing any element by means other than cropping. Compositing, multiple exposures, sandwich/montage and double exposures are not permitted except for digital techniques such as HDR, focus stacking and stitching where the end result is a faithful representation of the original scene.
Altered Nature: As above except that compositing, multiple exposures and double exposures are allowed provided that the image remains realistic.
Scapes: Any scape whether nature or pictorial may be entered in this category and the subject matter is not limited so may include city, sea, sky or landscapes. Manipulation is allowed but should be such as to enhance the scene and not change it. Manipulations which drastically alter the reality should be entered under pictorial.
Human Portrait: A likeness, personality and mood of a person, where that person is dominant in the image. Portraiture is not restricted to head and shoulders and may include just a part of the face, a back view or even a full length study.
Animal Portraits: A likeness, personality and mood of an animal, where that animal is dominant in the image. Portraiture is not restricted to head and shoulders and may include just a part of the face, a back view or even a full length study.
Still Life: An image depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, includes table top and floral arrangements.
Altered Reality: A creative, experimental, imaginative and/or a departure from realistic representation. An image created by altering reality in an obvious manner. It can be created digitally or in camera. The intention is the creation of a new image that conveys a feeling or message or tells a story.
Photojournalism: Newsworthy/story-telling pictures, includes sports. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography by the qualities of: Timeliness—the images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of events. Objectivity—the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone. Narrative—the images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level. Manipulation is not allowed.
Open: all photographs not covered by the above sections. Images which should be in any of the other categories must not be entered in this category. Any image entered in this category which should be in any of the other categories will be disqualified.
Beginners: all persons in the one and two star section at the time of the annual competition. Only persons who are in the one and two star section at the time of the annual competition are eligible to enter the beginner section at the annual competition. Entries to this section can include any subject matter and is not limited to any particular category.
The maximum number of entries will be 3 in each category, ie. each person may enter 21 slides, digital images or prints, (24 each for beginners) at the Annual Competition.
Certificates of Merit may be presented in any or all of the sections or categories listed above at the discretion of the judges. Awards or certificates of merit gained in this competition will not count towards the Log competition as set out in 5.3.
Any image which is entered in the incorrect category will be disqualified.
Except for the beginners category, all digital images must be titled as follows:
3_(category abbreviation)_(Image title)_(author’s full name).jpg
eg. 3_na_Lioness Yawning_ Joe Bloggs.jpg
Digital images entered in the Beginners category must be titled as follows:
1_(bg)_(image title)_(author’s full name).jpg
eg. 1_bg_Boy with ice cream_Joe Bloggs.jpg
The category abbreviations are as follows:
Nature na
Altered Nature tn
Scapes sc
Human Portrait po
Animal Portrait ap
Still Life sl
Altered Reality ar
Photojournalism pj
Open op
Beginner bg
