Competition Rules

The club has a variety of competitions throughout the season. All members of the club are invited to participate but participants have been divided into sections depending on the experience and standard of achievement :

Group A - Accomplished group Members who submit work of the highest standard in line with PAGB and club rules. Members will have gained 35 points in Group B. They may have entered national and international competitions and submitted work to represent the club for inter club competitions.

Group B - Consolidating group Members who wish to develop their photographic skills and understanding. The aim is to enter 20 or more images during the course of the season and gain recognition or awards in competition against their peers.

Competitions are scored in the following way:
  • First - 6 points;
  • Second - 5 points;
  • Third - 4 points;
  • Highly Commended - 3 points;
  • Commended - 2 points.

Recognition is given to photographers by the appointed competition judge with certificates for those who, in the judge’s opinion are worthy of such recognition.

At the end of the season trophies will be awarded to the members who have accumulated the most points in colour and monochrome competitions. In addition, there are stand-alone competitions with individual trophies as outlined in the programme.

Projected Digital Images These must be a maximum of 3840 pixels wide by 2400 pixels tall. In the Members’ Info section of the club’s website see Preparing Pictures for Digital Projection for details of resizing images.

RULES
To ensure fair competition for all, the club uses definitions agreed by the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain and Midland Counties Photographic Federation. Consequently, all members should be aware of the different rules for differing competitions.

Competitions designated:

Monochrome Any black and white image going from very dark grey (black) to very clear grey (white) and containing only various shades of grey. A black and white work toned entirely in a single colour will remain eligible for the monochrome class. However, a black and white work modified by partial toning or by the addition of one or more colours, becomes a colour work and is thus ineligible for the monochrome class.

Open Images can be of any style using all types of photographic technique including High Dynamic Range, photographic filters to achieve the effect required by the photographer including all aspects of creativity.

Creative This is "Altered Reality". The image must obviously display a change in natural colour, form, shape, or any combination of these three. High Dynamic Range (HDR) images without further changes are not considered "altered reality."

Traditional A traditional photograph must maintain the original image content with minimal adjustments, which should not alter the reality of the scene and should appear natural. Rearranging, replacing, adding to or removing from any part of the image except by cropping is strictly forbidden. After satisfying the above requirements, every effort should be made to use the highest level of artistic skill in all photographs.

Nature Nature photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict 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 certify its honest presentation. The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining high technical quality.

Allowed:
  • Scientific bands, scientific tags or radio collars on wild animals;
  • Cropping, exposure adjustment, colour correction, noise minimisation, dodging/burning, HDR, focus stacking and sharpening;
  • Cloning of image defects and minor distractions;
  • Landscape, geological formations, weather phenomena, and extant organisms;
  • Subjects in controlled conditions, such as zoos, game farms, botanical gardens, aquariums.

Not Allowed:
  • Created hybrid plants, cultivated plants, feral animals, domestic animals, or mounted specimens;
  • Anthropology and archaeology.

Street photography, also sometimes called candid photography, is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places.

Portrait A portrait is defined as any image which has the intent of displaying a likeness, personality, mood, emotions or lifestyle of a person or small group of people, in such a way that the person or people may be readily identified from the image. The focus of the image should be on the subject's face, although the whole form may be included, the face and facial expression should be the most important parts of the image. Both studio and environmental portraits, formal or informal, are acceptable; with the image being presented in either ‘Landscape’ or ‘Portrait’ format. The person or people must be the main subject matter within the image. The subject must be human - for the purposes of the LFPS portrait competition animal portraits will not be accepted.

Letterbox A letterbox image must be at least 3 times longer on the long edge than the short edge, it can be presented in either portrait or landscape orientation.

Multiple Entries

To avoid the same image appearing in several competitions please observe the following rules. (NOTE: An image that has been entered in a colour competition is considered to be the same image if it is then entered in a monochrome competition, and vice versa.)
  • An image that has been placed in any single-image competition must not be entered for another single-image competition. “Placed” means it has been awarded 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Highly Commended or Commended.
  • An image that has won a placing and not previously been used in a panel of pictures may be used in a panel. A panel must not include more than one placed image.
  • Only one image from a placed panel can be entered in a future single-image competition and it must not have been previously placed in such an event. The image cannot be used as part of another panel or entered for any other single-image competition.

Contact Us