RULES:

• All fully paid up members of the Peterborough Photographic Society (PPS) are eligible to enter the Society’s internal competitions.
• There will be six competition evenings in each season. Three will be dedicated to PRINTS and three will be dedicated to PROJECTED DIGITAL IMAGES (PDIs). The competitions will run alternately as follows with Competitions 1,3 & 5 for PDIs and 2, 4 & 6 for Prints, as shown in the Programme Booklet.
• Each entrant may submit up to three images into each Competition.
• The top two scores for each entrant in each competition will count towards the overall end of season winners.
• Entries must be work which has not been used in previous internal competitions and can be of any subject,  but must be of three different genres from the following: Action, Creative, Landscape, Monochrome, Nature, Portrait, Record. There are no time restrictions for League competitions.
• In the event of three images being received that are in the same category in the opinion of the competition captain, if there is time, the author will be contacted and offered the option to submit a replacement image, otherwise only the images that are of different genres will be accepted for entry.
• Entries must be received by the competition captain one week before the competition date. All dates are in the PPS programme booklet or the website This applies to both Print and PDI competitions and to whichever method of entry. Any work submitted after the closing date will not be included.

Prints

• Each entry must be clearly identify with the photographer’s name and a title.
• There is no stipulated minimum size for print entries, but for guidance, it should measure not less than 25cms along the longest side of the print (excluding the mount) to enable the audience to see the work. But note that, should you wish your work to be considered to represent the club in Federation or Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) exhibitions or competitions, then images will need to conform to the maximum mount size of 50 cm x 40 cm with the print contained therein. 
• All prints with their titles must be handed to the competition captain at least 7 days before the competition is judged, as detailed in the programme booklet.

Projected Digital Images 

• Images may be captured by digital camera or digital scanning (by photographer or lab) of negatives, slides or prints.
• The images will be projected by data projector in landscape format at a screen resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. Images must therefore be no more than 1600 pixels wide and no more than 1200 pixels high, including any border or frame around the image.
• Images which are smaller than 1600 by 1200 pixels will be displayed as is (i.e. they will not be made any bigger) and will be automatically surrounded by black as required to fill the displayable area when presented for judging.  Filling out the canvas size to match the displayable area is now unnecessary. (if you are unsure how to size your image please see the item “how to resize your image")
• Images should be saved as ’jpg’ with sRGB the accepted colour space.  It is strongly recommended that submitted images should have been converted to the sRGB colour space by the author, otherwise the Judge will probably not see the same colours that you do!
• All PDIs with their titles must be submitted to the competition captain 7 days before the competition is judged whichever medium is being used.
• Any work submitted after the closing date will not be included.

Submitting PDIs

• The file name of each image must match the title as saved.
  • Image 01 (title)…
  • Image 02 (title)…
  • Image 03 (title)…
• Entries can be submitted as:
  • (preffered!) a file attachment to an email sent to PDI Competition Entries. PDI entries sent by email will be accepted up to midnight 7 days before the competition is due to take place, as detailed in the programme booklet. All entries received by email will be acknowledged by a return email.  Please contact the PDI Competition Captain after 48 hours if no acknowledgement has been received.
  • on a CD clearly labelled with the photographer’s name and contact telephone number using a firm permanent marker pen on the top surface of the disc.  All CDs will be returned to the photographer after each competition and if not claimed by the end of the season will be destroyed.
  • on a USB memory stick which should be identified by the photographer’s name. All USB memory sticks must be cleared through a virus checker and will be returned to the photographer after each competition. 

Judging

The judge will comment on all entries and will award each image a mark out of 20. Based on these scores the first, second and third places will be announced on the evening for each of the six competitions. The winning images from each section will be posted on the PPS website – along with running totals of the entrants and their scores. PDIs of winning print images will need to be forwarded to the PPS Web Master, ideally within three days.

These scores are cumulative and will count towards the overall score for the three PDI and the three print competitions. The overall winners with the highest score in the each section will hold the respective trophy for one year, returning it two weeks before the AGM. In the event of a tie, the winner will be decided by count back system, i.e. the sum of the scores for all three images submitted for the three PDI and the three print competitions will be compared. If the scores are still tied, the winner will be the member with the most maximum scores of 20.

On occasions a competition may be judged remotely, with the judge providing notes and a score on each image. The notes will be read live on the evening by the President or someone of their choice. Scores will be recorded as usual and winners announced at the end of the evening.

The Judge's decision is final.

Additional Information

PPS reserves the right to retain on file for possible use in external competitions, all images submitted in any given season, to represent PPS and will advise the member where and when any such image may be used. Although PPS belongs to N&EMPF, some members belong to other clubs which are in a different Federation. The member's permission needs to be sought, as images may only be used to represent one Federation.

Any image submitted into any of the six competitions may not subsequently be reproduced and entered again in another medium, (i.e. a print cannot be entered again as a PDI - a PDI cannot be entered again as a print) nor can an image be entered again which is so similar as to be almost identical.

The final image must be the photographer’s own work including the original image and all parts thereof. By implication the photographer owns the copyright to all parts of the image. For the avoidance of doubt, use of images from any other source including, but not limited to, royalty free image banks and clipart are not permitted.

PPS accepts no liability for breach of copyright by any member.

In the unlikely event that a member wishes to make a complaint against an entry, then the PPS Complaints Procedure should be followed. A copy of this is available on request. If objections/queries/doubts are raised about any image, entrants will be expected to supply the necessary proof that all elements are their own work.

PPS reserve the right to reject images which do not meet the entry criteria.

Submission of entries will be taken as acceptance of all conditions.

Updated: September 2022