Sun Lakes Camera Club Competition Rules and Procedures

Amended April 2024

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. Each member, by act of submitting a photographic entry for judging, acknowledges having read, and agrees to abide by, these Competition Rules. Each member further agrees not to hold the Sun Lakes Camera Club, its officers, nor any member, liable for any loss or damage to photographic material submitted for entry in any competition where the interest or sponsorship of the Club may be involved.

OWN WORK. Entries must be the work of the competing member. Printing by others is allowed.
CREDITS. In order to receive credit for participation in the Club competition, each entrant must be a member in

good standing (i.e., dues paid).

COMPETITIONS. There will be five normal competitions and one year end competition. Competitions will be held on the fourth Thursday of each month (October through March excluding November). End of Year competition will be held in April.

CATEGORIES. There are three categories at each regular club competition night, October through March. They are:

➢ OPEN means there is no assigned subject. The images in this category can be of any subject matter and can be either color or monochromatic. This category can also include creative images.

➢ ROTATING means the focus of, or the majority of, the image must relate to the assigned topic. Images can be color or monochromatic. The subject changes each month.

➢ SPECIAL TECHNIQUES means the image is the result of an assigned technique that can be done during image capture and/or during post processing. The technique changes each month.

Year-end competition has one category: OPEN. All images submitted must have been in competition during the current club year and may not be modified in any fashion after their initial judging or in preparation for the year end competition. These images can come from any of the categories used during the year.

CLASSES. The number of classes may vary from year to year depending on the number of active club members and the skill levels of those members. All club members are assigned a class even if they do not participate in competitions. The following are the current classes:

➢ Class C –for members with little or no competition experience.

➢ Class B –for experienced club members or at the discretion of the Competition Committee

➢ Class A - for very experienced club members or at the discretion of the Competition Committee

Other Classes may be established at the discretion of the Competition Committee based upon member experience and or awards in competitions prior to the current club year.

Membership in a competition class is determined by the Competition Committee and is based on the photographic images submitted by the member in the past. Movement between classes can occur when the member has submitted at least a total of 16 images (print and digital combined) for the year or if in the opinion of the Competition Committee the member’s images dictate a different class assignment.

New members will be placed in a class consistent with their photographic experience. New members will be contacted by a member of the competition committee and class placement will be agreed to by both the new

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member and the competition committee member by discussion of prior experience and viewing photographic images provided by the new member.

Members who receive Photographer of the Year Awards at year end will be placed in a higher class if such class is available but this move is at the member’s discretion except that a member who is Photographer of the Year twice in the same class must move to the next class if such class is available. Other members may be placed in a higher class if the committee deems it is appropriate.

A member may petition the Competition Committee to be placed in another class either higher or lower. The Competition Committee will use images submitted in the past to determine if the petitioning members request will be honored.

The Competition Committee will not move a member from Class A to Class B or to Class C nor from Class B to Class C unless the club member petitions the Competition Committee for such a move and past competition results warrant the move.

MAXIMUM ENTRIES. Each member may submit a total of four projected images and four prints in each competition, October through March, however only a maximum of two projected images and two prints can be submitted in any one of the three categories (Open, Rotating, and Special Techniques).

Each member may submit a total of four projected images and four prints in the End of Year competition. All End of Year submissions must be images that were placed in October through March competition of the current year. The image must be the identical image previously judged. No modifications of the image after the initial competition are allowed.

MINIMUM PARTICIPATION. There must be at least three members entered in a class and category in a competition, otherwise that class and category will be cancelled and those entries combined with another class but in the same category.

RESUBMISSION OF AN IMAGE. No image that has received the Photograph of the Year award or received 1st, 2nd or 3rd place during normal competitions can be resubmitted in any future competition.

DEADLINES FOR PARTICPATION. Projected images and digital copies of print images must be submitted to the competition website no later than 11:30pm MST on the Monday before the Thursday competition. Mounted prints must be brought to the club meeting room between 5:00pm and 6:00pm MST on the day of competition.

PRINT REQUIREMENTS.

• ➢  Prints must be at least 8” x 10” and no larger than 16” x 20” except for horizontal panoramas which can be up to 30” wide when panoramas are the Special Technique for the month or for End of Year competitions

• ➢  Prints (of any size) must be securely mounted on a 16” x 20” matte board except for horizontal panoramas which can be up to 30” wide when panoramas are the Special Technique for the month or for End of Year competitions

• ➢  Matte board may be any color.

• ➢  Foam board is not allowed.

• ➢  Prints must not be double matted or framed.

• ➢  A stroke on the image is allowed.

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• ➢  Image titles must not exceed 50 characters. No non alphabet characters are allowed

• ➢  Prints must be labeled on upper left corner of the back of the matte board using a completed SLCC print label or Visual Pursuits print label. Labels from prior competitions must be obscured or defaced or removed so that the current competition label is obvious. (SLCC labels can be downloaded from the club website and printed on an Avery 18163 form Visual Pursuits labels can be printed from within the Visual Pursuits website on plain paper or Avery 5164 or 8164 or 8464 forms)

• ➢  No photographer identification should appear on the side shown to the judges.

• ➢  A digital copy of the print image must be submitted to the competition website following the rules for

  digital entries.
  PROJECTED IMAGE REQUIREMENTS.

• ➢  Projected Image entries (and digital copies of print images) may be sized to a maximum of 1920 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high or 1400 pixels wide and 1050 pixels high.

• ➢  Projected Image entries (and digital copies of print images) must be JPEG format and not exceed one megabyte in file size.

• ➢  Image titles must not exceed 50 characters. No non alphabet characters are allowed.

• ➢  No photographer identification should appear in the projected digital image.

  DISQUALIFICATION

  An image that does not meet the parameters of a category definition can be disqualified by a simple majority vote of the competition committee. The member will receive an email or phone notification of the disqualification.

  Any image, print or projected, not submitted through the Visual Pursuits website will not be judged.

  Any print that does not meet the print requirements listed above will not be judged.

  Disqualified images can be resubmitted in an appropriate category in a future competition.

  Prints not judged can be resubmitted in the future once the problem causing the removal from judging is corrected.

  JUDGING.
  Images can receive scores of 6, 7, 8, or 9 from each of three judges so the combined total scores for an image

  can range from 18 to 27.

  Recognition in the form of first, second, or third place will be given to the images that achieve the highest scores. First will be awarded to the image or images receiving the highest score, Second will be awarded to the next highest, and Third will be awarded to the third highest. Multiple images may receive the same recognition. No ties will be broken.

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Only the top scoring images will be announced for recognition. First place awards will always be announced, second and third place may be announced if time allows.

Image critiques by the judges will be made if time and the judge’s availability allows.

End of the Year judging will require tie breaking so that only one print and one projected image in each class is selected for First Place. Multiple Second Place, Third Place and Honorable Mention Awards will be given.

ANNUAL AWARDS. The following awards are given each year:

Print Photographer of the Year Plaque (by class)
Projected Image Photographer of the Year Plaque (by class)
First Place, Second Place, Third Place and Honorable Mention Ribbons (by class and Print and Projected Images)

The Print Photographer of the Year award is given to the club member who earned the highest average score in the club competition during the club year in the print category. The points awarded by the judges on regular club competition nights are totaled and divided by the number of prints submitted. For a member to be considered for this award, the following minimum number of prints is required:

➢ Class A 16 prints ➢ Class B 12 prints ➢ Class C 8 prints.

The year-end competition scoring for Print Image of the Year is not included in the Print Photographer of the Year award calculation.

The Projected Image Photographer of the Year award is given to the club member who earned the highest average score in the club competition during the club year in the projected image category. The points awarded by the judges on regular club competition nights are totaled and divided by the number of projected images submitted. For a member to be considered for this award, a minimum of 16 projected images must be submitted in all classes.

The year-end competition scoring for Projected Image of the Year is not included in the Photographer of the Year award calculation.

The Print of the Year award is given to the print selected by the judging panel on the last meeting of the club year. If there are less than three club members of a class who have entries in the year end competition, then the entries in that class will be combined with and compete with the closest class to achieve the minimum number of competing members. Only the original prints that were in competition as prints during the current club year are allowed to enter the year end competition.

The Projected Image of the Year award is given to the projected image selected by the judging panel on the last meeting of the club year. If there are less than three club members of a class who have entries in the year end competition, then the entries in that class will be combined with and compete with the closest class to achieve the minimum number of competing members. Only the original projected images that were in competition as projected images during the current club year are allowed to enter the year end competition.

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