Projected digital images

You need to submit your entry via the online competition entry system by midnight, on the Sunday before the competition on the Tuesday. This gives the competition secretary the chance to load the images to the laptop and warn the judge about how many pictures they will have to judge. More information about the process for submitting entries is on the website too.

Prints

You need to submit a DIGITAL version of your print via the online competition entry system, on the Sunday before the competition on the Tuesday.  You need to bring the print entries on the night of the competition or make arrangements with the competition secretary or other members to bring them on the night for you if you are unable.  Please ensure you write your name and title on the back of your print.

Deadlines for entries

All entries must be entered on the online system by midnight on the Sunday before a competition on a Tuesday.

All Images must be entirely the work of the Photographer and all component parts of each Image selected by and under the control of the Photographer

Therefore, as from September 2023, there are two additions to the rules for all entries into ImageZ club competitions:

• Any replacements in any image must be from the author’s own stock images and not from any third-party source e.g. a sky replacement should be an image taken by the photographer and not from resources within published software.
• All Images must be entirely the work of the Photographer and all component parts of each Image selected by and under the control of the Photographer.

Members enjoy the creative challenge of taking a concept and shooting pictures to match it. We find the the traditional camera club categories such as portrait, landscape and still-life are not inspiring our best pictures so we use “themes”. If we choose a “theme” such as BLUE it gives photographers the chance to interpret and be more creative with their pictures. Blue may be the blue sky in a landscape, it might be a blue racing car, someone looking sad or even a blue steak!

Competitions are available for all members, they provide a method to get valid assessment of the photos you produce. By entering our competitions the pictures are judged with the other members and scores awarded, but usually the most valuable part is listening to someone appraising your picture as they see it. Members can use competitions to get their work reviewed.

As with many creative endeavours one persons “outstanding work” is another persons “it’s ok”, but you soon get to see what draws people to recognise the best pictures.

Projected images

We use a high resolution projector for our competitions with 1600 pixels wide, and 1200 pixels tall. You need to resize your image to fit within these dimensions. However images do not need to be exactly 1600 x 1200 pixels, portrait images must be a maximum of 1200 pixels tall. Please check out the article on resizing images for digital projection elsewhere on our site.

Printed images

Printed competitions are for mounted prints only, please ensure that any mounts are no bigger than 50cm x 40cm (20 x 16 inches) please.

We offer a great deal of help and support to beginners.  The many experienced photographers in the club are very willing to share knowledge and advice.

We have decided not to separate beginners, intermediate and advanced photographers in to separate classes for competitions. We have discussed and debated this several times, and there’s no correct way to determine if someone is a beginner or more advanced photographer; we have seen new photographers win competitions outright in their first year in the club. If it’s by choice then the option for an advanced photographer to elect for beginner status and win everything is there; many other clubs keep the levels for a whole season. Also for someone to elect for the advanced level only to get discouraged if they are not doing as well as expected is a possibility. The club committee have considered and experimented with various methods of “playing field levelling” with handicapping like in golf, using success ballast like in motor racing but as yet nothing really fits. Discussion with other clubs that do have separate classes for competitions also shows that this is a hugely contentious area. It seems that in reality there is no right answer.

By entering competitions with an equal chance and having critique and scoring by qualified judges we hope that members will see how they might improve their photography in the future.

Members are invited to submit this as a topic at the club’s annual general meeting (typically in April / May), or with the chairman if they feel that it needs to be revisited.

Images may only be used once in internal club competitions

Any image can only be entered in one internal club competition. You may not enter the same image that you have used previously in an internal club competition for any future internal club competitions; this is to encourage new original work rather than re-use of previously successful images.

An image entered to one competition as a colour image is not considered a different image if converted to monochrome.

An image that is largely the same as one entered previously – maybe a different treatment or a part has been colour changed / enhanced is not considered a different image.

The Internal Competition Secretary and Chairman will determine if an entry is deemed to be in breach of this rule.

Can I use images from my archives in a competition?