PAC Competition Rules and Guidelines
for Submitting Competition Entries
Updated July 2022.
These Rules are for monthly club competitions. Inter-club competitions adopt similar rules, but may have some changes, mostly related to timing. Assistance is available to any member in the preparation of their competition entries. Please contact any of our Committee members should you need help.
COMPETITION RULES
All images must have originated within the camera and be the work of the photographer entering the competition. This includes parts of images used in composite image construction. Images used as textures must be taken by or created by the Photographer. There is no restriction on the use of pre-sets for the enhancement of Colour, Tone, Clarity etc. There is no restriction of entries in colour, black and white or any tone unless as described in the subject notes for the month. Enhanced and creative images are considered a natural part of the artistic process.
Digital images for projection on Competition Night plus digital versions of print submissions must be up uploaded to My Photo Club by the Saturday prior to Inspiration Evenings, which are held on the second Wednesday of the month. Prints themselves must be mounted on a matt board for display and brought to the club on the evening of the Inspiration Night. (When entering a print into a competition you must also upload a digital image of the print and title it accordingly.) The committee has the right to remove any image from competition if the image is considered to be in breach of copyright law.
COMPETITION CATEGORIES & QUALIFICATIONS
In order to encourage members to develop their photographic and artistic skills, three categories or grades: B, AB and A have been established. Normally new members start at B grade regardless of their experience, and may upgrade through to AB and A grades by achieving set award levels.
Experienced photographers from a club running competitions using accredited judges (like PACT does) may apply to the committee to have their grade from the other club recognised by PACT as long as the application is within a 12 month period of leaving the previous club. Alternatively, they may be asked to submit a folio of 5 digital images for grading assessment. Adjudication for honour and merit awards is judged within each category: A against A, AB against AB, B against B.
GRADE MAINTENANCE USING AVERAGE SCORES OBTAINED FROM A MEMBER’S ENTRIES
Scores allocated to each image will be used to maintain a member’s grade. All entries a member submits in a year will be allocated a score, and the average score will be calculated. An average score 5 or 6 for a member’s images, Commended or Highly Commended, would allow them to maintain their grade. The Total Points scored by a member’s images is divided by the member’s total entries to give an average for the year.
Image of Month, Best Set Subject and Best Print will be allocated an extra 5 points on top of points for being an Honour, increasing that member’s average. Under this system it won’t matter whether you enter only 1 image per month or up to the maximum allowed - your given score will provide the average over any given period.
Upgrading and Downgrading will happen twice per year - January and July 1st.
UPGRADE REQUIREMENTS
To Upgrade from AB to A Grade a member will need to average 6 points per image over a 6-month period. To Upgrade from B to AB Grade a member will need to average 5.5 points over 6 months.
MAINTAINING YOUR GRADE
To maintain your current grade, you will need to average 5.7 points to stay in A Grade and 5.2 points to stay in AB Grade. An additional 5 Points will be allocated for 3 top awards of Image of Month, Best Set Subject and Best Print. These point levels will be reviewed after first 6 months.
SUBMISSION CATEGORIES
There are 2 subject categories for each competition – SET and OPEN.
The SET subjects for the year are listed under the "Monthly Competitions" sub-heading.
OPEN subjects are any image or print that you would like to submit for adjudication.
COMPETITION IMAGE GUIDELINES
1. NUMBER OF ENTRIES
You may enter up to a maximum of FIVE (5) images for each competition: THREE (3) projected images - either 2 set subject and 1 open subject OR 2 open subject and 1 set subject - plus TWO (2) prints being set and/or open. If you do not enter prints you are limited to THREE (3) projected images only
2021 there will be a limit of 5 digital images, 2 Set and 3 Open subjects or vice versa. Prints will be presented this year in only 4 months due to the distance from PACT to the adjudicators. (Please see the set subject guidelines document for further details for 2021.)
2. REPEAT ENTRIES
Once an entry has achieved an award, it cannot be re-entered in any section. Entries that have NOT received an award can be re-entered in any section and in any format. This allows for developing skill levels and encourages the reworking of images.
3. ORIGINAL WORK
An image will be considered to be the original work of the maker where the maker has the major impact on the capture of the original image and the final result.
4. COMPOSITE IMAGES
All parts of a composite image must be the work of the maker.
Where a composite image wins an award in our monthly competition, the composite component(s) which play a major role in the image are excluded from future use in a monthly competition image. For example, a spectacular stormy sky is likely to be a major component of an image’s story and as such cannot be reused, whereas a normal sky, albeit an attractive one, would be considered to be part of the background and thereby reusable. Similarly, textures used to help set the mood of an image are likely not to be major components and are thereby also reusable.
5. THE SPIRIT OF THE GUILDELINES
It isn’t possible for us to be definitive about all possible scenarios so we ask all members, in the name of fair competition, to ultimately be guided by the spirit of the guidelines.
COMPETITION AWARDS
The attending Adjudicator will select Merit, Honour, Image of the Month, Set Subject of the Month, and Best Print of the Month.
COMPLAINTS
If a member has a complaint about the inclusion of any image, the judging of an image or any other matter, the complaint will only be considered if submitted in writing to the PACT committee.
IMAGE FORMATS
There are two image formats: PROJECTED and MATTED PRINT.
PREPARING IMAGES FOR UPLOAD THROUGH MPC
Images must be sized and titled correctly. Do not include maker’s Name or Grade in the image title.
Colour Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1 at 300ppi resolution; MAX image size 2 MB; JPEG format. Remember to convert colour space of phone images: Edit—>Convert to Profile—>
When resizing images, remember to tick the Restrain Proportions box in order to maintain the image’s proportions.
LANDSCAPE FORMAT: *HEIGHT must be 1080 pixels. The WIDTH will adjust accordingly but must not exceed 1920 pixels. Do not set width to 1620 if the height resets to less than 1080.
EXTRA WIDE IMAGES: *IF your image exceeds 1920 when you have resized to 1080, then reset the width to 1920 and let the height adjust proportionally. This is the only exception for images being uploaded at less than 1080 height.
PORTRAIT FORMAT: HEIGHT must be 1080 pixels. The image WIDTH will adjust automatically.
SQUARE FORMAT: HEIGHT and WIDTH must be 1080 pixels.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
· One edge of your image should be 1080 or 1920. Never submit images with ALL sides less than these requirements.
· Images may be submitted through MPC for any month’s competition at any time.
· Images on MPC can be changed or swapped at any time before the closing date of the competition.
· Address any questions to: pact.competitions@gmail.com
Triple-check your entries in all the above areas before uploading them to MPC.
Upload all entries to My Photo Club by the closing date of submissions.
PREPARING PRINTS FOR COMPETITION
There is no minimum print size requirement. At present the majority of print entries are 10 x 15 inches. The maximum print size is 12 x 18 inches. Prints are to be mounted on standard matt board, 400 mm x 500 mm. On the back of the matt board write only the Title of your image and Set or Open, along with the grade you currently hold. DO NOT include your name. Example: “Sunset Open B”. To properly display your print, attach a couple of strips of loop side Velcro to the back of the mounting board, making sure the Velcro tabs are correctly oriented for portrait or landscape display.
A projected image of the print should be uploaded through My Photo Club at competition dimensions (above) by the due date. The print itself should be brought to the club on Inspiration Night (2nd Wednesday of the month).
ALL IMAGES ARE VALUABLE AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE LEARNING PROCESS AND ARTISTIC APPRECIATION.