HCC Competition Rules & Regulations
Preamble: We hold several competitions each year for digital photos, color prints and B&W prints. Our intention is to increase each member’s enjoyment of, and improvement at, photography through comparison, study and evaluation. This process also enables us to select digital photos and prints to submit to the NECCC and/or PSA competitions.
1. Any member of the club may submit up to four digital or print entries in each category. A member need not be present to have photos considered in the competition. All negatives and digital photos must be the work of the entrant only, however, they may be printed commercially.
2.Digital Pictoral Category includes pictures of any subject matter. The use of Photoshop or other editing software is allowed.
3. DigitalNature Category is (according to the Photographic Society of America) restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict observations from all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archeology, in such a fashion that a well informed person will be able to identify the subject material and to certify as to its honest presentation. The story-telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality. Human elements shall not be present, except on the rare occasion where those human elements enhance the nature story. The presence of scientific bands on wild animals is acceptable. Photographs of artificially produced hybrid plants or animals, mounted specimens, or obviously set arrangements, are ineligible, as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement.
4. Print Categories (B&W/Color), unless otherwise noted, may be of
5. Prints and Mounts. Any size print or mount up to 16” x 20” is acceptable. Prints must be mounted. Cardboard frames and matting are not required but may enhance the presentation. Prints must have a title. The title, together with the maker’s name, address and camera club must appear on the back of the mount. It would be prudent to include this same information on the back of the print as well with the use of a label (never write directly onto the back of any photo) just in case the print should separate from the mounting board.
6. Judging. The clubs regular competitions are judged by a rotating panel of three judges selected from a pool of appointed club members. This pool of judges will be added to annually from the top scoring members in the previous year’s regular competitions. Any member serving as a judge in a particular competition shall be awarded, for each of his or her own spouse’s slides or prints, a score which is the average of the scores given by the other two judges in this instance, rounded up to the higher whole number. On occasion, qualified judges from outside the club may be asked to participate.
7. All entries are previewed briefly prior to the judging. Then, as each entry is displayed for scoring, each of the three judges awards a score of up to 10 points. A slide or print may receive a score up to 30 points. After all entries are judged, and some discussed, winning entries are shown again and the scores and makers’ names are announced. The winners may be asked to comment on technical and other useful information.
8. NECCC and Limitations.Only one digital entry per person in each category (pictoral, nature) or one print in each category (color, b&w) may be submitted to the NECCC in any particular competition. If one person submits two entries in any one category that happen to receive the highest scores in our club’s judging, only one of those entries may be submitted to the NECCC competition. The other entry/entries will be withdrawn without points, but may be entered in any other club competition.
Click here to see a more detailed instruction
Click here to see a more detailed instruction on PSA challenges
How to name your Pictures for the competitions
PSA
Club Name, Your Name FirstLast (no space), Image Title (first letter only of all words Capital with spaces between)
It should look like this: 3-Housatonic-YourNameHere-ImageTitle.jpeg
Your entries should be numbered 1,2,3,4…..
– (must be used in proper places with no spaces before or after)
NECCC -Pictorial- PB1$Housatonic$YourName$ImageTitle.jpg
Nature- NB1$Housatonic$YourName$ImageTitle.jpg
The P or N stand for Pictorial or Nature Category
B is for our Class
Entries in each category need to be numbered 1,2,3 or 4
$ (must be used in proper places without spaces before or after) Club Name
$ Your Last Name, First Name $ Image Title (first letter only of all words Capital with spaces between)
Slides or prints winning awards in any of the clubs regular competitions will be ineligible for reentry in the clubs regula
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“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” “Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” “Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true.” “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.” “Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.” “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” “Photography is a way to shape human perception.” “Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.” “Photography is like a moment, an instant. You need a half-second to get the photo. So it’s good to capture people when they are themselves.” “Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.” “Photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.” “Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.” “Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.” “Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.” “Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.” “Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.” “Photography is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.” “Photography is a way of putting distance between myself and the work which sometimes helps me to see more clearly what it is that I have made.” “Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.” “Photography is the easiest medium with which to be merely competent. Almost anybody can be competent. It’s the hardest medium in which to have some sort of personal vision and to have a signature style.”
