GA ERA Camera Club - Competition Rules
Updated March 19th, 2021
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Rules
All submissions shall be formatted digital images and competitions will be open to all current dues paid members of the Club.
All submissions shall be original work. No copyrighted or trademark registered material can be submitted (e.g., photos of photos) unless you are the owner.
Submissions are further restricted to those that do not violate any company standards (e.g., copyright laws, appropriate computer use, etc.). Please reference company rules (i.e., ERA, EIG, and any other relevant policy) for current details surrounding company standards.
Images which have previously been submitted to past competitions and received a placement award (e.g., 1st, 2nd, etc.) are ineligible for resubmission to future competitions.
After that, your submissions are only limited by the technologies available to you to capture and modify the final image, within any category constraints, to achieve the impact and message you desire to portray.
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Competition Structure
Each competition event will have up to three subjects, i.e., THEMES. Each THEME will be further restricted to one of three CATEGORIES. Members are permitted to submit a maximum of 2 images per THEME. At a minimum, submissions shall start with at least one of your photographs (i.e., a picture taken by the member, using a camera) as the basis. Each jpg file submitted is considered one entry.
Themes
Themes are selected by the officers and posted on the club website calendar. The selection is generally done for a club year at a time and is finalized several months before the next club year. If you have an idea for a theme, please send your suggestions to the officers for consideration. We try to get a mixture of topic based themes as well as technique based themes. Additionally the OPEN theme has no defined subject and you should submit your best shot.
Categories
ARTISTIC (A)Artistic classification submissions require post edits that push them beyond a traditional photographed image. Submissions can be highly manipulated and can have modified/added elements.
Traditional classification image submissions allow for editing to improve quality and impact. Specifically:
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Allowed Edits:
Cropping, rotating, etc.
Adjustments to white balance, exposure, contrast, clarity, saturation, vibrance, etc.
Removal of small distracting items (e.g., power lines, trash, etc.) limited to 15% of the picture area.
Stacking images of the same scene taken in a small time period (aka bracketing) to improve dynamic range or depth of field only.
Vignette is permitted however borders are not.
Addition of elements.
High manipulations resulting in an unnatural looking image.
Unrestricted category submissions allow artistic or traditional edits to submissions. "Open" theme submissions always fall into the unrestricted category.
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Formatting Your Image Prior to Submission
Filenames
Filenames for submitted images must be named using the following format:
< Competition Category >.< Your Image Title >.< Your Initials >.jpg
Example: MeltedFood.Marshmellows.AZ.jpg
Where,
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< Competition Category > is the name of the category for the competition. Abbreviations are permitted as long as it is obvious.
- < Your Image Title > is determined by you. This is your title for the image. This should be unique for each of your submissions.
- < Your Initials > are the initials of your name, either first & last or first-middle-last, or however you prefer. In the event of duplicate initials for club members, it would be advantageous for you and your "Doppelganger" to compromise so that each are unique.
- Note: Do not include the <> symbols in the filename.
File Type
File type for submitted digital images shall be JPEG (".jpg").
JPG Compression (%)
JPG compression setting is up to you, but typically values of 85% - 90% greatly reduce the file size with no visible effect on the image. Test this for yourself by viewing your exported file prior to submitting.
Image Size (i.e., pixels, horizontal/vertical)
During a competition meeting held in a conference room, images are displayed on equipment that is typically a horizontal 16:9 aspect ratio screen. The viewing software will scale your images as best as possible to fit this screen, however sometimes with results different than you desire. Vertical pixel count should not exceed 2160 pixels.
File Size (i.e., kilobytes/megabytes)
Please consider file size before submitting. Smaller files load faster and file sizes between 500 kb and 5 Mb are typical. Very large files (>>5 Mb) do not have any noticeable benefit on a screen and load slower. When exporting, adjust your image size and JPG compression settings to reduce the file size to more acceptable limits.
Color Space
Export your edited photos using standard sRGB (i.e., IEC61966-2.1).
Watermark
Do not apply watermarks to photos as judging is intended to be anonymous.
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Submission Method (Email)
Put your full name along with the competition month & year into the email Subject line.
Example Email Subject: April 2020 GAERACC Competition - John Doe Entries
Send all submissions via email to gacameraclub@gmail.com.
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Submission Deadline
All submissions are due by Sunday Noon (12 pm) the weekend prior to the scheduled competition date.