MERCED CAMERA CLUB

Affiliated with the

Photographic Society of America

COMPETITION RULES
Revised SEPTEMBER 2008

I. General Conditions:

a. Members with the current year’s dues paid are eligible to compete.

b. Any such member may submit four transparencies or digital images for judging each month that competition is held. The subjects may be Nature, Photo-Travel, Pictorial, or Photo-Journalism, but all pictures will be judged as pictorial.

c. In addition, members may be asked to share slides that are not judged or assigned points. The subjects may vary and will be announced at the meetings and in the club newsletter, “The Birdie.”

d. All entries will be accompanied by a completed entry form. The entry form and entries should include, as a minimum, the entrants name and the titles of the entries. In addition each slide entry will have a projection spot or “thumb spot.” This spot will be placed in the lower left of the mount, when the slide is viewed in the normal viewing position. There are no fees required for competition entries.

e. Slide entries should be submitted at the meeting prior to the judging. If a member wishes to submit after this time, he or she should make special arrangements in advance with the Competition Chairperson. (In some cases, this may not be possible due to the need to mail the competition slides.) In the event of “live” judging, entries may be entered as late as the night of judging, with special arrangements. These entries will not be eligible for “Slide of the Month” honors, or the score associated with this honor. (See “Scoring” below.) In any event, no entries will be accepted after the judging has begun.

f. Digital entries must be submitted at least one week ahead to the digital competition chairperson by email or other digital media. Digital entries must be in JPG format, and have a maximum horizontal dimension of 1024 pixels and a maximum vertical dimension of 768 pixels, and be no larger than 500K.

g. Digital images must be labeled as follows.

a. First letter: P for pictorial or S for special assignment

b. Second Letter(s) for your level of competition: B, A, AA, AAA

c. Third position is for numbers 1-4 for the order of your entries. For Special Assignment, always use 1. For Pictorial, 1 is for the first image to be shown, 2 for the second, etc.

d. The fourth position is for your surname followed by an underscore. Must be unique in the club. Use first letter of first name if necessary.

e. The final position is for the title of the image which must match your entry form.

EXAMPLES: saa1dayton_hot

Paa2hamby_one more geyser

Paaa4bever_lazy lion

h. A member will compete in the same class (B, A, AA, AAA) for an entire competition year. A change in class can occur only at the beginning of the competition year.

i. Images must be the work of the entrant and must not have been previously scored in any prior Merced Camera Club competition.

j. Once entered, an image should not be removed except for exceptional reasons with approval of the Competition Chairperson.

k. The Merced Camera Club and its members will handle all slides with due care and caution but assumes no liability for loss or damage to entries. Members may wish to enter duplicate slides of especially important images.

l. Slides should be mounted in standard mounts that will freely fall into the projection space. Unusually thick mounts with the projector will not accept will be disqualified.

m. Slides larger that 35mm or 2X2 will not be accepted unless the entrant provides a projector and special arrangements are made for judging if necessary.

n. All prints shall be mounted on standard mount boards. Prints shall be at least 5x7 inches, with a maximum image size (photo itself) of 320 square inches and shall not exceed a vertical presentation height of 20 inches, including the mount/mat, or a horizontal presentation width of 30- inches including the mount/mat. Prints shall have, on the back side, in the upper left corner, the title, class, club, entrant’s name and address. Tone, split-tones and hand-colored prints are acceptable. Framed prints are ineligible for judging and will be rejected by the Print Chairman. Copies of other prints are also ineligible.

II. Competition Classes:

a. The Merced Camera Club operates with ~~three~~ four competition classes: Class B, Class A, ~~and~~ Class AA and Class AAA.

b. The Class B competitors include members who are beginners or who wish to remain in B Class for whatever reason. (Judges will often provide more detailed critiques of the Class B images.) A new member of the Merced Camera Club will normally be assigned to this Class.

c. The Class A competitors include members who have progressed from Class B to Class A through Automatic Advancement (see below) or through petition to the competition chairperson.

d. The Class AA competitors include members who have progressed from Class A through either Automatic Advancement or petition.

e. The Class AAA competitors include members who have progressed from Class AA through either Automatic Advancement or petition. Class AAA is limited to four members. The lowest scoring member in Class AAA will move down to Class AA at the end of the year.

f. A Member may elect to compete in a lower class than he is assigned at any time, provided he or she does so at the beginning of the competition year. Likewise, a member may verbally petition the Competition Chairperson to compete in a higher class. In this case, the member will present images to demonstrate his or her work meets the standards of the higher class. In the event a petition is approved, the Competition Chairperson will announce the advancement at the first meeting of the competition year.

g. SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT – A Special Assignment competition will be held each month. The competition chairperson will announce the topics for the next year at the last meeting of each year. Images must be submitted digitally. Procedures and requirements will be distributed by the competition chairperson.

AUTOMATIC ADVANCEMENT

h. A competitor is advanced from Class B to Class A at the end of the competition year automatically if he or she has the highest total points for that class. Likewise, a competitor from Class A is automatically advanced to Class AA, and from class AA to Class AAA. This provision applies only if there are two or more competitors in the Class.

i. A competitor is also automatically advanced to the next higher Class if he or she receives 10 or more ratings of “10” or higher during the competition year, regardless of his or her standings within the Class. This provision applies without regard to the number of competitors in the Class. This provision does not apply to Class AAA.

III. Scoring:

a. Scores may vary from 6 to 10. A score of 6 indicates an image with one or more major flaws that the judge finds objectionable. On the other hand, a score of 10 indicates a slide that is basically flawless, has impact, and interest. Naturally, scores of 7, 8, and 9 fall between these two extremes at the discretion of the judge.

b. The score 11 is awarded to one l image per month selected as the “image of the month”. This image is chosen by the judge from all entries receiving a score of “10” in all Classes as the best image, the “image of the Month.” In the event no images qualify for a 10 rating, a “Slide of the Month” will not be awarded.

c. The scores assigned by the judge are final. If a judge should assign a score outside our range, such as a 7.5, the competition chairperson will advance the score to the next higher full number.

IV. Merced Camera Club Competition:

a. PICTORIAL – Open to any subject matter. Image will be judged primarily on its photographic impact with emphasis on composition, use of lighting, interest and technique. Pictorial may be referred to as “Color” in some P.S.A. circles. Competition in the Merced Camera Club is judged as Pictorial.

V. San Joaquin Valley Council of Camera Clubs division definitions.

Pictorial
Anything goes as long as all images are your own!

Nature
“Nature photography is 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, manual or digital, that alters the truth of the photographic statement.”

No element may be moved, cloned, added, deleted, rearranged or combined. No manipulation or modification is permitted except resizing, cropping, selective lightening or darkening, and restoration of original color of the scene. No special effects filters can be applied. Any sharpening must appear natural.

Travel
It’s an image that expresses the feeling of a time and place, portrays a land, its people, or a culture in its natural state, and has no geographical limitations.

Photo-Journalism
Photojournalism images shall consist of pictures or sequences with informative content and emotional impact, including human interest, documentary and spot news. The journalistic value of the photograph shall be considered over pictorial quality. In the interest of credibility, photographs which misrepresent the truth, such as manipulation to alter the subject matter, or situations which are set up for the purpose of photography, are unacceptable in Photojournalism.