Photo Art Competition

Submissions can be made to the Photo Art Competition in August and September of each year. If an image conforms to the Nature competition rules, it may not be entered into the Photo Art competition.

The Photo Art competition aims to provide a place for photographers to enter non-nature images (people, architecture, street scenes, still life, abstracts, etc., etc.) and the judge(s) will be asked to reflect this purpose in their scores.

There is no specific theme for the Photo Art Competition.

Each club member may submit up to six (6) photographs in the Photo Art Competition.

All elements of the final image must originate as one or more in-camera photographs taken by the submitter.

If textures are used they must be from images photographed by the submitter; the use of smartphone apps or programs (e.g., Topaz Texture Effects) that apply their own built-in textures is not allowed.

All manipulations, including digital filters that alter the original pixels (e.g., blurring, distorting, colorizing, etc.) are allowed in post-processing. However, images processed using generative fill are unacceptable.

Judging Categories

There is no limit to the number of images an individual may enter in a category as long as the total number of entries for the Photo Art Competition does not exceed six.

The categories are:

Architecture/Agriculture/Industry: This category includes images of buildings and other man-made structures and images of their interiors or parts. Also included are images of cityscapes, agricultural scenes (cultivated fields, terraced hillsides, garden landscapes, etc.), industrial installations, and machinery.

Abstracts/Altered Reality: Abstracts are images in which the object being photographed is not readily identifiable or has been made unidentifiable by software or other manipulation.  The emphasis in abstracts is on patterns, textures, tones, shapes, colors, etc. Images submitted as Altered Reality may be of any subject, and it may be identifiable, but images should display a change in natural color, form, shape or any combination of these so that the subject obviously does not appear as it naturally does. Simple conversion to monochrome does not constitute Altered Reality.

People – This category includes Documentary Photography, which chronicles events happening in the world and conveys information about them, as well as Street Photography, which typically records everyday life in a public place. Street photos are usually candid and capture moments that might otherwise go unnoticed. Portraits of people should also be submitted to this category.

Studio Photography: This category includes images of smoke trails, water drops and other studio techniques. It also includes Still Lifes which are images of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects such as fruit in a bowl or flowers in a vase. Still Lifes may be of an arranged or a found subject.

Sports/Action/Adventure – Images of sports or other types of action showing someone or something in motion, as well as images of other adventurous activities. Images of animals must not conform to the Nature rules.

Other – Images that don’t fall into any of the above categories and do not conform with the Nature competition rules.