The Photos of the Month contest is designed for students and by students and our ultimate goal is to become better photographers and be recognized for it. Become part of what will be an ongoing discussion of what makes a photo good: submit your work!
Below are the rules for the contest, which you can also see at any time by clicking the link on the right called Contest Rules.
The contest rules are designed to mimic the NPAC east clip contest in order to get student photographers used to preparing their photos for contest submission. The main difference, however, is that an image may be submitted in the Loyalist photo contest even if it has not been published.
WHAT IS POM? The Loyalist Photojournalist Photos of the Month is a contest to recognize the monthly work of Loyalist Photojournalism students. The contest rewards consistently good work each month as opposed to one or two outstanding images each year. Photographers accumulate points in monthly contests and the member with the highest accumulative point total is named the Loyalist Student Photographer of the Year. Points will be given to the first, second, and third place finisher, and to an Honourable Mention. Judges may refrain from awarding points at their discretion.
WHO AND WHAT IS ELIGIBLE? Loyalist Students enrolled in the Photojournalism program.
DEADLINE The deadline for submissions will be the 15th of each month at 4 p.m., unless noted otherwise.
ENTRIES
I. All entries must have been captured between the beginning and end of the month they are to be judged in. Example, images entered in the January contest must have been captured in January. The only exceptions to this rule are images from a long-term project and images entered in the Summer/September contest. Multiple Picture Stories may have been photographed over several months and can be entered in the Multi-Picture category.
II. A photographer can enter a maximum of 3 submissions per category. One multiple picture story counts as one submission
III. Image manipulation or alteration other than industry-accepted ‘darkroom techniques’ (cropping, colour correction, tonal adjustments (levels, curves or burning/dodging) and sharpening) are not allowed.
IV. An entrant may not enter an image in two separate categories unless the image is part of a collection entered in the Multi-Picture category. Example, the submission of an image in the Multi-Picture category may also be eligible in Portrait/Personality category.
V. Judges will not reclassify entries. Entrants must edit and place their work in the appropriate category. The judging panel has the right to not designate awards. Entries will not be returned.
VI. If a winning image is disqualified, all the subsequent images will move up a placement and receive the points associated with the new placements. Example, if a first place image is disqualified, the entrant will lose those points and the second place image will attain the first place ranking and points associated with it. The third place image will become the second place and the HM becomes the third place. If a subsequent placement has not been awarded, the position(s) will remain unawarded.
VII. Decisions of the contest Judges are final.
POINTS/AWARDS
Prizes are as yet undetermined but will be handed out at the discretion of P.O.M. organizers and are dependent upon availability. Prizes will be awarded based on a points system. Monthly points will be handed out in each category for 1st (100pts), 2nd (50pts), 3rd (25pts), and HM (10pts).
CATEGORIES
FEATURE (FT) — A picture of a “found” situation that has a high human-interest element and/or a fresh view of an everyday scene.
NEWS (NW) — Can be spot news, a picture of an unscheduled news event for which no advance planning was possible, or general news, a picture with serious content and strong human interest of a scheduled or organized news event.
PORTRAIT/PERSONALITY (PP) — A picture of a person or persons that reveals the essence of the subject’s character or the story behind the picture.
SPORTS (SP) — Can be sports action, a picture that captures the competitive peak action or spirit during a sporting event, or sports feature, a sports-related picture other than game action that has strong human element.
MULTI-PICTURE (MP) — A series of photographs that tell a story or are centered on a single theme. Subject matter can be news, feature, portrait or sports-related. Single pictures that are part of a Multi-Picture submission can be entered into another category, but must be entered separately. If the Multi-Picture entry was shot over a period of more than one calendar year, it must be entered in the year it is completed/published. A long-term project may only be entered once.
PREPARING YOUR SINGLE PHOTO ENTRIES
I. POM requires entrants to strictly follow certain guidelines. Contest organizers need all the entries to be alike in terms of file type, size, captioning and filename style in order to manage all of the images entered. Please take the time to read and follow these file requirements when preparing your entries.
II. Prepare your images using the following file specifications: A. Resolution: 200 DPI. B. Image Size: 9 inches on the longest side. C. File type: JPEG. E. JPG compression: 8 or higher. D. Colour Mode: RGB E. Images should not have borders/strokes.
III. Each picture must have a caption entered into the description or caption field of the image’s IPTC data. Please pay close attention to the following steps. You must follow a specific naming style when saving the image. No two entries should have the same file name. Each picture must have the following format: (CATEGORY CODE)–(PHOTOGRAPHER’S LAST NAME)(ENTRY NUMBER).jpg. Example, PP–PARKER01.jpg.
IV. Use one of the following category codes for each entry: FEATURE (FT), NEWS (NW), PORTRAIT (PP), SPORTS (SP), PICTURE STORY (MP).
PREPARING YOUR PICTURE STORY ENTRIES
Multi-Picture entries must be submitted as individual files. Multi-Picture files will require a slight variation to the file name format in case a single entrant has more than one entry. (CATEGORY CODE)–(PHOTOGRAPHER’S LAST NAME)(ENTRY NUMBER)(SEQUENCE LETTER).jpg. Example, MP–PARKER01A.jpg. The files should be organized as a story by their sequence letter, as in sequence letter A should be the first image you want the judges to look at, sequence letter B should be the second and so on.
SUBMITTING ENTRIES
Entries must be submitted as an electronic file and as a print. Prints can be left in P.O.M. Spudbucket in room 1n5 h (back computer lab). The electronic file must be moved to P.O.M. Computer and placed in proper folder. Captions should be printed on a seperate sheet and attached to the print.
CONTACT
Second Year representatives:
Tyler Pollard, Dax Melmer, and Hadas Parush.
Email: loyalistphoto.pom@gmail.com
