Inland Empire Professional Photographers and Videographers, Inc.
Print Competition Rules
Download PrintComp Rules
February, 2010
Purpose
IEPPV holds four competitions a year at the regular meetings in March, May, July, and September and recognizes professional achievement through annual awards presented at the December Banquet. The purpose of our competitions is to allow photographers to enter photographs and albums to be judged relative to the 12 elements of a merit print (impact, creativity, style, composition, print presentation, color balance, center of interest, lighting, subject matter, print quality, technique, and story telling). IEPPV hopes to foster the professional growth of its members by providing constructive critical evaluations of members’ work by panels of highly qualified judges.
Please study and follow all the instructions carefully. Failure to do so may disqualify your entries.
Eligibility
1. You must be an IEPPV member in good standing. All membership classes except Aspiring are eligible to enter.
2. The entry must have been captured and created by the entrant. In the case of multi- maker albums, each entrant must be an IEPPV member in good standing and must be recognized on the print comp label.
3. The entrants’ name(s) or Studio name will not appear on the face of the entry, and must be covered if it appears on an album. However, titles which are an integral part of the entry may appear within the image as long as it is not the studio or makers’ name.
4. A maximum of 4 entries (prints, albums or a combination of both) per competition may be submitted per entrant.
5. Entrants entering an album may not enter individual images from that album in the same competition but may enter them in other competitions.
6. No two entries by any entrant in the same month’s competition shall be of the same subject, i.e. same model or models, settings, etc.
7. Except for entries in the Workshops category, no entry will be eligible that has been made under the supervision of an instructor or in a class, seminar, workshop or school setting.
8. To gain the greatest benefit of judges’ constructive criticism as well as to encourage IEPPV members’ participation in state, regional and national competitions, entrants are encouraged to make judges’ recommended improvements and re-submit entries in a subsequent competition. There are no restrictions on the scores of entries which may be re-submitted under this provision.
9. All print entries must have an IEPPV print comp label mounted on the top rear of the photograph with the following legible information: date, maker’s name, category and print title. Album entries must have the same accompanying label, properly and legibly completed, and placed inside the front cover without the use of adhesives.
10. Prints will not have taped-over name, title, award, ribbon, or seal appear on the front of the entry.
11. In case of dispute, the decision of the Print Competition Committee will be final.
Deadlines and Fees
1. Entries will only be accepted 30 minutes before the competition start time and will close 5 minutes prior to the start of the competition. No late entries will be accepted.
2. A fee of $5.00 for each entry will be collected prior to the competition.
Entrant’s Certification of Responsibility and Release of Liability
1. By entering a competition the entrant certifies that he or she has created, composed and made the original exposures and that the processing, image enhancements and any special effects were done under the entrant’s direct supervision.
2. The entrant must sign one certification statement for each competition entered and he or she certifies that he or she understands this statement and faces the penalty of loss of all exhibition points and the exclusion from the remaining year’s exhibitions if the statement is proven false. By this signature, entrant further agrees to hold IEPPV harmless against any liabilities or claims arising out of the Association’s consideration, display, publicity, promotion or other use of submitted photograph(s).
Mounting
1. All prints must be securely mounted on 16 x 20 inch mounts. Members who are PPA Master Photographers may enter up to 20 x 24 inch mounts. The combined thickness of the print and mount shall be a minimum of 1/8 inch to a maximum 1/4 inch at any point in the entry.
2. Overlay, underlay and digital mats are permitted as well as lamination of the prints.
3. All prints must be permanently mounted on double weight mount board or foam core. No Masonite, glass, stretcher or conventional frames are allowed. Images printed on metal must be mounted as above and, unlike paper prints, must have rounded corners for the protection of print handlers and other entries.
4. Prints may be less than the mount size and any shape, but must be mounted on the above mentioned board and have a minimum print total area of 80 square inches.
5. To prevent damage to other prints, no foreign material may be added to the surface of the print other than standard retouching materials.
Competition Categories
1. Portrait: Photographs of one or more people and/or pets.
2. Wedding: All photographs pertaining to brides, grooms, weddings, bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, quinceañeras and similar events.
3. Commercial: Industrial, table top, advertising, stock and aerial images. A tear sheet or statement of purpose is requested but not required. If included it must be enclosed in an envelope attached on the back of the entry.
4. Illustrative: Scenic, photographic art, and images not otherwise falling into the above categories.
5. Workshop or other educational environment: While images created in such settings or otherwise under the direction of another may not be entered in the other categories, IEPPV wants to encourage participation in classes, seminars, workshops and schools. Likewise, IEPPV wants to encourage print comp participation by those who do so. This category is reserved for images created or prepared in or adjacent to such settings, whether under another’s direction or not. Entries in this category will be eligible for the Workshop Photographer of the Year award, but will not compete for Best of Show, People’s Choice or the other Photographer of the Year awards.
6. Album: Single-maker and multi-maker albums are allowed. In all cases, images and album design must be the work of the entrant(s) entering the album. No other photographer’s images are allowed. If multi-maker album, each entrant must be recognized on the entry label and sign a separate Certificate of Responsibility. Each entrant must be an IEPPV member in good standing. Each entrant must pay the appropriate entrance fee. The multi-maker album will be judged as one entry. Whether single- or multi-maker, no multi-volume albums are allowed.
Judging Procedures
1. The PPA point system is used with scores from 100 to 0 as follows:
Exceptional: 95-100 Superior: 85-94 Excellent: 80-84 Above Average: 76-79 Average: 74-75 Acceptable: 70-73 Unacceptable for competition: 0-69
2. All photographs receiving initial scores of 78-79 are automatically eligible for review. On re-judging, a majority vote of 67% is required to change the score. The final score is the official score for that competition. All discrepancies in score must be brought to the attention of the Print Competition Chairperson by the close of the evening’s competition and be resolved at that time only. Failure to do so will result in the entry being scored as recorded.
Selecting of the Judging Panel
1. Judging panels will, when possible, consist of five members. Three judges will be from outside IEPPV, and the remaining two judges can be IEPPV members. Selecting of the outside judges will be based on criteria in the following order: First choice will be PPA Master’s degree holders. Second choice will be photographers holding ten (10) PPA Exhibit print merits, PPC Fellowship awardees or PPA Certified Professional Photographers. Third choice will be PPA Photographic Craftsman degree holders. Except in emergencies, only two of the five judges may be IEPPV members. IEPPV board members or the Print Competition chair may approve other recognized individuals as judges on a case-by-case basis. No judge may enter work in a competition in which he or she is judging.
Ribbons and Awards
1. Entries attaining a final score between 80 and 100 will be given an Award of Merit Ribbon. Entries attaining a final score between 76 and 79 will be given an Award of Exhibition. Best of Category Ribbons are awarded for the highest score (minimum of 80) within a category or by 67% vote of the judges in case of a tie. Best of Show Ribbon is awarded to the entry selected by a 67% vote of the judges from the Best of Category winners, Workshop category excepted.
Annual Awards Eligibility
1. To be considered for an award, one must be an IEPPV member in good standing and have entered a minimum of four prints and/or albums in a minimum of three competitions during the calendar year.
Awards
1. In each category, an entrant’s four highest scores with a minimum score of 80 (except for the New Photographer of the Year award, where the minimum score is 76) will be averaged to determine the award in each category. Fewer than four entries in a category will disqualify an entrant for consideration as that category’s Photographer of the Year. In the event of a tie, the highest individual score will determine the winner in that category. When appropriate, the “New Photographer of the Year” will be awarded to a qualified member who has never entered an IEPPV print competition before the current year.
2. The photographer with the highest score in each category will receive the “Professional Photographer of the Year” award for that category. The four highest scores for each photographer (from all categories he/she has entered this year) will be averaged and the photographer with the highest average will be awarded the “Inland Empire Professional Photographer of the Year“.
3. In the Workshop category, the above scoring and year-end score tabulating standards will apply. The highest-scoring photographer in this category who meets the above criteria will be honored with the Workshop Photographer of the Year award.
4. All photographs and albums (except those in the Workshop category) with a score of 80 and above, and previewed at the annual awards banquet, will qualify for the “People’s Choice Award“. All participants at the annual awards banquet, whether or not a member of IEPPV, will have one vote for the people’s choice award and the photograph or album with the most votes will receive the award.
Revised February, 2010