2025 RULES & FORMAT FOR COMPETITIONS

Photo Club competitions are for SCC photo club members (per CA rules). These are friendly and fair events where we can share and compare our work.  All levels of photography skill are welcome, and we hope that your participation will lead to improving your photo abilities.

You must be a member in good standing of the SCC Photo Club to enter.

Only photos or images that are the exclusive work of the maker may be entered. Therefore, the image must be taken and edited by the member, advice and minor assistance is acceptable

The number of competitions – five (5) – that are currently in place, will remain the same. Competitions will be held in the same months as they are now- JANUARY, MARCH, JUNE and SEPTEMBER. with the Best of the Best in DECEMBER

In each competition there are four (4) Competition categories in both Print and Digital: Color, Monochrome, Creative, and Documentary. Making a total of eight (8) separate categories

For the 2025 year, in each competition, a photographer may submit up to six (6) entries total in any category, with a maximum of four (4) Digitals and six (6) Prints. for example, you can enter 4 digitals and 2 prints for a maximum of 6, 1 digital and 5 prints for a maximum of 6, or 3 of each for a maximum of 6, but you CANNOT enter 5 digitals and 1 print or 6 digitals.

See rules for resubmission.

Experienced Judges will be sought out from the photography community to provide as good an experience for the S.C.C. participants as possible. While judges have standardized guidelines they try to follow in judging, they see your photo for maybe a minute, so they may miss flaws or focus on flaws they see.  Don’t be discouraged – consider making the improvements mentioned and resubmit another year (see resubmission rules). 

Judging will be based on a 1-20 score, with 20 being the highest
– A score of 20 and 19 points will earn a Gold
– A score of 18 and 17 points will earn a Silver
– A score of 16 points will earn a Bronze
If there are no gold score in a category, then silver will be the highest award; if
there are no 17 or 18 scores, then the highest award will be bronze.
Gold and Silver Ribbon Winners (scores of 19 and 20, and 17 and 18) will be
entered into the
Best of the Best Competition – which will continue to be held in December. Bronze
is not eligible for BOB.

A score below 16 will not receive an award, even if it is the highest score in a category

Definition of Categories (Print or Digital):

• 1. Color and Mono category content: The photograph, in its entirety, must be a work of original material taken by the Contest entrant. The photo components may be edited, enhanced, layered, “photo-shopped”, etc. but the entrant must have taken each component of the completed photo. Photos may have frames, strokes or vignettes added.
     • Color– This category includes color images, (except those defined as “Creative/Interpretive below) whether or not they have undergone digital enhancement, but the image must maintain a realistic or natural look. Multi-colored infrared images are allowed.
     • Mono – This category includes monochromatic images (except those defined as “Creative/Interpretive” below), which are completely desaturated into black, white and gray or contain only one single color tone (e.g. sepia, blue, etc.). Digital enhancement is allowed but the image must maintain a realistic or natural look. Infrared images in one color tone are allowed.
  2. Creative/Interpretive category content: The entrant MUST take all the components of the photo. The photograph may be enhanced in many ways (example – add textures, backgrounds, frames, creative brushes).
     • • Creative– This category includes color or monochromatic images that are recognizably altered. Creative images must not be constructed entirely in the computer but must originate from the maker’s photograph or photographs.
       • Interpretive – The image is less altered than creative but doesn’t look natural: Highly saturated HDR would be an example.

1. 3. Documentary category content:  The photograph, in its entirety, must be a work of original material taken by the Contest entrant.

• • • Documentary: This category includes images that portray “a moment in time.” Images must represent real life as it happened with its flaws and peculiarities. The art is in the story or the message using the existing lighting and surroundings. Some global correction on the entire image is allowed for exposure, contrast, clarity or sharpening, de-noising, and color balance. Corrections are to be kept to a minimum. The image can be straightened and cropped. Correcting only parts of the image is NOT allowed. Judges will use existing judging criteria to score images but will give the story the most weight. Subjects may include people, animals, sports, music events, night scenes, rural or urban environments, etc. 

• • • NOT ALLOWED: Portraits and Still Life type photos. Corrections in selected areas; monochrome; filters on camera or in post-processing; Infrared; set-up situations or studio captures; HDR processing or blending images; vignettes, frames or borders.

Documentary and Still Life and Portraits are not the same – a photo of a flower, for ex, may be untouched but that doesn’t make it appropriate for a documentary entry. “A moment in time” is: you caught the flower falling in the air off a cliff – that is a moment in time which makes it appropriate (the next person walking by won’t see the same flower in the same setting). 

Clarification: The recent AI technology has not changed our rules – you may remove items from your photo but not add items you didn’t take. We have always been able to edit our photos by changing the sky (with one we’ve taken), enlarging the canvas and add items from one photo to another using layers. Now some of this work is easier but we can’t use clip art or other items we didn’t take regardless how easy it is to do with AI.  

Mistakes Happen

The competition committee is the arbiter of all club photo competitions. Their role is to develop the rules, answer questions and clarify rules and criteria for members and arbitrate differences.

A scored entry is challenged (by the committee or another member) by contacting the Committee Chairperson with the Image’s Title and Category and the reason for the challenge along with the challenger’s name within 5 days of the competition. 

The Competition Committee should review the photo asap and if found in violation by the Competition Committee, the photographer will be asked to voluntarily remove it and be given the opportunity to enter it into the correct category in a future competition.  All references to the photo will be removed from this competition so no mix-up will occur.

The photographer may appeal the committee’s decision by writing to the Committee Chairperson within 7 days of the Committee’s decision or the committee’s decision is final.  The majority vote rules.

 To make a fair decision, the Committee may ask the member to provide the original image for comparisons and rulings.  The committee may also use technology, such as AI detection software, in evaluating the photo being reviewed.

By submitting a photo, the entrant represents, acknowledges, and warrants that the submitted photograph meets the criteria.

Any score given for a photo found not to meet these rules will be deleted.

The clarification also reminds us that the club’s goal is to promote better photography, not collages of other people’s photography – AI or not. 

Submission

Your digital and print images must be submitted through this website

• Your images must be in .jpg file format
• The file name must match the Title EXACTLY
• The file must be smaller than 10Mb
• The image must be less than 3000 pixels on the longest side, and greater than 800 pixels on the longest side
• Once submitted you may change your entries at any time up until midnight on the closing date of the competition
• Print entries must then be mounted on a 16×20 mount board and brought to the competition (actual print can be any size, although anything less than 8×10 would be at a disadvantaged)
• Print entries may not have any extension or protrusions from the print that might leave impressions on other prints in the competition.
• There should be no identifying marks on the image, e.g. signature, logo, monogram etc.