Shrewsbury Open Photography Exhibition

The 21st Shrewsbury Open Photography Exhibition - 2015

Under PAGB patronage, and member of British Photographic Exhibitions

Acceptances gained will count towards the BPE Crown awards

Exhibition Chairman - Judy Mainwaring

www.shropshire-photographic.org.uk

All enquiries: sope@shropshire-photographic.org.uk

Categories (Digitally projected only):

  • Open
  • Monochrome
  • Nature (PAGB Nature Definition)
  • Landscape

Awards:

  • PAGB Gold medal for Best image in each category
  • PAGB Gold medal for Best Entry of 4 in one category
  • PAGB Silver Selector’s medals x 3 in each category
  • PAGB Ribbons for Highly Commended
  • BPE Ribbons for Commended

Selectors:

  • Peter Clark FRPS EFIAP/p APASA MPSA
  • Louise Hill LRPS CPAGB DPAGB MPAGB
  • Bill Preston LRPS DPAGB BPE3*

Exhibition Calendar

Postal entries close Saturday 19 September 2015

  • Online entries close: Midday (12.00) GMT. Wednesday 30 September 2015
  • Selection: Saturday 3 October 2015
  • Notification of results: 17 October 2015

PLEASE NOTE:  Entries received online between Sunday 13 September and Monday 28 September inclusive will not be processed until after the closing date. This is because the organisers will be out of the country during this period. Do not worry, your entries will be safe, you will receive your acknowledgement in due course. 

Entrants should ensure that they provide an active e-mail address for this purpose.

Exhibition Catalogue & Presentation disks will be sent by: 21 November 2015.

All entrants will receive a presentation disk suitable for Windows PC, which will include the catalogue in pdf format and a silent, automatic slideshow of all the accepted images.

If you require a Mac version please let us know via e-mail - sope@shropshire-photographic.org.uk

Exhibition Showing of accepted images and Awards Presentation:

  • Monday 9 November 2015 at the Gateway Arts Centre, Chester St, Shrewsbury SY1 1NB

Further shows:

  • Bridgnorth Photographic Society, Thursday 26 November 2015 at the Community Centre, Severn St, Lowtown, Brignorth WV15 6BD
  • Tettenhall Wood Photographic Club, Tuesday 19 January 2016 at Tettenhall Wood Institute, Wood Drive, Tettenhall Wood, Wolverhampton WV6 8NF

Disks of the show set to music (for clubs with a PRS licence only) and/or with manual advance for club showings, will be available for sale.

Entry Rules

  1. The competition is open to all amateur and professional photographers resident in the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and British Forces posted overseas ONLY.
  2. Entries may be submitted via the online entry form at www.photocompentries.net/?org=ShropshirePS or, if you wish by post on CD – in that case, please download the postal entry form from http://www.shropshire-photographic.org.uk/ for instructions and postal address. All final work must be submitted as digital files.
  3. Each entrant may submit up to four images in each of the 4 categories. Images entered in one category must not be duplicated in another category. For example, a monochrome landscape image can be entered in either the monochrome or the landscape category but not both.
  4. A Shrewsbury entry form (online or printed) must be completed by each entrant.
  5. CDs will be destroyed and rejected images deleted from SPS computers not later than 31st January following the exhibition.
  6. Entry fees: £1.50 per image - (minimum fee £6.00).  Entry fees can be paid by using a PayPal account or credit/debit card, or by cheque for postal entries.  All payments should be made in pounds Sterling. All cheques to be made payable to Shropshire Photographic Society. Entries sent with insufficient or no entry fees will not be judged.
  7. CDs should be posted with sufficient strengthening. No responsibility can be accepted for broken CDs received or for damaged/lost images, howsoever caused, although every effort will be made to contact the entrant to resubmit images.
  8. Permission to reproduce any entries on the website, the exhibition catalogue/CD or in any publicity material is assumed, unless otherwise stated by the entrant on the entry form or notified by e-mail.
  9. Judges’ voting will be by electronic machine. Scores will be reported in writing by e-mail to each entrant. Entrants should keep a separate copy of their entries or the completed form(s). The judges’ decision is final.
  10. Entries accepted in a previous Shrewsbury Open Photography Exhibition (or ones so similar as to be indistinguishable) are ineligible.
  11. For all entries, the original exposure must be made by the entrant, any modification to the original exposure must be made by, or under the personal direction of, the entrant. All images may be colour or monochrome from film or digital originals.
  12. For Nature entries, please see the PAGB nature definition: May 2015
    Nature photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict 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 certify its honest presentation.
     The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining high technical quality. Human elements shall not be present, except where those human elements are integral parts of the nature story such as nature subjects, like barn owls or storks, adapted to an environment modified by humans, or where those human elements are in situations depicting natural forces, like hurricanes or tidal waves. Scientific bands, scientific tags or radio collars on wild animals are permissible. Photographs of human created hybrid plants, cultivated plants, feral animals, domestic animals, or mounted specimens are ineligible, as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement.
     No techniques that add, relocate, replace, or remove pictorial elements except by cropping are permitted. Techniques that enhance the presentation of the photograph without changing the nature story or the pictorial content, or without altering the content of the original scene, are permitted including HDR, focus stacking and dodging/burning. Techniques that remove elements added by the camera, such as dust spots, digital noise, and film scratches, are allowed. Stitched images are not permitted. All allowed adjustments must appear natural.
     Colour images can be converted to greyscale monochrome. Infrared images, either direct-captures or derivations, are not allowed.
     Images used in Nature Photography competitions may be divided in two classes: Nature and Wildlife. Images entered in Nature sections meeting the Nature Photography Definition above can have landscapes, geologic formations, weather phenomena, and extant organisms as the primary subject matter. This includes images taken with the subjects in controlled conditions, such as zoos, game farms, botanical gardens, aquariums and any enclosure where the subjects are totally dependent on man for food.
     Images entered in Wildlife sections meeting the Nature Photography Definition above are further defined as one or more extant zoological or botanical organisms free and unrestrained in a natural or adopted habitat. Wildlife is not limited to animals, birds and insects. Marine subjects and botanical subjects (including fungi and algae) taken in the wild are suitable wildlife subjects, as are carcasses of extant species. Wildlife images may be entered in Nature sections of Exhibitions.
    Note: this is now a definition agreed by FIAP, PSA, RPAS, PAGB and its Federations.
  13. The Exhibition Committee reserves the right to withhold without consultation any entry deemed unsuitable for public exhibition.
  14. Entrants must own the copyright of all images or components of images used in any submitted entry. The Shropshire Photographic Society accepts no liability for any breach of copyright by an entrant. Furthermore, no liability is accepted for any transgression of a third party organisation's rules or permissions by an entrant in taking a photograph.
  15. The catalogue will be provided to all entrants on a CD as a pdf file, together with a silent, automatic slide show of all the accepted images and award winners. This show can be played on a PC with a CD ROM Drive. No actual image files will be released on this disk, to prevent unauthorised copying or use of images. Mac compatible copies will be available but you must indicate on your entry form or let us know by e-mail. Copyright of any image resides with the author; but entrants must be aware that their work could be downloaded from the website, however the resolution will be insufficient for reproduction in any other media.
  16. Any enquiries should be submitted by e-mail (sope@shropshire-photographic.org.uk)
  17. Entry of the Exhibition is deemed to be acceptance of all the conditions.

Image preparation:
Entries will be processed by computer with little human intervention so it is essential that these instructions are followed exactly. Mac users please ensure file extensions are enabled - entries are processed on a PC which will not recognise a .jpg without the file extension in the file name. Entrants should note that any images which are incorrectly submitted in terms of size and colour space will automatically be corrected by the projection software without recourse to the originator. Images submitted at a higher pixel count than specified will be automatically down-sized, images that are smaller will be displayed against a black background at the size provided. Images not in sRGB colour space will be automatically converted. Image files should be no larger than 5mb; image files significantly larger than 5mb may be resized or deleted by the system administrator - the photographer will normally be informed (but this cannot be guaranteed).

Images not conforming to these requirements may not be shown to the selectors or included on the exhibition CD and the entry fee will not be refunded, although every effort will be made to contact the entrant for resubmission.

Image size/format: Entries must be submitted in .jpg format, at a screen resolution of 1400 pixels wide by 1050 pixels high, in sRGB colour space, preferably without borders and should be at maximum quality. If borders are used they should be no more than 2 pixels wide. If your image is less than the maximum in any direction you may, if you wish, fill the unused area with any colour, design or texture, although it is advisable that you do not use white or very light colours. If there is no fill, the software used for projection will automatically present the image with a black background. Make a copy of your finished image, convert the colour space in the copy to sRGB (even for monochrome images) resize it, and then submit the copied image.

Titles: Each image must have a unique title no more than 30 characters long, with no identification of the photographer in the title or embedded in the image. N.B. If your title has a number as its first word, e.g. 3 Buses, please type the word in full not the number, i.e. Three Buses. Copy your resized files into a folder for the category you are entering. There is no need to rename your files for online entry, the titles can be manually entered at the time of uploading. Do not type your name into the image title field, or anything else that might identify you. Type the titles with capitals and punctuation as you would want it to appear in the catalogue.

Entry on CD
Multiple entries may be sent on a single CD, provided that each entrant’s images are in a separate folder named with the entrant’s name and the CD is clearly labelled with the names of all the entrants.
Please download and print the postal entry form from www.shropshire-photographic.org.uk and follow the instructions carefully for submission on CD.

If you need any direct help, you may e-mail sope@shropshire-photographic.org.uk