Table of Contents

LPA Competition Rules

Revision Date: November 8, 2011 (this is no longer affective

General Rules

For additional information about print scoring and judging, refer to Print Rules

  1. Competitions are open to current LPA members. All entries, digital, prints and slides, must be entered one week prior to competition night, by midnight. Enter at http://www.lpaphotography.org/photocomp/. No Late entries will be accepted. Prints and slides are not required to upload the image file, but it would be appreciated.
  2. Entry fee $3.00 for each member for each contest.
  3. Maximum of 3 entries per competitor per contest. This will include digital, slides and prints. Example: 3 slides or 3 prints, or 2 slides and 1 print, or 2 prints and 1 slide or 2 digital and 1 print.
  4. Prints must have one dimension (length or width) of at least 9“.
  5. Maximum mount board size in Novice, Amateur, and Advanced categories is 16” x 20” and 17” x 24” in the Master category. Panoramic prints may be up to 320 square inches in area in Novice, Amateur, and Advanced categories and up to 408 square inches in the Master category.
  6. Prints must be mounted. Foam core is recommended, but mount board will be accepted. Borders on mount boards are acceptable.
  7. Mats and frames are NOT accepted.
  8. The back of each print will have the photographer's name and the title of the picture. Each slide will be identified by title and photographer's name on the mount, no stickers. Slides must have a dot on the lower left corner of the mount when viewed properly.
  9. An image that has won 1st, 2nd or 3rd in any past LPA competition may not be re-entered. HM's may be re-entered. New work is encouraged.
    1. All entries will be judged at the level in which they are entered. The issuing of ribbons will be left to the discretion of the judge. Ribbons will not be given if the judge does not feel the entry is deserving of an award. Ribbons will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and HM’s, and the decisions of the judges will be final. Judges will be selected by the Chairperson.
    2. When a competitor wins two first place ribbons in a given level since they started competing at LPA, they will be moved to the next higher level for the next competition year. For this purpose, only regular LPA competitions are considered. Blue ribbons won in other competitions, including the LPA's “Year End” competition and the AV Fair, do not count. Moving up to next level is “Mandatory” only once a year. You can choose to move up to the next level at anytime with the concurrence of the Competition Chairperson.
  10. A new member may select the level they wish to start in, or voluntarily move to a higher level, with the concurrence of the Competition Chairperson.
  11. The Competition Chair will update the MEMBER LEVELS list when new members join and member levels are changed.
  12. A “Year End” competition will be conducted annually at the June meeting. First-place winning photographs from each of the 4 levels and three divisions will compete for end-of-the-year trophies and/or awards.
    1. The judging method for this competition will be decided by the Competition Chairperson. Both judged awards and members' choice awards may be given in each division and level. The Competition Chairperson will determine the awards for this competition (e.g. trophies, mementos, and/or ribbons). The Winners List is maintained at http://www.lpaphotography.org/photocomp/index.php?view=winners.
    2. There will be no ties for end-of-the-year trophies or awards; any ties at the “Year End” competition will be broken by a run-off vote.
    3. A member may win at only one level in the “Year End” competition. If a person has won first-place ribbons in more than one level, he or she will compete in the higher level for the end-of-the-year trophy or award. His or her first place photographs in the lower level would not be eligible for this competition. For example, if a member won a blue ribbon in the novice level and voluntarily moved up at mid year to amateur and did not win any more blue ribbons, that blue ribbon photograph would compete at the novice level in the “Year End” competition. If the person also won a blue ribbon at the amateur level, only the amateur blue ribbon photograph would be eligible for the “Year End” competition.
      Note: The level the photo was entered in, is the level the photo stays in, regardless of the level of the photographer for the year end competition.
  13. One Entrant Provisions - All Competitions
    When there is only one entrant in a level then there is not much of a contest. For this reason, for print competitions in the Novice, Amateur and Advanced Amateur levels where there is only one entrant, although he/she may have 3 photographs the following process will be followed. The entrant will be contacted by the competition chair and given the choice of moving his/her entries to the next level or submitting the digital versions for judging at the original level. If the competition chair does not receive a reply from the entrant then the entries shall be moved to the next level. In the event that the next level has no prints then the image will be put in the digital competition at the original level. If a member wins a ribbon for a photograph that has been moved up due to the one entrant provision, that ribbon will be awarded at the higher level at which the member competed due to the one entrant provision. For example, an advanced amateur competing with masters due to the one entrant provision would win a masters level ribbon.

    For the end-of-year competition, a first place photo will compete at the level it was entered, regardless of the level at which it won. For example, a novice member’s photograph that wins an amateur blue ribbon due to the one entrant provision, would compete for the end-of-year award at the novice level. If that novice member moves up to amateur at mid year, and does not win any amateur blue ribbons after he or she moves up, then his or her photograph that won an amateur blue ribbon due to the one entrant provision would compete for the end-of-year award at the novice level. If that novice member who moved up at mid year subsequently wins an amateur blue ribbon, then the blue ribbon photo that was entered at the novice level but won at the amateur level would not be eligible for the end-of-year competition.

Digital Rules

  1. File type: JPEG
  2. Levels: Four: Novice, Amateur, Advanced Amateur and Master (same as for prints).
  3. File size: At least 100 KB, but not more than 4 MB.
  4. Digital images must be received by the Tuesday before the competition (one week ahead). Enter your images at http://www.lpaphotography.org/photocomp/. No Late entries will be accepted.

Recommendations for optimum viewing

  1. Set JPEG compression to ‘high’ or ‘maximum’.
  2. Set the maximum dimension in pixels to 1400 wide by 1280 high for best viewing on the club's projector.
  3. Set color to sRGB to best match the color gamut of the club's projector.
  4. Note: All entries, whether in vertical or horizontal format, will be viewed to fit the display monitor. As such, entries presented in the horizontal format will show up larger on the screen.
Helpful Information

Revision Date: June, 2014

The board voted to change the print competition rules for the next competition year. The intent is to make it more interesting and test out a new scoring system.

Print competition rules are changing as of July 1, 2014. Prints will be scored on a scale of 5 to 9. There will be two levels, intermediate and master, and all prints will be scored at the same time. A print scoring a 9 will be given an excellence award. A score of 8 will be given an honorable mention for those in the master level and an excellence award for those in the intermediate level. A score of 7 will earn an honorable mention for those in the intermediate level.

Members currently in the novice and amateur class will be considered at the intermediate level for prints. Advanced amateur and master will be in the master level. All new members will start in the level corresponding to their level in the digital competition.

For end of year judging, all honorable mentions and excellence awards will be considered. Picture of the year will be awarded to one print in each level.

If an entrant moves up from intermediate to master during the competition year, then for end of the year judging, all entries will be re-scored on the master criteria for inclusion in the master end of year competition. If an entrant moves down during the year then he or she must stay at that level until he or she re-qualifies for advancement. For the purposes of advancement two excellence awards will count as one blue ribbon in the digital division.

Scoring criteria: