Wallingford Photographic Club Competition Rules and Guidance
including the use of ai

These are the competition rules for internal competitions at the club, together with guidelines for submitting prints and digital files. Please read these guidelines carefully before submitting your photos. If you  need any clarification of these rules, please ask any member of the committee, who will be pleased to help.  

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WPC organises competitions for its members on a monthly basis, as well as special annual competitions generally held at the end of the season. Competitions are open to fully paid up Club Members only. The main benefit to people submitting their photos is to obtain an independent appraisal of their work and learn how to improve their photography. As such, a ‘competition’ does not need to be entered for competitive reasons: you can enter simply to obtain some useful feedback about your work. Photos are assessed by an external judge recommended by the Chiltern Association of Camera Clubs (CACC). Judges will be experienced photographers who have received specific training, organised by the CACC, to ensure that common criteria are used.
 

Monthly Club Competitions
In monthly competitions, marks are awarded out of 20 for each photograph; for annual competitions the judge awards first, second, third positions. Judges may also award Highly Commended and Commended status. 

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Each monthly competition will be classified as either a themed or  ‘no set subject’ (NSS). The criteria for any ‘themed competition will be published prior to the competition. For NSS competitions, you can enter any photograph on any theme you wish.
 

There are three classes in each competition:

• Colour Prints

• Monochrome Prints

• Digital Projected Images (DPI)

Marks awarded at monthly competitions are accumulated during the season and the person with the most marks in each class at the end of the season is awarded a trophy. Individual trophies for the annual competitions are also awarded.

Image allowance, per monthly competition
For the monthly competitions, you can submit a maximum of TWO images in any one class with a total of SIX images in total per member per competition.

• e.g. up to 2x DPI plus 2x Monochrome Print plus 2x Colour Print.

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Different rules apply to Portfolio / travel / architecture and Annual competitions. See the Rules on Annual Occurring Competitions. A Schedule of Proposed Competitions for each season will be posted on the WPC website prior to the start of each season.
 

Ownership Copyright and Processing
All elements of the work submitted for competitions or exhibitions must be the work of the Author. All assets used in an image must have been captured by optical means by the author, and the copyright of all elements of a picture must be owned by the Author. For the avoidance of doubt, use of images from any other source including, but not limited to, websites, royalty free image banks and clipart are not permitted. By entry of an image for a competition, members are deemed to grant licence to WPC to use the image on; the website, social media and other forms of publicity relating to the club.
 

AI

The use of machine-learning software, services and applications, generally known as AI is becoming common in photo editing software. For the purpose of our competition rules, the use of AI has been broken down into two distinct categories:

1. Editing tools that use AI/machine learning technologies to edit and transform photos. The use of software for editing images such as cloning, compositing, sky replacement, blurring, etc. are accepted forms of image post-processing, as these are methods that were originally used in the darkroom. The introduction of AI/machine learning-assisted editing tools is an extension of these techniques, therefore, the use of these tools will be permitted to edit and post-process competition images. It must be noted that this  does not supersede the requirement that ALL assets used within an image should be the author’s own work and that all assets used in an image must have been captured by optical means by the author.

2. Software that creates computer-generated images or partial images from scratch. The use of computer software, services and applications to create a completely computer-generated image is not permitted. Images entered into club competition must be the author’s own work, created solely using assets captured by optical means and the copyright is owned by the author. 

The committee has the right to request a digital copy of an image complete with the associated Metadata before accepting an image for inclusion within a competition.

Prints

• Prints must be mounted onto stiff card with a maximum dimension of 500mm x 400mm.

• You can mount prints by cutting an aperture and attaching the image using Framing Tape. Please refer to the Print Mounting Guide for information on how to do this.

• OR you can fix the image directly to the front of the card using glue or double sided tape.

• Your Name and Title of the print must be shown clearly in the top left-hand corner on the back of the mount.

Prints must be brought to the club on the Thursday one week prior to the competition night. No late entries will be allowed unless by prior arrangement.

Digital Projected Image (DPI)

The DPI file must conform to the following:

• File type: jpg

• The image must be sized to 1400 horizontal pixels max x 1050 vertical pixels max.

• Maximum file size should be no greater than 2Mb.

• All images must fit into this canvas size. Scale as necessary. No rotation required for portrait format.

• The format file name must be:  Your Name_Photo Title.jpg

Your DPI image must be emailed to: wpc.competitions@gmail.com by midnight on the Sunday preceding the competition. You will receive an automated reply to say that your image has been received. No late entries will be allowed unless by prior agreement.

Image Bank 

Following a Competition, for any print awarded 18, 19 or 20 marks in a monthly competition or 1st 2nd or 3rd in an annual competition, a digital version MUST be sent to the image bank email account: wpcimagebank@gmail.com using the following filename format:

Author - Filename - Points awarded - Colour or Mono print - Competition & Date

e.g. Your Name_Photo Title-10-CP-NSS2-Nov2024

These images, together with the DPI's with similar scores, form the pool from which images are chosen for External Competitions with other local clubs. Should any member not desire that their image be used in external competitions, they must advise the Committee when it is sent to the Image Bank.

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