The Visual Education Photography Awards – Launch
It’s on! We’re kicking off this year’s awards with all the info you need to enter-and win. Categories, prizes, deadlines, and a peak at what the judges are looking for.
See more details and enter here.
Comments
Hi Karl,
I have a question about the portrait category. Are group portraits accepted in this competition?
Thank you!
Hi, no group portraits are not accepted in this category.
Question about sports .. I sometimes shoot airshows, some of which is performed by teams such as the Red Bull team .. but may not fall directly into sports per se. Where do you fall in that?
I have been involved in a few competitions, and of note.. concerning wildlife.. a huge line drawn in the sand for most competitions are zoo images. They have a different category usually. As well, macro is usually pulled aside in its own category. Just mentioning those common delineations.
Concerning AI and exacting specifics.. check out the rules around the NZIPP Iris awards or the Aussie Photography Prize.. they spell out the differences very specifically. One of the issues is AI is used in the most common procedures now in photoshop.. its literally unavoidable. But in terms of the rules, its the generative fill & AI backgrounds.. creating objects and subject matter.. however, if you haven’t noticed, when performing a focus stack, photoshop automatically completes any missing gaps using its AI fill technology. But this is why competitions spell out the rules in detail and I thought your rule lacks specifics.
Concerning composites, many compositions require all the images used and specify that each element has been shot by the entrant. All sorts of mischievous items appear in composites.
During my travel period, I shot on film. I have digitalized versions.. I am assuming that is fair game. But that is pulling from my history… but possible. This video suggested as much.
Every competition I have been involved with, the entries are submitted in a fashion where the photographer is anonymous to the judges. This is important, for instance, if the same photographer is a front leader in multiple areas .. judges may decide against a name, even if it is unintentional.
Also, every competition I’ve been involved with uses a point scoring system such as: 25% Capture, 25% Post Production, 25% Narrative, 25% Wow Factor … as an example.. it can vary. They are all very specific, I believe because it takes away some of the personal bias of judges .. and helps facilitate a judge to consistently grade with a numerical decision. Just mentioning that…
Hi Gary, on your first point I’d say that would fall into Sports. On your second point we will see how this competition goes and the feedback and we will consider adjusting the categories next year, it may be that some categories underperform and we remove them all together or we introduce new ones. For the Ai, we have our own rules that we will be adhering to, to ensure that the purity of photography and creativity is maintained, for example on my focus stack work no Ai is used and we will make our assessments from the RAW files that we request, at this stage we don’t need specifics because I think it’s clear that we are looking for real work. Again with the composites we made it clear that will be also seeking the RAW files for each layer of a composite, certainly for any finalists at least. Yes digitized film entries are acceptable but again we could request to see evidence of the original film if we felt anything was amiss. When we are judging we will be only looking at the quality of the work, many of the judges have no idea of our leaderboard or who people are. We are only judging on a winner and a second and third place with possibly a highly commended again it will be on the quality of the work and how impactful an image is. This competition is a bonus to our members, it is not an obligation on our part we may not even decide to run it again if it becomes too problematic and time consuming and we will simply stick with our current briefs and critiques leader board. All the best Karl.
Thanks Karl .. completely agree. I’ve become friends with a few people running competitions and they all agree they are a lot of work.. rewarding work, but the good ones take on a life of their own. I’ve been so busy I’m not on the leaderboard at all, so I need to crack on a bit it seems. The Aussie show right now has live judging for top 30 in a category, which is quite interesting to see. I guess best comment to leave behind here is set the rules, post the rules and then let the chips fall where they may. People can’t complain then.
👍 Yes good point, I think Tim is working on a page for our site to do that.
Hi!
Can you please clarify? There is some overlap between the brief and critique categories (portrait, product and spaghetti) and the competition categories. Can I enter my portrait critique image for the portrait competition?
Cheers,
Peter
You omitted a Natural History category? Strange, that is a very well known category of photography found in the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), The Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB), British Photographic Exhibitions (BPE), Scottish Photographic Federation (SPF) and Internationally Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photographique (FIAP has over 90 member countries.)
Seems like you have excluded every plant, flora and fauna and micro organism by saying your “Lion photo would take priority over a plant of course” in your Wildlife category. A rather silly statement. I can assure you that accurate, scientific documentation of natural organisms and ecosystems are highly important and you should not arbitrarily choose one over the other.
This year we judged and ran a local regional based competition in the UK and judged 600 Projected Digital Images on one day and over 300 physical prints on day 2. All run under the criteria of The Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB). You woud be well advised to follow such criteria for ease of judging, from an organisation of your choice, especially if you have not run such a large competition before.
Natural History -Wild animals, insects, fungi, plants, natural behaviours
Wildlife – Wild animals, birds, behaviour scenes
Landscape – Mountains, forests, coastlines, urban/rural vistas,
Portraiture – Portraiture is the depiction of a person (or group) where the intent is to capture the personality, expression, mood, or essence of the subject.
Street – Street photography captures candid moments of everyday life in public spaces. It often includes people, but not always, and focuses on spontaneity, irony, or visual storytelling.
Architecture – Architecture photography captures the design, structure, and form of buildings and other man-made constructions. It can be both documentary and artistic.
Travel Travel photography documents the essence of a location, its people, culture, environment, or landscape in a truthful and compelling way.
Sports – Sport photography captures moments of athletic action, competition, or related emotion. It includes both professional and amateur sporting events.
I think you other categories may have your own definitions as they are part of the Visual Education training within your membership.
I am happy to advise.
Best of luck.
Hi, thank you for your email and the extensive information. Please note this is the first year that we’ve run this competition and awards for our members. We’ve never run a competition like this, we are an education business and our members are with us for the education, there was never any expectations from them to have competitions and an annual prize of such value. What we’re trying to do is give back to our members and this competition is part of that – we will learn from it and we hope it is a success and next year we may include other categories. It would be better if rather than give us a hard time about it you supported what we were trying to do for our members. I’ve been a judge on many international competitions and some of them have had just a few categories – the decision of what is in a competition and what is not doesn’t come from a ‘photography alliance’ or anyone else – it comes from those putting up the prizes, the work and who run the business behind it. This is a bonus for our members, we’re not asking them to pay extra to enter like many other competitions that operate purely for profit and through our sponsors we’re giving away even bigger prizes than many other competitions. It might be more appropriate for you to see the positives of what we’re trying to do in our first year.
Dear Karl,
I have supported this platform since 2018. The prizes for your new competition are exceptional. No doubt about that. Members get extensive training and advice and I am sure the addition of the competition and prizes is well received. It is true that some competitions and Salons are run for profit as regards to entry costs but they are few and far between, fortunately.
The organisations I mentioned are “umbrella organisations” that manage photography clubs or nationally promote photography education. All are Non Profit. Most countries will have their own equivalents. I mentioned those applicablle to the U.K. Naturally, they have to have rules and criteria not only for national membership but for competitions, so everyone can enter and understand they are working to the same rules. More or less, the categories I mentioned are most commonly used and entered.
Of course, competition categories are often based around the core industry of the business. You educate in Product Photography, so naturally, I understand why there is that category or a Fashion category. This is the first time you have opened up to much wider range of genres. It is a big shift and I think they should include the categories that covers every genre in that case. I would prefer to see a Natural History rather than Wildlife as it would cover more subjects.
We use a system of 3 judges, usually, all of the same distinction. This way individual bias is avoided. You said you didnt really rate a plant over a lion but another judge might, as some images are rated on there story telling ability rather than the technical aspects.
Best regards
Hi, thank you for your continues support on our platfom. Hopefully as we learn and see how well received our competition becomes then we can look at the categories again for next year. The judging here will involve 5 people from our business and potentially some from broncolor too so hopefully we won’t suffer individual bias and the opinions will be varied.