Poly’s monthly competitions from January to November consist of three parts: the Project Competition; and two Open Competition categories called the Realistic category and the Creative category. Each member may enter one image in the Project Competition; and two images in either one of or split between the two Open Competition categories. For category descriptions, see below Poly Photo Camera Club Competition Rules.
Entries must be attached to an email (attach all three images to a single email) and sent no later than 11:59 p.m. the Sunday before the competition. The email address for entries is given to Poly members and not shown here.
Poly’s computer uses Windows. Please be sure to send your images as attachments to your email. Mac users need to be aware that the default behavior of Mac email software is to embed images into the body of an email and becomes unusable for competition.
What to Enter
For ideas about what kinds of images do well in competition, look at the winners displayed in the Photo Gallery on Poly’s website.
Because Poly uses a variety of monthly competition judges, and judging is subjective, you’ll never know for sure what will do well. But after you’ve been to several competitions, you’ll begin to get a good idea of what judges are looking for. Feel free to enter subjects that interest you in their appropriate category, and most of all, have fun.
Here’s how to prepare and send your images.
Quick Guide to Poly Competition Image Submissions
Image dimensions: no greater than 1920 pixels wide, no greater than 1080 pixels tall. Convert to sRGB, 8bit, save as JPEG.
Image names:
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- Project – PROJECT Theme by Author.jpg. Example: PROJECT Water by Doug Smith.jpg.
- Creative – CI Title by Author.jpg. Example: CI Martian Invasion by Orson Welles.jpg
- Realistic – RI Title by Author.jpg. Example: RI Winter Storm by Ansel Adams.jpg
- If your image name does not start with “PROJECT,” “CI,” or “RI,” it will be entered into the Creative Category by default.
Project image requirements: must be created on or after Nov. 1 of previous year, and creation date must show in metadata.
Send jpegs to the email address you will receive in a Poly Flash email no later than 11:59 p.m. on the Sunday prior to a Saturday competition date. In general, images submitted after the deadline will not be accepted. The president and/or projectionist may use their discretion to accept late images if there are extenuating circumstances.
No maker names or watermarks on images. An image submitted with maker name or watermark will not be accepted. The maker may be offered the opportunity to re-submit the image without these identifiers at the discretion of the competition committee.
All images must conform to the rules concerning original work, plagiarism and the use of AI as outlined in Poly Photo Camera Club Competition Rules.
