Delaware Photographic Society
Projected Image Competition Rules 2024-2025

August 2024

GENERAL

The Delaware Photographic Society (DPS) holds competitions to encourage club members to show and improve their photographic work.  Digital Projected Image competitions will be held on the 2nd Monday in September, October, November, January, February, March and April during the DPS year.  The competition meetings begin at 7:00 PM at the duPont Pavilion at Cokesbury Village in Hockessin, Delaware.  An end-of-the-year virtual competition for Projected-Image-of-the-Year will be held on May 12th.

To be eligible for competition, images must be uploaded to the DPS website by midnight of the Friday before competition.

Assigned subject images for 2024-2025 must be captured after September 1, 2023.

CATEGORIES
The categories for each competition will be: Assigned Subject, Open Subject Color, Creative (Altered Reality), and Open Subject Monochrome. All categories, except Creative will have three classes: Class B, Class A, and Salon.  Creative will be treated as a single class.

ELIGIBILITY
The competitions are open to all current active Delaware Photographic Society members whose dues have been paid prior to the competition. Entries must be photographed using a digital camera or scanned by a digital scanner (including scanned photographic slides or negatives). Digital images entered in all categories must be solely the work of the entrant. This includes any image manipulation.

An selected image may not be re-entered. Any image that has been previously marked as selected in a DPS Competition whether in print form or as a projected image may not be re-entered in any later competition.

COMPETITION CLASSES

• Class B is for members who are new to competitions or are less proficient in preparing images.
• Class A is for members who are more experienced and more proficient.
• Salon Class is for members who have demonstrated high skill in image making.

CLASS ASSIGNMENT
New Members will be assigned to Class B, unless the new member, prior to the start of their first competition year, requests a higher-class ranking. If such a request is made, the requestor’s work (e.g., portfolio) shall be reviewed by the Standards Committee. The Standards Committee may then approve the request.

At the end of the year the Standards Committee may advance members to the next higher class based upon their performance in competition, during the previous one to two years, having demonstrated a significant improvement in photographic proficiency. This can occur until the member is in the Salon Class.

Note: changes to a member’s competition classification shall not be made during a competition year.

IMAGE REQUIREMENTS
JPEG files only (sRGB color space is recommended)
There is no absolute restriction on image or file size when submitting images, but judging will be done using a maximum of 1200x1200 pixels. If images are larger than 1200 pixels they will be scaled down using bi-cubic interpolation to 1200 pixels for the longest side of the image. Images will NOT be scaled up.

NUMBER OF ENTRIES PER ENTRANT PER COMPETITION
Assigned Subject – 1 image
Open Subject Color – 1 image
Creative – 1 image
Open Subject Monochrome – 1 image

ASSIGNED SUBJECTS
A list of Assigned Subjects is published in “The Reflector” and on the DPS website. Assigned subject competitions are conducted in all classes. All images that are to be entered in the Assigned Subject category for the 2024-2025 DPS year must have been captured after September 1, 2023.

OPEN SUBJECT COLOR
Any image taken by the club member, at any time, may be entered in the Open category, except for images previously marked as accepted in earlier competitions. Club members are requested to use discretion and propriety when submitting images in this category. The Open category has no date, technique or subject requirement.

CREATIVE
Creative, also known as Altered Reality, is intended to encourage experimental or non-traditional work. The image may be whatever the maker wants it to be. Images must have been manipulated to a form that could not have been captured in the camera. There are no date requirements for the creative category.

OPEN SUBJECT MONOCHROME:
An image is considered to be Monochrome only if it gives the impression of having no color (i.e. contains only shades of gray which can include pure black and pure white) OR it gives the impression of being a grayscale image that has been toned in one color across the entire image. (For example by Sepia, red, gold, etc.) 

SELECTED IMAGES
Images will be considered “selected” if the total score awarded for the image is in the top 25-30% of the scores – ranked high to low.

JUDGING AND SCORING
Three judges will be used to score images at each in-person competition. 

DISQUALIFICATION
Exhibitors are responsible for adhering to the competition rules set forth. The Projected Image Director may disqualify any image that does not conform to the rules of the competition.

Reasons for disqualification include (but are not limited to):
The Image(s) submitted for Assigned Subject does not meet the Assigned Subject criteria.

The Image did not originate with the person submitting the images.

The image is recognized as having been entered and accepted in a previous competition without regard to the year entered and accepted.

Identification marks, names, titles or honors appear on the image(s).

ANNUAL AWARDS
Cumulative scores will be kept for each member in each category and class. First, Second, and Third place brass plates will be awarded to the top three members in each category and class. In case of a tie the member who entered the most images in that class and category will prevail. Other awards can be awarded at the discretion of the Projected Image Director.

PROJECTED IMAGE-OF-THE-YEAR COMPETITION
A Projected-Image-of-the-Year (PIOY) competition will be held in May. Each competitor may enter all of his or her selected images for judging. All entries must have been entered and selected during the current competition year in Class B, Class A, Salon and Creative. There is no distinction between Assigned, Open and Creative subjects in the PIOY.

Three qualified judges, who are not members of the Delaware Photographic Society, shall jury the PIOY competition. One image will be chosen as the Projected-Image-of- the-Year and winner of the Morris James award. Up to 10 Honorable Mentions will be awarded in each class with a limit of one Honorable Mention per entrant.

LARRY HINSON AWARD: (PIOY) BEST MONOCHROME IMAGE:
In honor of Larry Hinson, an excellent monochrome print maker, a special award is offered.  From the top five highest scoring monochrome PIOY images in the Open Subject Monochrome category, the judges will select, by consensus, the best monochrome projected image which will receive the Larry Hinson Award.  Monochrome is defined as white and one color (sepia, blue, warm tone, black, etc.).

NOTICE
By virtue of submitting your entry, you permit DPS to reproduce all or part of the entered material free of charge for publication and/or display in media related to the Society.

The Delaware Photographic Society will take all reasonable care to ensure that all submitted images appear before the judges and are entered in the correct Class. However, the Delaware Photographic Society cannot be responsible for any errors or omissions in this regard. Entering the contest signifies your acceptance of this notice.

Mark Leary, Projected Image Director (jumbobluecrab@yahoo.com)