HARTLEPOOL CAMERA CLUB – COMPETITIONS GUIDE

A: GENERAL PRINT PRESENTATION RULES
Appropriate presentation of your work is important, when entering our competitions. Please bear the following guidelines in mind when preparing your submissions:

1. With the sole exception of the "Enprint” competition, ALL P competition prints entered into competitions must be suitably card-mounted and titled. Facilities and materials for the mounting of prints are available in the Club. They should be registered and handed in at the club to the Prints Competition Secretary and the entry paid for.
​   ALL DI images should be handed in and registered or passed by email to the Digital Image Competition Secretary.        Entries must be paid for before the competition.
INTERNAL COMPETITIONS: Mount-size MAXIMUM is 20”x16”. 
EXTERNAL COMPETITIONS/PUBLIC DISPLAY: Mount-size of 20”x16” is essential for these purposes.
2. Photographer's name (or, any other form of identification) should NOT appear on any prints/mounts except for public exhibiting. 
3. Prints should be 5"x7" MINIMUM. The MAXIMUM size is 16”x20”. 

B: GENERAL COMPETITION RULES
Unless otherwise indicated by the individual competition theme/rules (see Section C), the following general rules are applicable to ALL competitions:
1. Wherever possible (barring unforeseen circumstances) ALL competitions will be judged by an invited NCPF Judge. 
2. Competitions judged “in-house”, will be so judged by either:
        a) A Member chosen/invited by the Committee (or, a representative thereof), or
        b) By the assembled Membership as a whole (using a “points score” system).
3. There is an entry fee payable for each submitted Competition entry.
4. There may be a limit to the number of entries from each Member for any competition. See specific information below
5. Duplicate/repeat entries (i.e. an image which has already been submitted to an earlier internal competition), are allowed ONLY in the End-Of-Year Colour and Monochrome Open Competitions and for external competitions.
6. Entries may be in COLOUR or B/W (MONOCHROME).
      A “monochrome” print, for the purposes of our internal Competitions, is BLACK & WHITE (or, a b/w print completely “toned” with one colour, e.g. sepia). Any simulation or creation of spot/split/selective toning effects on specific areas of a print, will make this a COLOUR (or “polychrome”), print, thereby making it ineligible for entry.
7. All entries for competitions must be submitted to the Competition Secretary by 9.00PM on the due date, and all appropriate entry fees paid at this time.
8. Entries supplied for “Digital Projection” Competitions should:
     a) Be re-sized to 1024x768 pixels resolution (Max WxH, or HxW) and
     b) Be named with a meaningful title, e.g “myphoto.jpg”, rather than leaving them with your camera’s default file-naming choice. It would also be much appreciated if you avoided titling the files sequentially, as “Portrait_1”, “Portrait_2” etc. NOTE: Filenames may be re-edited on collation of the entries, in order to further randomise display.
These are essentially steps towards standardising these submissions to our Competitions, in line with current NCPF criteria.

C: INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION-SPECIFIC RULES
Aside from the General Competition Rules, there are some variations for individual competitions:

(i) “CREATIVE DIGITAL” COMPETITION
For the purposes of clarification - Although digital manipulation IS allowed in all other competitions, it was felt that the need for a specific, creative challenge was there. This annual OPEN-THEMED internal competition, therefore, is aimed at these more “obvious” examples of imaginative/creative digital manipulation and the chosen Judge will be accordingly briefed.

(ii) END-OF-YEAR OPEN COMPETITIONS (COLOUR or B/W)
These are annual, “Open-Themed” internal competitions, intended primarily to “showcase” the best work submitted by Members to the various competitions over the preceding year. 
As such:
1. As specified in Rule B:5, Members are allowed to submit duplicate/repeat prints. 
2. Submission of “new” prints to these competitions is, of course, allowed. However, any such print is then bound by rule B:5 and is not eligible for further entry into internal competitions.
3. Entry to these competitions is furthermore limited to those members who have participated in at least ONE other Themed/Open competition in the year.

(iii) “HPDG PRINT BATTLE”
This external competition is our Annual Print Battle with the Hartlepool Photographic and Digital Group and is hosted alternately between both Clubs, the Judge being invited by the hosting Club.
1. It is an "Open"-themed competition, a Club “entry” consisting of 10 monochrome and 10 colour prints. 
2. “Monochrome” in this case, means BLACK & WHITE. Toned prints will not be accepted.
3. The prints making up our submission are selected by an invited/selected Print Panel of Members, from those colour/monochrome prints entered by Club members for consideration. 
4. There is no fee for this competition. 

(iv) “SWAN TROPHY”
This is an annual "Human Portrait"-themed internal competition.

(v) “ANDREW KERR MEMORIAL”
This is an annual, Open-themed externally judged competition, held in memory of Andrew Kerr, an old Club Member and delightfully eccentric, dear friend.

(vi) “FRED WIGSTON MEMORIAL”
This is an annual internal competition, held in memory of Fred Wigston, an old Club Member and dear friend. The Competition is held in Digital Projection format (see Rule B:8 for details).
As such:
1. The theme of this competition is “Architecture”.
2. This competition is judged in-house.
3. There is a maximum of 5 entries per Member.

(vii) “SCAPES”
This is an annual, internal competition, based loosely around the theme of “Sea… Land… or Sky…” scapes.

(viii) ENPRINT COMPETITIONS
The internal “Enprint” Competitions are held on the first Monday of each month (except for public holidays, when the Competition will be held on the next available date). Whilst the Enprint competition functions as a stand-alone event in it’s own right, its primary purpose is to act as a “testing and proving ground” for new prints, and as a valuable source of feedback for new Members/photographers. 
As such:
1. The Competitions are "open-themed". 
2. Print entries should be submitted to the Competition Secretary by 9.00PM on due date, and may be in colour or monochrome. 
3. The prints must NOT be card mounted, and should be no larger than 5"x7". 
4. Each member may submit up to 3 prints in either Manipulated OR Un-manipulated
5. Entries will be judged in-house, and scores awarded to the top 6 prints, as follows:
• 1st: 10pts
• 2nd: 8 pts
• 3rd: 6pts
• 4th: 4pts
• 5th: 3pts
• 6th: 2pts
Judges may, at their discretion, also award a number of “Highly Commended” single bonus points to deserving entries.
6. A trophy is awarded at the end of the year to the member who accumulates the highest points score over the year for each competition i.e. Manipulated and Un- manipulated points are not.
7. Enprint entries (having, hopefully, proven their worth!) may be enlarged for entry into any internal/external Themed/Open competitions. This singular step is NOT considered to be a duplicate/repeat entry (as per Rule B:5).
8. Judges feedback on individual Enprints is NOT to be taken as a license to re-print/edit the image and re-submit to further Enprint Competitions. Such entries will be consider “duplicates” and deemed ineligible for entry.

(ix) PROJECTED IMAGES
This is an annual, Open-themed internal competition, held in Digital Projection format (See Rule B:8, for details).