Rules and Conditions of entry
Rules and Conditions of Entry
Many of our rules and conditions are set by either FIAP or the PSA (or both) as a condition of their patronage. Certain large sections of text below are marked as originating from one or other of these two sources.
General conditions of entry (PSA)
The exhibition is open to anyone; however, an entry may be rejected when the sponsoring organization or its agent, in its reasonable discretion, believes the entry does not conform to the exhibition rules and conditions.
Entries are limited to not more than 4 images per section, category, or class. An entrant’s images will not be presented to the judges consecutively. An entrant’s four images will be distributed throughout four rounds of judging in each section. Distribution of images shall be in the same round order as submitted by the entrant.
Entries must originate as photographs (image-captures of objects via light sensitivity) made by the entrant on photographic emulsion or acquired digitally. By virtue of submitting an entry, the entrant certifies the work as his own (aliases are not permitted). The entrant permits the sponsors to reproduce all or part of the entered material free of charge for publication and/or display in media related to the exhibition. This may include low resolution posting on a website.
Note: Entrants who indicate that their images may not be reproduced or used will not be eligible for awards or inclusion in audio-visuals of the exhibition and could be subject to disqualification by the exhibition sponsors.
Copyright: FIAP specifies that all parts of the image have to be photographed by the author who is holding the copyright of all works submitted. The PSA conditions expand on this topic as follows.
The exhibition assumes no liability of any misuse of copyright. Images may be altered, either electronically or otherwise, by the maker. All final work must be on photographic film, or on electronic file, or on photographic or electronic print material, mounting excepted, subject to various PSA divisional restrictions.
Identification: No title or identification of the maker shall be visible anywhere on the face of an image, print mat or mount entered in a Patron recognised exhibition.
Titles: Each image must have a unique title. Once an image has been accepted in a Patron recognised exhibition, that same image, or a like “in camera” or a “reproduction” duplicate of that image,
i. may not be re-entered in any section of the same Division Star Ratings class in that exhibition regardless of media, format, or title.
ii. may not be re-titled for entry in any other Patron recognised exhibition. Words such as “Untitled” and “No Title” are not acceptable as part or all of an image’s title, nor are camera capture filenames.
Sometimes, the above re-titling rule is impossible to meet, as there is no international standard for the maximum length of image titles. When an image has previously been accepted in another PSA salon with a more generous title length limit than ours there is no option but to seek a way to shorten the name. However, we have always found that this can be done without changing the essential content of the original name.
Breach of conditions of entry (PSA)
If the exhibition determines before, during, or after the judging that an entrant has submitted entries where one or more images fail to comply with these Conditions of Entry, including the stated definitions, the exhibition reserves the right and discretion to delete the entry from the exhibition and void any or all acceptances or awards. Fees may be forfeited in these circumstances.
In order to ensure that images comply with the Conditions of Entry and definitions, the exhibition may carry out checks on the images to make sure that: a) the images are the original work of the entrant and b) the images comply with the rules and definitions as set out in these Conditions of Entry.
This may involve asking the entrant to provide originally captured image(s), with EXIF data intact, by a set deadline. The questioned image(s) of any entrant failing to comply with such a request for the original image(s) may be considered in breach of these Conditions of Entry, and declined. Such entries may be referred to PSA for further investigation of possible ethics violations. PSA retains the right to investigate in any way all complaints/suspicions of breaches of entry conditions, impose sanctions if deemed necessary, include the entrant’s name on the list of sanctions provided to Exhibitions, and share such investigations with FIAP.
Entrants automatically agree to these terms by the act of entering the Exhibition.
By the sole act of submitting his/her images or files to a salon under FIAP Patronage, the entrant accepts without exception and with no objection the following terms:
i. that the submitted images can be investigated by FIAP to establish if these obey FIAP regulations and definitions even if the entrant is not a member of FIAP.
ii. that FIAP will use any means at its disposal for this undertaking.
iii. that any refusal to cooperate with FIAP or any refusal to submit the original files as captured by the camera, or failure to provide sufficient evidence, will be sanctioned by FIAP.
iv. that in case of sanctions following the non-compliance with FIAP regulations, the name of the entrant will be released in any form useful to inform the breaches of the rules.
Additional rules and conditions
- You may not enter identical, or very similar images in more than one class.
- You may not enter an image accepted at a previous Southampton International Exhibition (even in a different class), or one so similar as to be almost identical – irrespective of title.
- Image titles must not exceed 30 characters, except in nature classes D & F, where the limit is 40 characters.
- Your entries in class E (Landscape Digital) must conform to the SIE definition of Landscape.
Your entries in classes D (nature digital) and F (nature prints) must conform to the common PSA, FIAP & RPS Nature Definition. - Your entries in classes D (nature digital) and F (nature prints) will not be eligible for a Wildlife Award, unless you certify them as authentic (as defined here) by entering ‘W’ in the space provided on the entry form.
Southampton International Exhibition is organised and run by Southampton Camera Club, a not for profit amateur photographic society. We depend on the goodwill and enthusiasm of our members to administer the Exhibition, and for the safe custody of your prints and other materials. We therefore must make it a condition of entering the Exhibition that you acknowledge that the value of your prints and materials do not exceed the entry fee paid by you, and therefore our liability to you, should your prints or materials be damaged, or go missing, even if we have been careless, will not extend beyond returning the entry fee. Should you believe that the value of your prints and materials may be significantly greater than that, please contact us to agree the cost of additional insurance. - Our planned date for posting prints, catalogues and awards to entrants can be found on our Dates/Classes page. Any claims relating to the non-arrival of such items should be made before the end of July, which is normally about 11 weeks after the posting date.
- We will send an illustrated, printed catalogue to each entrant.
- ENTRIES RECEIVED WITHOUT SUFFICIENT FEES, OR PAID FOR WITH FOREIGN CHEQUES OR MONEY ORDERS, WILL NOT BE JUDGED OR RETURNED.
- Online entries are preferred, but if paying by cheque (for postal entries only), please make it payable to “Southampton Camera Club International”. We can accept only Sterling cheques, drawn on UK clearing banks.
- All entry details will be stored on computer. Unless you select the opt-out checkbox on the entry form, we may share personal data such as your name and address with other RPS, PSA & FIAP Approved UK Exhibitions.
- As a legal formality required to provide certainty in an International exhibition, please note that the definitive version of these entry terms is the English language version. English law applies and the English courts have jurisdiction.
- The decision of the Exhibition judges on whether images comply with these rules is final. They need not give reasons for their decision. The judges may decide to exclude from the exhibition any images which, in their opinion, appear not to comply with these rules.
Prints
Prints must not exceed 50 x 40 cm (approx. 20 x 16″) including mount. We don’t have a minimum size, but we prefer unmounted prints to be no smaller than A3 (29.7 x 42 cm, 11.7 x 16.5″) for handling convenience. As far as the judges are concerned, image quality is always much more important than size.
If you want your prints to be returned by post please do not pack them in a container that is bigger than necessary, as this could significantly increase our postage costs. A maximum box size of 56 x 45 x 11 cm (22 x 18 x 4 in) is normally enough for most group print entries, so no individual print package should be larger than this in any of those dimensions.
The back of each print must be marked with the name, address, country and email of the author, the title of the print in one of the official FIAP languages (using the English alphabet) and the serial number as on the entry form, be that postal or online.
The titles on the backs of prints must match the titles on the entry form.
Only pressure sensitive (self adhesive) labels may be used on the backs of unmounted prints.
Unmounted prints are acceptable but framed prints are NOT permitted.
NON-UK ENTRANTS WHO WANT THEIR PRINTS RETURNED MUST SUBMIT THEM UNMOUNTED.
If entering online (the preferred option), please enclose a copy of your entry confirmation email with your prints unless they have already been sent via the Smethwick International. However, this is not vital and timely postage is more important.
Destruction of prints: If postal entrants have not paid our postage-inclusive entry fees they must sign the entry submittal form in the space provided to verify authorisation for the exhibition to destroy their prints in lieu of returning them. If this signature is missing and postage-inclusive fees have not been paid, we will make all reasonable attempts to seek such authorisation, but if no response is received within one month we will proceed to destroy the prints.
(online entrants are provided with an equivalent method of authorising print destruction and cannot complete their entry without providing such approval, where relevant)
Digital
The image must not exceed 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels high. Please aim to have either the height or the width (or both) at the relevant limit. If you don’t do this then your image will appear smaller than necessary when projected.
The files must be in JPEG format. The print resolution should be set to 300ppi for catalogue purposes. Please note that this print resolution setting has no effect on the quality of your projected image.
Embedding an sRGB ICC colour profile is strongly recommended, otherwise we cannot guarantee that our projector will display the correct colours.
Please do not add any unnecessary borders to your images. Black borders serve no purpose for digital projection, while white borders distract the eye from the image.
For online entries uploaded to our website, the filename must be the same as the title. Do not include a ‘Class + Entrynumber’ prefix if entering online. It is added automatically.
For postal entries on CD, the filename must be in the format of ‘Class + EntryNumber + space + Title’ (e.g. E1 Cuban Street, C2 Namibian Desert).
Do not include any other information or characters in the filename. Format the title the way it should appear in the catalogue (i.e. use Title Case – Initial Capital Letters for Main Words).
Postal digital entries must be submitted on standard sized CD-R (not mini CD, CD-RW or DVD).
Do NOT use adhesive labels on CDs.
You must put your name and country on your CD and its sleeve, if that is how you are submitting your digital entries.
CDs will not be returned; they will be destroyed once the catalogue has been printed.
We suggest you project and review your images at 100% magnification before submission. Your digital images are presented for assessment by our judges using a colour calibrated Canon Xeed WUX5000 digital projector with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels (width x height), though we only accept images up to 1600 pixels wide.
If your entries do not meet the specifications they may not display correctly and we may not be able to judge them.