New England Camera Club Council

Any club member whose dues are paid up for the current club year (September to May) may enter photographs into one of our competitions. Want to check out what a competition looks like? Our meetings are open to the public so you can check out a competition for yourself! Check out our calendar to find out when our next competition is.

We hold seven competitions each year from September to May on the third Thursday of the month. In December we host a Christmas party on the first Thursday in December and have no second meeting or competition that month. The meeting and competition schedule will return to normal in January. See the club calendar for a meeting and competition schedule.

1. Photos must be taken by the member. If the member can't attend, his or her photos may be submitted by another member. 2. Competition Topics: The subject matter for each competition will either be "open" or an assigned topic. "Open" means that any subject matter in good taste is acceptable. An image that does not fit in the assigned topic will be disqualified from the competition, but may be entered in another competition at a later date. Topics in the past have been things like Farms, Landscapes, People, Flowers, Still Life, and Fall Color. a. Black & White competitions each month will always be open, regardless of the assigned topic. However, you are welcome to submit images in the assigned topic if you wish. 3. Photos of pictures (paintings, lithographs, photographs, etc.) that represent the entire or predominant subject of the composition are not eligible . 4. Entrants are encouraged to submit photographs taken recently (within the past two years), but since great images are truly timeless, any period is OK. 5. Photographs may not be entered for intraclub competition more than once. Different compositions of the exact same subject are discouraged, but not expressly forbidden. 6. No text, title, photographer's name, or information of any sort may be added to the front of an image. Images containing a sign or carving that are part of the actual subject, not added by the photographer, are the only exception. Members can find full competition details in the Member's Area.

You can view the topics for the current club year by clicking here to see the Club's calendar. Member's can find full competition details in the Member's Area of the website.

All images submitted must have the following properties: Color space set to SRGB, not Adobe RGB. If you shot the photo in Adobe RGB, you should convert it to SRGB. This applies to both color and B&W images. Size set to 1400 pixels wide by 1050 pixels high. This means that a photo with a horizontal format should be at most 1400 by 1050 pixels, depending on how it is cropped. If the photo is a vertical format, it should be at most 1049 pixels wide by 1050 pixels high, again depending on how it is cropped. All photos submitted must be in JPEG format (.jpg file extension). You should save them at a high quality level of 8 or 9. The file name can be anything you want. However, it is suggested that you include your first and last names and the image title in the file name. Do not use any punctuation marks, other than dashes (-) or under scores (_) in the file name. Members can find tutorials on how to size an image in the Member's Area of the website.

Enter your photo information and images no later than midnight on the Wednesday night before the competition. We use a third party program, Photo Contest Pro (PCP,) for all photo entry, presentation and judging. Click here to access the program. Only current members will be able to log into this software. Members can find instructions on the Member's Area of the website.

1. All members may participate as judges once they have completed a short course in “How To Score” given by the recording secretary or another of the senior members. 2. Judging will be based on the Kodak method of assigning a score from 3 through 9. The idea of this method is to score 1 to 3 points for impact, 1 to 3 points for composition and 1 to 3 points for technical aspects. The score for a “good” or “average” image would be 6. 3. Bear in mind, also, the emphasis of the photo to fit the assigned topic of the month. If the photo is judged to not fit the assigned topic, it will be given a score of DNQ (Does Not Qualify), but may be entered in another competition at a later date. 4. The Competition Chairman will tally the scores and announce the winners on the night of the meeting. Ribbons will be awarded to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and honorable mention at the following meeting. 5. Scores will be recorded for each competition. The winners of the entire competition season will be determined from the cumulative totals of these monthly scores. Overall winners for the year will be awarded ribbons in these individual categories: color, black and white, highest scoring photo of the year, most im­proved, and photographer of the year. Members can find more details on judging in the Member's Area of the website.