• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Professional Photographers' Association of Pennsylvania

Professional Photographers' Association of Pennsylvania

Cultivating the art, science, and business of photography.

  • Home
  • Inspire 2022 Awards
  • Events +
    • All Upcoming Events
    • INSPIRE 2022
    • Monthly Member Meetings
  • Membership +
    • Membership
    • Join/Renew Membership
    • Our Members
    • PPA National Award Recipients
    • State Awards
  • About Us +
    • Member Benefits
    • Our Leadership
    • Committees
    • Past Presidents
    • Competitions – Twelve Elements
    • Blue Ribbon Images
  • Contact Us

Inspire Image Competition

March 6, 2022 at 1:00 PM

Submitting your images:
Entries for all competitions must be submitted through www.printcompetition.com. Select PPA of PA from the list of organizations. Files must be sized so the longest dimension is 4000 pixels. Each file must contain an embedded color profile of either sRGB or Adobe RGB1998 and be saved at a JPEG quality setting of 10.  

Rules and Awards:
The Image Competition is open to PPA of PA members in good standing and
nonmembers. Entrants may submit up to 10 images for each competition – Photo,
Artist & Wedding maximum of 30 images per entrant.

Entry Fees:
$20 per image – PPA of PA Member
$25 per image – Non-Member

Individual Critiques from an IPC Approved Juror are available for $10 per image

PPA of PA’s Image Competitions are held through PrintCompetition.com
Entries must be uploaded to Printcompetition.com to be judged in the competition.
Uploaded files must be sized so the longest dimension is 4,000 pixels (20 inches at
200 ppi). Each file must contain an embedded color profile of either sRGB or Adobe RGB1998 and be saved at a JPEG quality setting of 10.


Awards:
PPA of PA members are eligible to earn:
Best of Category – Category must have at least 5 images from 2 or more makers to be eligible, Determined by the Jury Panel

Best of Show – Chosen from all eligible member images, Determined by the Jury Panel

320 Club – Four images with a combined score of 320 or more, with all four
images having scored 80 or higher

Non-members are eligible to earn:
Best of Show – Determined by the Jury Panel

Scoring
100 to 95  Exceptional
94 to 90  Superior
89 to 85  Excellent
84 to 80  Deserving of a Merit
79 to 75  Above Average
74 to 70  Average
69 & under  Below Exhibition Standards

Photographic Competition
Entrants must have captured and or created the original exposure. All elements within the image must have been created or captured by the entrant, however, a maker can use supporting photographic elements that they did not create, provided those elements are referenced as guide images on the face of the entry. The original photographic capture by the entrant should be merit-worthy independent of the work that was not their own. Elements created by the maker must not be part of the guide images. This includes images within an album entry. All artwork or post-processing must be done by the entrant or under their direct supervision.

Categories:

Portrait
•General Portrait – This sub-category includes families, groups, couples and
adults (18 and older), relationships, models and fashion portraits, in addition to
tastefully artistic figure studies.
•Child – This sub-category must contain a child or children from birth to age 16.
•High School Senior– This sub-category portrays a person age 16 to 18.
•Animal Portrait– This sub-category captures an animal(s) using structured
lighting in a studio or outdoor environment, where the animal is controlled by the
owner or photographer.

Illustrative
•Landscape – This category includes, but is not limited to, mountain ranges,
cityscapes, sunrises & sunsets with or without people, urban landscapes,
waterfalls, rivers, etc.
•Nature – This category includes wild animals in an uncontrolled lighting
environment, flowers & plants, or other aspects of nature that do not fit the
Landscape category. Animals photographed on a safari, in a wild animal park or
zoo would be placed in this category.
•General Illustrative – Images that do not fit the Landscape or Nature category.
Entries can be, but are not limited to, conceptual or abstract images.

Pennsylvania
Images in this category should be representative of the state of Pennsylvania. All
images must be captured within the state of Pennsylvania. Illustrative portraits,
commercial or artistic images are accepted.

Photojournalism
Images that illustrate an actual public or non-public event, life, an area of human
interest, telling news that have meaning on the context or record of events, high
impact and/or lasting emotional response. Images that illustrate sporting events are
included in this category. ONLY basic color and brightness adjustments, cropping,
dodging, and burning in are allowed. Only single-capture images will be accepted.

Commercial
This category is for images created to help promote, market, or sell a product or
service. A tear sheet is optional but highly recommended as it shows how the
image is used for commercial purposes.

Album
This category includes event and non-event albums. Event albums document social
events such as, but not limited to, weddings, bar and bat mitzvah’s, birthdays &
anniversaries. Non-event albums tell a story about one or more subjects. Multi-maker albums are allowed if each maker enters the competition, pays the appropriate fee & contributes at least 20 images.

Wedding Competition
The purpose of this competition is to allow photographers to enter images created
during the actual Wedding Event. For an image to be merit worthy in the wedding
competition, additional evaluation may be considered for the entries that illustrate the personality of the subject or subjects and the story of the wedding as well as the artistic and technical skills of the image maker.

Judges will keep in mind that the maker may have limited control over many aspects of a wedding – subject matter, environment and time of day, etc. Ultimately, additional consideration may be given to the maker for technically and artistically executing at a merit level in spite of challenges involved at an actual wedding.

Categories:
Single Image
Images that were captured on the wedding day.
Album
All images in the album must be from the Wedding Event. Multi-maker albums are
allowed if each maker enters the competition, pays the appropriate fee & contributes at least 20 images
Artist Competition
Images in the Artist category are judged for artistic, digital and technical proficiency. Entries can be created from existing photographs, portraits, graphics or any other artwork as long as the entrant is able to provide appropriate written documentation verifying permission for use. All processing manipulation artwork or rendering must be done by the entrant. Guide images must be included on the submitted image.

Categories:
Restoration
The reconstruction of an old or damaged image.
Creative
Images created by any artistic technique (not restoration).

The Print Competition Committee reserves the right to change the category of an entry if they feel it does not qualify for the entered category. All decisions of the Print Competition Committee are final. 

Award Info

Copyright © 2022 PPA of PA