Alverton Penzance Photographic Competition

THE ALVERTON PENZANCE PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITION
Hi and welcome to our photo competition; here is your chance to have your work displayed in our gallery for thirty days at no cost to you. The current competition runs from 23 November 2016 to 23 January 2017 and the theme is ‘We Love the Coast.’ To enter please send your images as email attachments to penzancesubmissions@gmail.com – please see the rules below for the extra stuff you need to do when submitting. The images must be less than two years old and not have won any other competition prizes if less than two years old. Therefore the images can have been taken at any time after 23 November 2014 so long as they stick to the coastal theme and have not been a winner or runner up in another competition. This is to keep things fresh and whilst it means you don't necessarily have to take photos especially for our contest, it would be great if you did! Try not to go too mad with the Photoshopping and other photo effects, though. The fees are £5 for one entry, £8 for two images and £10 for three. If you are local then the easiest way to make payment is to call in to the gallery in person. Otherwise if you have a PayPal account the easiest methods are either to use this link https://www.paypal.me/AlvertonGallery or to send payment to the email address roger@thealvertongallery.co.uk using this link https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/send-money-online . Alternatively you can use the drop down arrow above (to the right of the words “choose an option”) to select the number of entries you want to submit and once you’ve made your choice hit the “add to basket” button. To enter in multiple batches either keep adding to the basket or use the drop down arrow to the left of the “add to basket” button. Go up to the basket symbol (top right of the page) to use our checkout to pay to our PayPal. No worries here if you don’t have a PayPal account; PayPal also accepts payment by debit or credit card but here you need to select the “Check Out as a Guest” option. Please see below for details of the prizes and the full rules of the competition; apologies for the length of the rules but it's like that with all contests. We look forward to seeing your work in the gallery.

COMPETITION RULES

These are the rules for entering the Alverton Penzance Photographic Competition. The theme of each competition, submission dates and deadlines will be announced on our website www.thealvertongallery.co.uk. If you have any queries regarding these rules please contact us on info@thealvertongallery.co.uk.

ELIGIBILITY

 Entrants must be 18 years of age or older. Owners and employees of The Alverton Gallery, Penzance and their immediate family members, and people living in the households of such owners and employees, are not eligible to enter the competition.

HOW TO ENTER

The contest is restricted to photographs only. The photographs must not have been taken before 23 November 2014. Prior to submission, entrants must not have been paid for any publication of any of their entries or won or been a runner up in any other photographic competition with any of their entries. Therefore you can submit to us any other images of yours falling outside these categories. All photos submitted must be the original work of the entrant who must be the copyright-holder. The entrant is responsible for ensuring that all permissions and releases have been obtained in respect of any image submitted. On this basis the entrant will at all times retain copyright to his/her work. In fairness to all entrants we reserve the right to disregard any entries that do not follow the theme of the contest “We Love the Coast.” Photographs must be submitted to us in digital format only and by way of email attachment. The photograph (s) need not be taken with a digital camera; scans of negatives, transparencies, or photographic prints are acceptable as are photos taken with handheld devices such as iPads and smartphones . Entry photographs can be taken anywhere in the world except where prohibited by the relevant government/authorities. Entries shall be submitted to the competition at a cost of £5 per entry, £8 per two entries and £10 per three entries. Please use the “choose an option” drop-down arrow above to select the number of entries then proceed to make payment using the “add to basket” button. Alternatively, or in the unlikely event that you experience difficulties with our website, you may send the Paypal payment to using this link https://www.paypal.me/AlvertonGallery or via the email address roger@thealvertongallery.co.uk using the “Send” option on this Paypal link https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/send-money-online Although paypal is our method of payment processing, if you wish to pay by credit or debit card then you can still use paypal even without an account. When you click the payment link you’ll be taken to Paypal and it will give you two options: 1) Pay with my Paypal Account and 2) Check Out as a Guest. Select the second option and you can pay without creating an account. The said entry fees are non-refundable and no changes of images can be made after you submit without another entry fee. Initially, upon payment of the said fees, your submissions should be made by way of an image attachment(s) and should be emailed to this address: penzancesubmissions@gmail.com Please note that this is the ONLY submission email; submissions should not be made to our other email addresses. In the body of your email please include YOUR PAYPAL PAYMENT REFERENCE NUMBER together with your name and address, the image title (s) and details of when and where the image (s) was/were taken. Please name each attachment with your name, the title of the photo and the month of submission, using the underscore to separate each word, for example John_Jones_Coastal_Sunrise_Jan_2017.jpeg. Please quote the competition name as the subject line of your submission email, for example “Alverton Penzance Photographic Competition – We Love the Coast.” The said image attachment (s) should depict the artwork at accurately as possible.  For images taken by professional or serious amateur photographers using a DSLR camera, each image should be approximately 1200 x 900 pixels (landscape or portrait) at 72 dpi in JPEG format and no larger than 1 MB in size. However if you are not familiar with this technical language or if  the image was taken with a different type of camera or device (such as a smartphone) then basically we would like the image to be rectangular (pretty much the same shape as an iPad screen, landscape or portrait) and we would ask that you try to avoid sending huge attachments in terms of megabytes when emailing your submission. No title, watermarks or other identification of the entrant shall be visible anywhere on the face of the image. Should an image be selected for our top ten winners, then at that stage we will request a higher resolution image suitable for conversion to a print of dimensions 12 inches x 8 inches (approximately 30cm x 20cm). Proof of email despatch is not proof of receipt by us. We will attempt to acknowledge all entries by email but we accept no responsibility for entries lost in the email system, although here we will consider returning the entry fee depending on the circumstances. Images may be digitally enhanced in minor ways such as cropping, the improvement of brightness/clarity and/or the removal of spots, scratches and distant objects but the essential content and composition of the image must not be manipulated. Thus image manipulation is limited to the following types of adjustment; black and white points, highlights/shadows, dynamic range, contrast/clarity, saturation/vibrance, curves, dodging and burning, distortion correction, white balance, cropping, dust spotting, minor element removal (adding elements to a scene is not permitted), sharpening and noise reduction. The merging of elements from two or more images is strictly prohibited as are stitched images. In respect of any image we reserve the right to request the original RAW file, negative or similar and to disqualify the entry if in our absolute discretion we consider it to have been excessively manipulated including by the use of excessive in-camera effects and photo effects. We also reserve the right to request appropriate releases in respect of photographs that include people, sculptures, statues, paintings, and other works of art. The photograph, in its entirety, must be a single work of original material taken by the entrant. By entering the competition the entrant represents, acknowledges, and warrants that the submitted photograph is an original work created solely by the entrant, that the photograph does not infringe on the copyrights, trademarks, moral rights, rights of privacy/publicity or intellectual property rights of any person or entity, and that no other party has any right, title, claim, or interest in the photograph. The photograph must not, in the absolute discretion of the Alverton Gallery, contain obscene, provocative, defamatory, sexually explicit, or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate content or that contains any material that could constitute or encourage conduct which would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any law. The caption must be complete and accurate, sufficient to convey the circumstances in which the photograph was taken. Disguising or misrepresenting the origin of your content is cause for disqualification. All entries must be the original work of the entrant and must not infringe the rights of any other party. The entrants must be the sole owner of copyright in all photographs entered and must have obtained written permission of any people featured in the entries or their parents/guardians if children under 18 are featured. The entrant is fully responsible to obtain all model or property releases. Entries must follow the competition theme. The competition is open to amateur and professional artists. Photography is included but video is excluded; images only must be entered. The competition is international. Subject to payment of the entry fee in each case, there is no limit to the number of images that an entrant can submit. We reserve the right to cancel any competition if it is not capable of continuing for any reason beyond our control. If any competition is cancelled we will refund the entry fee to all entrants for the cancelled competition and we will not reserve the right to use any of the submitted images.

 JUDGING

The judges of the Alverton Penzance Photographic competition are (1) Roger Driscoll, director of the Alverton Gallery Penzance and (2) award-winning photographer Martin Smith (regular judges) plus Oliver Hawker of Oliver’s Photographics, Penzance (former Jessops manager – guest judge) and other guest judges appointed from time to time to assist in the judging process. Photographs will be judged on the basis of adherence to and interpretation of the theme, creativity, quality, composition, originality and artistic expression. We reserve the right to request from any entrant the background details of the entrant and image such as a short biography, the camera and lens and techniques used to create the image and the circumstances and inspiration giving rise to the image. From all of the entries, our regular judges will first select a long list of thirty images from which our guest judge (s) will select the ten images which in their opinion best reflect the theme of the competition. The regular judges and guest judge (s) will then collaborate to select the first, second and third prizes. The dates for announcement of the top ten winners, and the start of the winner’s show, will be announced in advance on our website. Decisions of the judges are final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into in relation to the judging process. Unfortunately, due to the high number of entries, we will only contact you if your image/s has been chosen as one of our top ten winning entries.

AWARDS:

The top ten winning entrants will be notified by email on or before the relevant announcement date as stated on our website. The top ten winning entrants will receive Gold, Silver, Bronze or Honourable Mention certificates (as the case may be) by email in PDF format and their winning entries will be mounted, framed and displayed at the Alverton Gallery for a period of thirty consecutive days. Photographs of the entire Winners’ Show display will be supplied to the top ten winning entrants in confirmation. In this regard we will request appropriate high resolution digital images to assist in the creation of prints for display. We will also request an “artist biography” from each of the top ten winning entrants. These requests must be compiled with at least ten days prior to the start of the Winner’s Show; failure to comply will be cause for disqualification. The framed photographs will be offered for sale at the Alverton Gallery; the gallery prices will be in our discretion and we will take a 80% commission on each sale whether framed or unframed. Here the entrant will retain copyright to the photograph but once we have been paid the ownership of the display photograph, whether framed or unframed, shall pass to the purchaser. We will promote the winning artists of each exhibition via email, online press releases, online event promotions and social media marketing. By submitting an entry to our competition an entrant acknowledges that, should an image be awarded a place on our top ten winners’ list, the entrant grants us the right to publish, reproduce and exhibit the image by way of a physical print for exhibition at the Alverton Gallery, Penzance, and by way of digital imagery for display on the Alverton Gallery’s website and social media. No fees shall be payable for these uses save that should a physical print be sold by the Alverton Gallery the photographer will be paid 20% of the gallery price. At all times the entrant will be credited as the photographer and copyright holder. Entrants whose photographs are one of the top ten winners also agree to take part in post-competition publicity. Of the top ten entries, the top three entries will receive the following further awards:
Grand Prize
• First Place Winner will receive £75 • Gold/First prize Certificate • First Prize photograph will be will be mounted, framed and displayed at the Alverton Gallery for a period of thirty consecutive days, the photograph will be published on www.thealvertongallery.co.uk for the same period and the photographer will be featured in an online article.
Second Place Winner
• Second Place Winner will receive £50 • Silver/Second Prize Certificate • Second Prize photograph will be will be mounted, framed and displayed at the Alverton Gallery for a period of thirty consecutive days, the photograph will be published on www.thealvertongallery.co.uk for the same period and the photographer will be featured in an online article.
Third Place Winner
• Third Place Winner will receive £25 • Bronze/Third Prize Certificate, • Third Prize photograph will be will be mounted, framed and displayed at the Alverton Gallery for a period of thirty consecutive days, the photograph will be published on www.thealvertongallery.co.uk for the same period and the photographer will be featured in an online article.
The winner of any award shall be solely responsible for any taxes associated with the award. If a top ten winner is unable to be contacted after reasonable attempts have been made then we reserve the right to offer the prize to a runner up. We may arrange to have the top ten entries photographed to publicise and promote the winning entries through means to be agreed to by both parties. In every instance of such use, the artist shall be acknowledged as the creator and copyright owner of the Artwork. In the case of an entry being accepted into the top 10, the entry shall be displayed at the gallery’s next “Winner’s Show” which shall be of thirty day’s duration and in those circumstances the artist shall be subject to the gallery’s wall space rental agreement which can be found on the following link: http://www.thealvertongallery.co.uk/shop/art-and-photography-co-funding/art-photography-co-funding/ Save that for a top 10 entry the gallery will waive the rental fee of £20 referred to in that agreement. The prizes are as stated, no single entrant may win more than one prize, there are no cash alternatives and prizes cannot be sold or transferred to third parties. You acknowledge your responsibility for protecting your entry against misuse by third parties. We assume no responsibility for and are not liable for any misuse of your work by third parties. We will not pass your personal details on to any third party; however your details may be used to contact you about future Alverton Gallery Competitions. Please note that the Alverton Penzance Photographic Competition is not affiliated with any business or organisation other than the Alverton Gallery, 5 Alverton Street, Penzance, Cornwall UK TR18 2QW. These rules are governed by the laws of England and Wales. By entering, entrants will be deemed to have read, understood and to have agreed to be bound by these rules and we reserve the right to exclude any entry from the competition at any time and in our absolute discretion if we have reason to believe that an entrant has breached these rules.
SHORT DESCRIPTION:  Hi and welcome to our photo competition. The current competition runs from 23 November 2016 to 23 January 2017 and the theme is 'We Love the Coast.' Among the other prizes on offer, the top ten winning entries will be displayed in our gallery for thirty days. To enter please send your images as email attachments to penzancesubmissions@gmail.com - please see the rules below for the extra stuff you need to do when submitting. The fees are £5 for one entry, £8 for two images and £10 for three. Details of how to pay, the prizes and the full competition rules are set out below. We look forward to seeing your work in the gallery.