Rules for Clinics

Basic Clinic Rules

1. All images submitted must have begun in a camera.
2. The division in which the final product is presented is up to the maker.
3. There are 2 divisions: Prints and Projected.
4. Provided an image was evaluated at that time of submission, any image may be submitted only once regardless or division or category, i.e. do not submit the same image in Prints as you have in Projected Images, nor in another clinic.
5. All filenames must follow this pattern: pattern – title_first name_last name.jpg for example, the filename of your submitted image might be “Hunting Season_John_Buck.jpg” – Use only letters, number, spaces and underscore marks in the filename; no other punctuation marks please.
6. No markings on images that would identify the maker are allowed, for example a watermarked image will be disqualified.
7. With the exception of the assignment images, all images must have been captured within the past five years
8. The assignment image must have been captured after the official announcement on this web site of the assignment topics for the upcoming season.
9. A maker may submit a total of 5 images into each clinic, regardless of the category or categories that the images are placed into.
10. The maker of the image retains all intellectual property rights to any submitted images but agrees to a perpetual license permitting the HCC to use the submitted image. Further details about the licensing of an image can be found on our Terms and Conditions page.

Image Evaluations

1. For each clinic a panel of judges will evaluate each image.  The image will be awarded a score to a maximum of 30 points.
2. Any assignment entry which does not fit the assignment topic will be returned and marked as “Not Judged”. These images may be submitted again in a later clinic, though not in the assignment category.
3. Members will have the opportunity to receive a critique should they be offered by the judge at the time of judging. The critique will be read at the showing of the clinic presentation.

Image Categories

Assignment

Images entered in the assignment category must be only those captured after the new assignment topics for the upcoming season are officially announced. Any photograph that appropriately depicts the assignment topic for that clinic may be submitted. Please refer to Assignment Topics  for details on the current and upcoming assignment topics.

Creative

The original image must have started in camera and it must be created by the maker.

1. For the image to be considered to be creative, it must obviously depart from reality and it is usually produced through the use of imagination, originality, experimentation and artistic thought process.
2. A creative image may be created completely in camera; examples of in-camera images may be abstracts, multi exposure, Intentional Camera Movement (ICM), deliberate in camera colour shift, selective colour or selective focus.
3. A creative image may be created or partially altered in editing software by applying any of the artistic techniques; examples of photo editing may be, a composite image made of more than one original element, an image with artistic filters, techniques or other editing derivations applied.
4. Artwork or computer graphics elements which are created by the maker may be incorporated into a creative image, as long as the original photographic content dominates.
5. Creative category images may not be completely constructed entirely within software and by the computer; examples of that are orbs and twirls or graphics produced in Photoshop. It is impossible to prove that they started as an original photograph that maker took.
6. Please note a that High Dynamic Range (HDR) image, or an image created by simply applying a single built-in software tool are not considered creative, unless they are processed additionally by post-production.

Nature

“Nature” photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict observations from all branches of natural history (except anthropology and archaeology) in such a fashion that a well-informed person will be able to identify the subject material and to certify as to its honest presentation of the subject in question.

1. The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining a high technical quality.
2. Human elements shall not be present, except where those human elements enhance the nature story.
3. The presence of scientific bands, scientific tags or radio collars on wild animals is permissible.
4. Photographs of artificially produced hybrid plants or animals, mounted specimens, or obviously set arrangements are ineligible, as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement.
5. No techniques that add to, relocate, replace, or remove pictorial elements except by cropping are permitted.
6. Techniques that enhance the presentation of the photograph without changing the nature story or the pictorial content are permitted.
7. Any and all adjustments must appear natural.
8. A photographer may perform any enhancements and modifications that improve the presentation of the image to make it more closely represent the original scene photographed. However, such enhancements may not change the truth of the original nature story.
9. Cropping and horizontal flipping (equivalent to reversing a slide) are acceptable modifications. Please note that flipping well known scenes can be risky because such flipping may significantly alter the truth of the nature story
10. Removing spots due to dust on film or the camera sensor is allowed. Adding other elements to the image and removing pictorial elements, other than by  cropping, is not allowed.
11. Combining pictorial elements from separate images or rearranging and/or cloning and/or copying elements in your image are not permitted in the Nature category.
12. Black and white images are acceptable.
13. HDR techniques and focus stacking techniques (such as Helicon Focus) are techniques that enhance the image without changing the pictorial content are considered to be allowable techniques.
14. Human elements (hand of man) are permitted in nature images where they are considered to enhance the nature story , and does not exceed 10% of image.  However the image may be heavily penalized if the judge does not consider that this has been accomplished.
15. All adjustments to an image must look natural.

Cautions in Nature Submissions

• Human elements (hand of man) are permitted in a nature image where they are considered to enhance the nature story, and does not exceed 10% of image. However the image may be heavily penalized if the judge does not consider that this has been accomplished.
• All adjustments to an image must look natural.
• Pictorial quality is not the same as technical quality. Technical quality is still an important criterion for evaluation and judging of images.

Pictorial

Pictorial images may be of any subject, but the image must go beyond being a simple documentary record of what was there. The image should demonstrate the photographer’s unique interpretation of that reality by the use of composition, design, light, angle, etc.

1. Any subject matter that does not fall into any other category is acceptable. Eg: Still Life, Tabletop Photography, Food, Man-made Objects, Cultivated Flowers, Transportation, Urban or Rural life are a few examples
2. Any form of manipulation is allowed, although images highly creative or artistic images, should be entered in “Creative Category”
3. Nature like images are allowed where the “Hand of Man” substantially exceeds 10% of the image area, or where post processing techniques that add to, relocate, replace, or remove pictorial elements are used
4. Manipulated images of Nature subjects are to be entered in Pictorial category

Submitting Images

Projected Images

Projected images will be displayed only in a digital format and may be submitted into any category identified above.

1. Projected images are submitted online through one of these image submission pages:
   • Projected Clinic 1 Submissions
   • Projected Clinic 2 Submissions
   • Projected Clinic 3 Submissions
   • Projected Clinic 4 Submissions
2. Images must be resized to be a max 1400 pixels in width (wide) and a max 1050 pixels in height (tall) with a file size less than 2mb.
3. You may submit up to 5 images total. Any combination of categories is acceptable.
4. You may select one image to request a critique from the judges. Indicate your image by checking “Critique (only one per clinic)” when submitting your images.
5. Submissions are limited to members who have paid their fees for the current season.
6. The actual filename may have been something like “DSC_09875.nef” (or .cw2, .orf, or .jpg etc) when it came out of your camera. However, for clinics you should rename the file to match the pattern title_first name_last name.jpg, for example, the filename of your submitted image might be “Nature Sanctuary_Jane_Doe.jpg” – Use only letters, number, spaces and underscore marks in the filename; no other punctuation marks please.
7. A title, which is separate from the filename, is required but it is limited to a maximum of 50 characters. Continuing with the above example, when you upload your images you would type just the title of your image which would be “Nature Sanctuary” in the title box.

Printed Images

Printed images must be submitted in two parts: 1) the physical print and 2) a digital copy of the print that will be used in score reporting process. The details surrounding the submission of these two parts is outlined below.

Physical Prints

Digital Copies

1. A Digital Copy of each physical print MUST be submitted through this image submission page:
   • Print Clinic 1 Digital Copy Submissions
2. Failure to submit both a Digital Copy and the accompanying Physical Print will result in the image not being judged. Rejected images may be submitted to a later clinic if appropriate.
3. The Digital Copy of your image must be resized to be a max 1400 pixels in width (wide) and a max 1050 pixels in height (tall) with a file size of less than 2 mb.
4. You may submit up to 5 images in total for any one clinic. Any combination of prints, projected images or categories is acceptable.
5. You may select one image to request a critique from the judges. Indicate your image by checking “Critique (only one per clinic)” when submitting your digital version of your image.
6. Submissions are limited to current HCC members in good standing on the day before the clinic submission deadline.
7. The actual filename of your original image may have been something like “DSC_09875.nef” (or .cw2, .orf, or .jpg etc) when it came out of your camera. However, for digital copy submission you should rename the file to match the pattern title_first name_last name.jpg, for example, the filename of your submitted image might be “Butterfly_John_Doe.jpg” – Use only letters, number, spaces and underscore marks in the filename; no other punctuation marks please.
8. A title is required with a limit of 50 characters. The title can be anything meaningful eg. “Butterfly” and must be the same as the title on the entry form pasted to the back of your physical print.

Permissible Images

Please consider that Images submitted for our clinics are visible to the public and may be used to represent the HCC at other competitions and events.

Due to the above possibility, a submitted image will be rejected if they are considered to be offensive. Content or subject that may be considered for rejection include, but is not limited to, any image that contains overly sexually suggestive and religious and/or ethnic hate components.

The print or projected chair person will review all images submitted to them to determine their acceptability. Images considered to be questionable by the chairperson will be referred to a minimum of three other members of the executive for consideration and disposition.

The results of these deliberations will obviously be judgmental and may well differ from those that have been established for the general community; however, it must be remembered that the HCC. includes young people in the membership and our standards reflect this.

Ethnic and religious issues are fairly obvious; however, sexual issues are more complicated to deal with. For centuries, in western civilizations, the arts have considered the human form to be a thing of beauty and it was glorified by both painters and sculptors. This continued with the advent of photography. The problem arises when images of nudes are considered to deviate from being purely artistic to becoming sexually suggestive or salacious. The positioning and expression of the model(s), the background, and the lighting will/can all influence the perception of the image. The HCC will not accept images that are considered to be sexually suggestive or salacious, or otherwise offensive. Such images will be removed from the submission, the maker will be notified of this decision and will have the reason(s) explained. The maker may appeal this decision to the full executive and will then be invited to defend the image at an upcoming executive meeting if he/she so desires.

Plagiarism

Images submitted to the Hamilton Camera Club (HCC) for intra and inter club use or competition will be the sole works of the submitter. The following rules will apply:

1. If requested by an officer/chairperson of HCC, the submitter shall provide proof that the image is his/her own work.
2. Proof shall be considered to have been established by providing one of the following: a) If shot on film, then either the negative or slide from which the final image originated. b) If a digital camera was used, then the RAW or JPEG file, complete with the embedded Metafile showing at a minimum the make and model of the camera and the date and time, from which the final submitted image originated. c) In the case of HDR images, panoramas and photo montages that are composites of a number of exposures, then all of the individual negatives, slides or files will be required.
3. If the submitter of an image in question cannot establish proof that the image is his/her own work, all awards for the current club year will be revoked, including HMs counting towards promotions.
4. Subsequent similar violations by the member will result in a lifetime ban on submitting images to the HCC.