Gilavar Photo Club of Azerbaijan

A. Open Color (color only) - PSA PIDC
B. Open Monochrome (monochrome only) - PSA PIDM
C. Landscape, Travel (color/monochrome) - PSA PIDC
D. People (color/monochrome) - PSA PIDC

Closing date: 30.06.2024
Judging start: 01.07.2024
Judging end: 20.07.2024
Notification: 31.07.2024
Awards delivery: 20.09.2024
Catalogues delivery: 20.09.2024
Online gallery: 18.09.2024

Participation fee is mandatory for all participants:
1 section 14 Euro 3 sections 16 Euro
2 sections 15 Euro 4 sections 17 Euro

IMAGE AND ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
This exhibition is open to anyone; however, an entry may be rejected when the Sponsor or the Exhibition Organizers, in their reasonable discretion, believes the entry does not conform to exhibition rules and these Conditions of Entry. Membership in any photographic organization is not required.

Penalties: Entries will not be accepted from any entrant who has put on the PSA Penalties List for Ethics Violation. Entry fees are not refundable in these circumstances

PSA Star Ratings
To receive proper Star ratings credit from PSA, entrants must provide their names and country exactly the same way in each exhibition. Aliases are not permitted. Please contact PSA in the event of name changes or relocating to another country. Using one’s name differently in different exhibition exposes the entrant to the risk that many of their acceptances may not be recognized by PSA Star Ratings.

Image Creation
Entries must originate as photographs (image-captures of objects via light sensitivity) made by the entrant on photographic emulsion or acquired digitally.

Certification
By virtue of submitting an image, the entrant certifies the work as his or her own. Images may not incorporate elements produced by anyone else (for example: clip art, images or art by others downloaded from the Internet). Aliases are not allowed.

Reproduction:
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. The Photographic Society of America (PSA) may request specific permission from entrants to reproduce entered images in its educational materials. The terms of that permission will be mutually agreed between the entrant and PSA except in the circumstances where the entered image is found to breach the PSA Ethics Policy. In those circumstances the image may be reproduced by PSA, without the entrant’s further permission, for educational purposes to illustrate serious exhibition rule violations. For those reproductions, the entrant’s name will be withheld.
Entries will not be accepted from entrants who indicate that their images may not be reproduced in materials related to the exhibition.” The exhibition assumes no liability of any misuse of copyright.

Alteration and Computer Generation:
Subject to Divisional restrictions (particularly Nature, Photo Travel, and Photojournalism) images may be altered, either electronically or otherwise, by the entrant; adjustments to enhance images or creatively modify images are allowed providing the underlying photograph is retained in a way that is obvious to the viewer. Images may not be constructed entirely with a computer, and must be the sole work of the entrant.



Re-use of accepted images:
Any image that has been accepted in this exhibition, past or present, may not be entered again in the same Division Star Ratings Class in any future instances of this exhibition. It may, of course, be entered in any other PSA recognised exhibitions but must always have the same title. Re-titling in another language is not allowed.

Entry: An Entry consists of, up to and including, four (4) images entered by a single entrant into the same Section. An entrant may only enter a specific Section once. Entrants may not enter identical or similar images into the same section or different sections of the same exhibition.

Titles: Each image must have a unique title that is a description of the image. That unique title must be used for entry of that image or of an identical Image into any and all PSA-Recognized exhibitions. Titles must be 35 characters or fewer. No titles may be visible to the judges, and nothing in the image may identify the entrant. Titles may not include file extensions such as .jpg or .jpeg (or any other camera capture filenames such as IMG 471). Titles may not consist of personal identifiers possibly augmented by a number; or include words such as “untitled” or “no title”. Titles may not consist solely of numbers unless those numbers are prominently contained within the image, such as a contestant number in a race.

Color and Monochrome:
Color and Monochrome images from the same capture that share substantial pictorial content in common will be considered the same image and must be given the same title.

Submission of works
The entrants have to register on web-site salon.gilavar.net. After registration and authorization the applicant enters personal account and uploads images for the contest. The images on CD sent via regular mail are subject to rejection.
Technical requirements for the uploaded images:
Photos must be in JPEG format, dimensions no more than 1920 pixels horizontal by no more than 1080 pixels vertical side max. at 300 dpi, max. 2MB.
Each image must have a unique title that is a description of the image. No title or photos containing visible watermarks, names or initials will be disqualified and for this reason will not be included in the verdict. Please use only English alphabet and numeric (A-Z, 0-9).
An author may not enter identical or similar images into different categories and sections of the same salon.

The Exhibition will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the PSA and of FIAP.
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 that section. Distribution of images will be in the same round order as submitted by the entrant. At no stage will a judge be able to view all the entrant’s images together.

At the contest there will be 180 international awards from FIAP, PSA, IAAP, Sille Sanat Sarayi and Gilavar Photo Club

The Best author: 1 x FIAP blue pin
The Best Photo Club: 3 x diplomas
Open Color: FIAP gold medal, PSA gold medal, IAAP gold medal, SSS gold medal, Gilavar gold medal, IAAP silver medal, SSS silver medal, Gilavar silver medal, IAAP bronze medal, SSS bronze medal, Gilavar bronze medal, 6 x FIAP blue ribbon, 5 x PSA ribbon, 6 x IAAP ribbon, 6 x Gilavar ribbon, 10 x Gilavar diploma
Open Monochrome: FIAP gold medal, PSA gold medal, IAAP gold medal, SSS gold medal, Gilavar gold medal, IAAP silver medal, SSS silver medal, Gilavar silver medal, IAAP bronze medal, SSS bronze medal, Gilavar bronze medal, 6 x FIAP blue ribbon, 5 x PSA ribbon, 6 x IAAP ribbon, 6 x Gilavar ribbon, 10 x Gilavar diploma
Landscape: FIAP gold medal, PSA gold medal, IAAP gold medal, SSS gold medal, Gilavar gold medal, IAAP silver medal, SSS silver medal, Gilavar silver medal, IAAP bronze medal, SSS bronze medal, Gilavar bronze medal, 6 x FIAP blue ribbon, 5 x PSA ribbon, 6 x IAAP ribbon, 6 x Gilavar ribbon, 10 x Gilavar diploma
People: FIAP gold medal, PSA gold medal, IAAP gold medal, SSS gold medal, Gilavar gold medal, IAAP silver medal, SSS silver medal, Gilavar silver medal, IAAP bronze medal, SSS bronze medal, Gilavar bronze medal, 6 x FIAP blue ribbon, 5 x PSA ribbon, 6 x IAAP ribbon, 6 x Gilavar ribbon, 10 x Gilavar diploma

The organizer reserves the right to change the number of awards, depending on the total number of the entrants.

Statement on Subject Matter applicable to all sections
The fundamental rule that must be observed at all times and applies to all sections offered in exhibitions with PSA recognition is that the welfare of living creatures is more important than any photograph. This means that practices such as baiting of subjects with a living creature and removal of birds from nests, for the purpose of obtaining a photograph, are highly unethical, and such photographs are not allowed in any exhibition with PSA recognition. Under no circumstances may a living creature be placed in a situation where it will be killed, injured or stressed for the purpose of obtaining a photograph. Images that show live creatures being fed to captive animals, birds or reptiles are not permitted under any circumstances.

There are also concerns about the use of aerial photography, drones, helicopters, low flying aircraft. These should not cause any interference with other individuals or animals which causes a disturbance in their normal activity or disrupt the way any individuals or animals interact with their environment. Entrants in PSA recognized exhibitions should comply with all relevant laws and regulations, associated with aerial photography, in the country in which the image was taken.

Entry into PSA recognized exhibitions is conditional on accepting these policies. The content of images must comply with the General Conditions and with the Division and Section definitions listed in these conditions. Images that - in the sole opinion of the judges or the Exhibition Organizers - do not comply, will be disqualified so the entrant may be aware of the problem when considering entry into other exhibitions with PSA recognition.

PSA Monochrome Definition
An image is considered to be Monochrome only if it gives the impression of having no color (i.e. contains only shades of grey which can include pure black and pure white) OR it gives the impression of being a greyscale image that has been toned in one color across the entire image. (For example by Sepia, red, gold, etc.) A greyscale or multi-colored image modified or giving the impression of having been modified by partial toning, multi-toning or by the inclusion of spot coloring does not meet the definition of monochrome and shall be classified as a Color Work.

For the purpose of this exhibition, only greyscale images are allowed in monochrome sections. Toned images are not allowed.

Greyscale Monochrome images may be entered for Nature, Photojournalism and Photo Travel but toned images are not permitted for these sections.

Monochrome images may not be entered in Pictorial Prints or PID Color Sections.

FIAP Definition of Monochrome
A black and white work fitting from the very dark grey (black) to the very clear grey (white) is a monochrome work with the various shades of grey. A black and white work toned entirely in a single colour will remain a monochrome work able to stand in the black and white category; such a work can be reproduced in black and white in the catalogue of a salon under FIAP Patronage. On the other hand a black and white work modified by a partial toning or by the addition of one colour becomes a colour work (polychrome) to stand in the colour category; such a work requires colour reproduction in the catalogue of a salon under FIAP Patronage.

Editing Guidelines for Nature, Photojournalism and Photo Travel
These sections require images to be truthful records, so there are limits on the amount of manipulation allowed.

Editing Guidelines
Processing or editing must be limited to making the image look as close to the original scene as possible, except that conversion to grayscale monochrome is allowed.

Allowed editing techniques:
• Cropping, straightening and perspective correction.
• Removal or correction of elements added by the camera or lens, such as dust spots, noise, chromatic aberration and lens distortion.
• Global and selective adjustments such as brightness, hue, saturation and contrast to restore the appearance of the original scene.
• Complete conversion of color images to grayscale monochrome.
• Blending of multiple images of the same subject and combining them in camera or with software (exposure blending or focus stacking);
• Image stitching – combining multiple images with overlapping fields of view that are taken consecutively (panoramas);

Editing techniques that are not allowed:
• Removing, adding to, moving or changing any part of an image, except for cropping and straightening.
• Adding a vignette during processing.
• Blurring parts of the image during processing to hide elements in the original scene.
• Darkening parts of the image during processing to hide elements in the original scene.
• All conversions other than to complete grayscale monochrome.
• Conversion of parts of an image to monochrome, or partial toning, desaturation or over-saturation of color

For the purpose of this exhibition any border added to a digital file must be a single border of white or grey, no greater than 3-5 pixels in width.

Photo Travel
A Photo Travel image is a portrayal of the real world we live in, as it is found naturally. There are no geographic limitations.

Content guidance:

1. If the image is predominantly or exclusively a land-, sea- or cityscape, these “scapes” must include characteristic, distinctive and recognizable physical features, although it is not necessary that the image identify the exact location;
2. Images that predominantly or exclusively depict people and their activities must illustrate a distinctive culture of a country, region, or continent;
3. Images that predominately or exclusively depict animal populations are allowed, if the animals are in their native environment and are characteristic of that country, region, or continent;
4. Portraits or other close-ups of people or objects, in addition to meeting the above paragraphs as applicable, must include elements depicting some of the surrounding environment to make it obvious that the image was not taken in a studio setting;
5. Images from events or activities arranged for photography, or of subjects directed or hired for photography, are NOT allowed.
6. Time exposures are allowed, if they do not dominate the image as a special effect (star trails, for example, are a dominating effect).
7. Highly distorted images such as those produced by fish eye lenses are NOT allowed.

Attention is drawn to the PSA Statement on Subject Matter which applies to all sections and to the Editing Guidelines for Nature, Photojournalism and Photo Travel

People Definition (color only) PSA PIDC
People in all situations, such as daily life, street photography, traditions, portrait, people at work, social events, human relations and etc. The main subject in the photo must be one or more human. PIDC only colour images are allowed in this seciton.

For the purpose of this exhibition any border added to a digital file must be a single border of white or grey, no greater than 3-5 pixels in width.

Attention is drawn to the PSA Statement on Subject Matter which applies to all section.

Notification cards will be sent by email.
The results and PDF Exhibition catalog will be publishing on website salon.gilavar.net and it will be possible to download. All entrants of the contest (participants which submitted works and paid entry fee) will receive on-line PDF catalog of the photo contest.

Salon Chairman Mr. Rashad Mehdiyev, EFIAP
e-mail: [email protected]
Salon web site: salon.gilavar.net