The International exhibition of art photography VIRGO 2021 Photo Contest is an exhibition of art photography organised by KOZMO PHOTOGRAPHY&ART

OPEN (monochrome) - PSA PID MONOCHROME
OPEN (color) - PSA PID COLOR
TRAVEL (monochrome and color) - PSA PTD
PHOTOJOURNALISM (monochrome and color) - PSA PJD
NATURE (monochrome and color) - PSA ND
WOMAN (monochrome and color) - PSA PID COLOR
CITY LIFE (monochrome and color) - PSA PTD
MINIMALISM (monochrome and color)- PSA PID COLOR
SHADOWS, SILHOUETTES, REFLECTION (monochrome and color) - PSA PID COLOR

a) Closing date 20 September 2021
b) All judging completed by 30 September2021
c) Notifications sent by 05 October 2021
d) Awards mailed by 15 November 2021
e) On-Line Gallery posted by 10 November 2021
f) Calendars available by 15 November 2021

PUBLIC SHOWINGS
10 October 2021 at Kozmo Studio Photography & Art Exhibition Center, Adana, Turkey.
20 October 2021 at Hulki Muradi Photography & Art Exhibition Center, Mersin, Turkey.

15€ for any 3 sections;
20€ for any 6 sections;
25€ for any 9 sections;

Group Discounts
10 photographers 10% discount,
11-15 photographers 15% discount
16-20 photographers 20% discount

The fee can be paid via PayPal through our web site: http://theiaap.com/virgo/

You can also pay the fee to this bank account;
FOR TURKISH PHOTOGRAPHERS
İLKER TİMUR ALIÇ FİNANSBANK
IBAN TR 26 0011 1000 0000 0083 4439 02

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 isnot required.
Sanctions: Entries will not be accepted from any entrant who is currently sanctioned by PSA.

PSA Star Ratings
To receive proper Star ratings credit from PSA, entrants must provide their names and country exactly the same in each exhibition. Aliases are not permitted. Please contact PSA in the event of name changes or relocating to another country.

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. 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. Note: Entrants who indicate that their images may not be reproduced or used “will not be eligible for awards” or inclusion in audio-visuals of the exhibition “and could be subject to disqualification” by the exhibition sponsors. 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 maker.
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 author
Re-use of accepted images: Once an image has been accepted in a PSA Recognized exhibition, any identical image, or near identical image, may not, in future, be entered or re-entered in any section of the same Division Star Ratings class in that exhibition regardless of media, format, or title; may not be re-titled for entry into any other PSA Recognized exhibition, including translation into another language.

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.

Titles:
Each image must have a unique title. 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 maker. Titles must not include file extensions such as .jpg or .jpeg (or any other camera capture filenames), or words such as "untitled" or "no title". Titles may not consist solely of numbers.

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.
However, PSA members working on Galaxy and Diamond Star Ratings are allowed to continue using different titles of monochrome versions and color versions of the same capture that have already been accepted until the required number of acceptances for those titles has been completed.

Photos must be in JPEG format, dimensions 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels max at 300 dpi, JPEG compression value (if Photoshop used for export): 7-12, file size maximum 4 Mb. No file naming is needed. The Exhibition will be conducted in accordance with the rules of the PSA 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. An image may be entered in only one section where acceptances of that image in multiple sections would be eligible for the same star path. To participate at VIRGO Contest authors will apply with black & white or color works. Maximum number of photographs per theme is 4. No title or identification of the maker shall be written anywhere on the face of an image. An entrant’s four images will be distributed throughout four rounds of judging for that sections. Judge meeting will be online. Photographs must be sent in digital form, as a picture file with dimension 1920x1080pixels at 300 dpi. The exhibition is not allowed to resize the pictures sent by the entrants. The works will be projected on projector Acer H6510BD FHD 1920x1080.Maximum file size is 4 Mb. The target acceptance range is 25-34%

Breaches of Rules
If, at any time, it is determined in the reasonable discretion of the exhibition organizer or the judges before, during, or after the judging of an exhibition that an entrant has submitted entries where one or more images may fail to comply with these Conditions of Entry, including the stated definitions, the exhibition organizers reserve the right to delete the entry from the exhibition and void any or all acceptances or awards in connection with the exhibition. Fees may be forfeited or refunded in these circumstances. The entrant acknowledges that the decision of the exhibition organizers or the judges is final
In order to ensure that images comply with the Conditions of Entry and definitions, the exhibition organizers may carry out reasonable measures to verify that:
a) the images are the original work of the entrant and
b) the images comply with the rules and definitions as set out in these Conditions of Entry
These steps include, but are not limited to, questioning any entrant, requiring the submission of RAW files or other digital files representing the original capture of the submitted image(s), confronting the entrant with evidence that one or more submitted images fails to comply with the Conditions of Entry (also known
as Entry Rules), and offering the entrant a reasonable opportunity to provide counter evidence to refute the exhibition organizer’s evidence by a set deadline. Such entries that are not cleared or are still questionable after the entrant has presented evidence may be considered in breach of these Conditions of Entry, and declined. Such entries may be referred to PSA for further investigation of possible ethics violations
PSA retains the right to investigate in any way all complaints/suspicions of breaches of entry conditions, impose sanctions if deemed necessary, void the acceptances of any image found to violate the PSA rules, include the entrant’s name on the list of sanctions provided to Exhibitions, and share such investigations with FIAP. Entrants automatically agree to these terms by the act of entering the Exhibition and agree to cooperate with any investigation.
If another party is submitting images on the entrant’s behalf, the entrant will still be held responsible for adhering to these Conditions of Entry (Entry Rules) and will be subject to sanction for any violations to these Conditions of Entry and PSA’s Statement of Ethics that may result.
NOTICE: When an entrant fills in the Entry Form to submit an entry, the entrant will see a feature to affirm he or she has read these Conditions of Entry when he or she fills out the entry form. If the entrant does not so affirm the entry will not be submitted

- Dr.Ahmed Mohamed Hassan-PPSA,EFIAP/s,GPU Hermes-Egypt
- Dr.Tibor Jakab- EFIAP/g, FPSA, MPSA -Romania
- Marcel van Balken-MFIAP-MPSA-EFIAP/d3-Netherlands

At the INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION VIRGO Photo Contest the following awards will be presented:

9x PSA Gold, 18 PSA ribbons;
9x IAAP Gold, 9x Silver, 9x Bronze medals and 27 ribbons;
9x KOZMO PHOTO Gold, 9x Silver, 9x Bronze medals and 36 ribbons;
9x CAMERA OBSCURA SOCIETY GOLD and 48 Diploma
The organizer reserves the right to award the most successful authors of the VIRGO Photo Contest

depending on the total number of the entrants.

PSA Statement on Subject Matter There is one hard and fast rule, whose spirit must be observed at all times and applies to all sections offered in PSA recognised exhibitions. The welfare of the subject is more important than the 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 PSA exhibitions. There is also a PSA policy on the use of aerial photography - aircraft, helicopters and drones. This policy can be found at https://psa-photo.org/index.php?psa-policies#drone. environment. Entry in this exhibition requires exhibitors to agree to this and other PSA policies The content of images must comply with these 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 are likely to be disqualified so the entrant may be aware of the problem when considering entry into other PSA recognized exhibitions. 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. Attention is drawn to the PSA Statement on Subject Matter which applies to all sections.

PSA Nature definition
Nature photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archeology, in such a fashion that a well-informed person will be able to identify the subject material and certify its honest presentation.
• The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining high technical quality.
• Human elements shall not be present, except where those human elements are integral parts of the nature story such as nature subjects, like barn owls or storks, adapted to an environment modified by humans, or where those human elements are in situations depicting natural forces, like hurricanes or tidal waves.
• Scientific bands, scientific tags or radio collars on wild animals are permissible.
• Photographs of human created hybrid plants, cultivated plants, feral animals, domestic animals, or mounted specimens are ineligible, as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement.
• No techniques that add, relocate, replace, or remove pictorial elements except by cropping are permitted.
• Techniques that enhance the presentation of the photograph without changing the nature story or the pictorial content, or without altering the content of the original scene, are permitted including HDR, focus stacking and dodging/burning.
• Techniques that remove elements added by the camera, such as dust spots, digital noise, and film scratches, are allowed.
• Stitched images are not permitted.
• All images must appear natural.
• Color images can be converted to greyscale monochrome.
• Infrared images, either direct-captures or derivations, are not allowed.
• Images entered in Nature sections meeting the Nature Photography Definition above can have landscapes, geologic formations, weather phenomena, and extant organisms as the primary subject matter. This includes images taken with subjects in controlled conditions, such as zoos, game farms, botanical gardens, aquariums and any enclosure where the subjects are totally dependent on man for food.


PSA Photojournalism definition
Photojournalism entries are images with informative content and emotional impact, reflecting the human presence in our world. The journalistic (story-telling) value of the image should receive priority over pictorial quality. Images that misrepresent the truth, such as those from events or activities arranged specifically for photography, or of subjects directed or hired for photography, are not eligible. Techniques that add, relocate, replace, remove or change any element in the original scene, except by cropping, are not permitted. All images must look natural. The only allowable modifications are removal of dust, scratches or digital noise and restoration of the appearance of the existing scene, or complete conversion to greyscale monochrome. Other derivations, including infrared, are not eligible. Attention is drawn to the PSA Statement on Subject Matter which applies to all sections

PSA Photo Travel Definition
A Photo Travel image expresses the characteristic features or culture of a land as they are found naturally. There are no geographical limitations. Images from events or activities arranged specifically for photography, or of subjects directed or hired for photography are not permitted. Close up pictures of people or objects must include features that provide information about the location. Techniques that add, relocate, replace or remove any element of the original image, except by cropping, are not permitted. The only allowable adjustments are removal of dust or digital noise, restoration of the appearance of the original scene, and complete conversion to greyscale monochrome. Other derivations, including infrared, are not permitted. All images must look natural.

All participants will receive report card notifications via e-mail. The results of the exhibition will also be published on the website. All participants of the competition (the authors who submitted works and paid the participation fee) will receive a pdf catalogue of the photo salon. The organizer will take all possible care while handling the email, awards and catalogues, however we assume no liability for damages and losses during shipment.

Chairman:
Mr. Ilker Timur Alic
EMAIL: [email protected]
GSM: +90 532 331 9193
ADDRESS: Resat Bey Mah. Ordu caddesi no:36 Seyhan- Adana-TURKEY