Photography Competition Instructions

CONTENTS

  • In Brief
  • Rules and Regulations
  • Awards
  • Instructions for Winners
  • Upload Instructions for Website Version of Image

IN BRIEF

The theme for September 2014 is "Randomness". Photographs depicting randomness in any field of science as well as digital or hand-drawn/made art depicting the theme can be uploaded for this category. Please write in to aathira@ncbs.res.in if you have more questions. All rules and regulations mentioned below apply to this theme for the month.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

Please go through these carefully before uploading your entries for the NCBS Photo Competition. The competition is meant to bring together the NCBS community, brighten up the halls, and encourage creativity. Be honourable in your participation.

  1. Please submit only original images: original images are those taken by you (the photographer, from now on referred to as the Participant, who is a member of the NCBS community) and not anyone else. In case we confirm any instance of a Participant copying someone else's pictures and submitting them as their own, or otherwise cheating in the competition, the matter will be regarded as a violation of the NCBS honour code and handled appropriately.

  2. Only people affiliated to NCBS (who have an NCBS email address to login to the news site) are eligible to take part in the Competition. For some themes (like the January 2013 theme People @ NCBS, where the submitted photographs will be collated to form a database of images that NCBS could potentially use for its Annual Reports), in case a photograph that is taken by a non-NCBS affiliate (this information has to be specified in the caption) is posted by an NCBS affiliate using the latter's account, the photograph will not be eligible for a prize since the photographer is not an NCBS affiliate.

  3. If someone from the NCBS community cannot upload his/her images for a specific reason, the photographer's friend who belongs to the NCBS community can upload the image on behalf of the photographer. This information has to be specified in the caption. Only the photographer (and NOT the friend who submitted the image for him) will be eligible to win a prize.

  4. Only very minimal post-processing is allowed. Please visit  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/digital-manipulation-notice/ which our Judges believe captures all the basic elements of post-processing or PhotoShopping allowed in this competition. High Dynamic Range images (HDRs), photo merging and photo montages or photo stitches are NOT accepted. If your photograph falls into any category that you're not sure is permitted in the Competition, please do consult us (aathira@ncbs.res.in / geoff@ncbs.res.in) before uploading it.

  5. We have separate themes for artistic photographs (like "Digital Art"/ "Digital"/ "Digitized") or general themes (like "Free For All"), so if you have post-processed your photograph into something particularly creative, please submit it only for such themes.

  6. The Participant must be the sole author and owner of the copyright of the image(s) entered for the Photo Competition.

  7. Each Participant can upload only up to a maximum of five entries for each month's Photo Competition.

  8. Each submitted entry should carry the following information:
    a) Location
    b) Year of creation 
    c) Full name of Participant
    d) Camera brand and model used

  9. No submissions over email will qualify to participate in the Competition.

  10. Participants who are taking photos during the course of the Competition should use the highest possible resolution on their camera. Do not submit this original but keep it in case your entry is shortlisted to win an award and the Judges need to examine your original photograph to give their scores.

  11. By posting a photograph for the NCBS photo competition, the Participant agrees to NOT solicit votes among members of the NCBS community for the Popular Choice Award. In case any instance of vote soliciting is brought to our notice, the Judges have the authority to take strict action against the offender(s). If you witness any form of vote soliciting, please write in to aathira@ncbs.res.in/ geoff@ncbs.res.in.

  12. Re-submitting the same entry for another month's Photo Competition is NOT allowed. However, images similar to a previously-submitted entry can be submitted.

  13. Metadata of submitted photographs should not be deliberately deleted/ modified in any way.

  14. While Judges can examine the metadata of pictures to see how much of the original image has been modified, they also have the authority to request the Participant to produce the original image for comparison if necessary.

  15. The Judges' Panel's decision on all matters relating to the judging is final.

  16. Any entry found not to comply with these above-mentioned rules will be disqualified or the Participant banned in some cases, as prescribed by the Judges' Panel.

  17. If you have questions about using a certain technique not mentioned above to enhance your photograph or require any further clarifications about the NCBS Photo Competition, please write to  aathira@ncbs.res.in/ geoff@ncbs.res.in.

AWARDS

  1. There are two awards: the Popular Choice Award and the Judges' Choice Award.

  2. The Popular Choice Award is given to the entry that has the maximum number of votes before 12 midnight on the last day of the month. Anyone in the NCBS community (who has an NCBS email address to login to the news site, of course) can vote for any number of entries, and can change their votes at any time.

  3. There can be up to two Popular Choice Awards in a single month.

  4. In case of a tie for the Popular Choice Award, all photographs involved in the tie will be given Popular Choice Awards. However, if there are three or more photographs tied to win Popular Choice Awards, the two winning photographs will be chosen by a computer-generated random drawing of lots.

  5. The Judges' Panel consists of five Judges. After the completion of a competition, each Judge will shortlist a certain number of entries for the Judges' Choice Award(s). Each of the Participants whose entries have been shortlisted will have to submit the RAW files of the entry or the original photograph (the version which has not been modified or post-processed at all) at this stage. Once the Judges compare the RAW file/original photograph with the submitted entry, each Judge will score his/her favourite entries. The entry which has the highest score of all Judges' scores put together wins the Judges' Choice Award.

  6. The number of Judges' Choice Awards can vary from month to month.

  7. In an effort to make the Judges' Choice Awards more transparent, we will soon have a provision where all five Judges' scores will be displayed online.

  8. Winning images are printed and framed and hung in various locations on NCBS Campus. At the end of a month (or so) of exhibition, they are replaced by later winning images. The images are then available to be used by their creators however they wish. Awards are announced by email to all@ncbs.res.in.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WINNERS

  1. If you win any award you must also provide us with some way to access the highest quality version of your image that you have. These will be necessary for printing.

  2. If the image is 15MB or less, you can email it to the NCBS junior architect Savitha, who deals with the printing of the winning images (savitha@ncbs.res.in).

  3. If the Image is more than 15MB: please email Savitha a link from which she can download the file. The easiest system for this is probably a Dropbox account (https://www.dropbox.com/) or any other of the many similar free services. Such services allow you to provide other people with a "public link" to the file (Dropbox public link instructions: https://www.dropbox.com/help/16).

UPLOAD INSTRUCTIONS FOR WEBSITE VERSION OF IMAGE

  • You must be logged in to the NCBS news site: LOGIN (top right of page) with the username and password that accesses your NCBS email account.
  • Have a low resolution version (less than 300 KB) of your image ready.
  • Remember that you can only upload images that you have clicked yourself. In case any instance of a participant copying some one else's pictures and submitting them as their own is brought to our notice, strict action will be taken.
  • Choose 'UPLOAD IMAGE' link from the right hand side navigation panel of NCBS News and you will be directed to the UPLOAD IMAGE page.
  • From within that page: "Browse" to and choose the image of your choice. "Upload" the file
  • Choose the appropriate gallery by modifying the 'Image Gallery' option on the page.
  • Add a Title in the "Title" field

You must include the following information to the "Caption" field

  • Location
  • Year of creation
  • Full name of main artist
  • Camera brand and model used

Editing of the information for your own images - after you have uploaded them - is now possible.

Bookmark and Share