Official rules

LIFE’s Work—The Eyes of Experience photo contest and exhibition, 2010.

Eligibility

Except for the judges, this photo contest is open to all residents of Ontario who will be 50 or older on March 31, 2010, and to members of the Canadian Forces normally resident in Ontario and who, otherwise, fit the criteria for eligibility.

Categories

1. Amateur photographers: This category is open to people who have never made their living as a professional photographer. The occasional sale of photographs does not constitute professionalism. Photographs submitted by amateur photographers will be judged in the following four categories:
   1. Colour: Colour photographs will be judged in the following sub-categories:
      1. Landscape
      2. Nature
      3. Children
      4. Portraiture
      5. Animals
      6. Sports
      7. Architecture
      8. Urban scene
      9. Other
   2. Monochrome: This category has no sub-categories and includes monochrome photos of any subject. It includes continuous-tone black-and white-prints or slides, sepia, and other tones.
   3. Photo-manipulation: This is a single category and includes photographs of any subject that have been altered through a major colour change, the application of art medium, digital alterations, and so on. Such changes must be the work of the submitting photographer. We may ask to see the camera original as well as the altered image.
   4. Snap shot: This category includes any informal photograph, taken quickly using a hand-held camera, up to 4 x 6 inches. This must be sent by Canada Post, with a stamped, self-addressed return envelope included. There are no prizes for this section.
2. Professional photographers: This category is open to people who worked, are working, or are retired from the profession. Photographs must not have been taken for commercial purposes. Photographs submitted by professional photographers will be judged in the following four categories:
   1. Colour: Colour photographs will be judged in the following sub-categories:
      1. Landscape
      2. Nature
      3. Children
      4. Portraiture
      5. Animals
      6. Sports
      7. Architecture
      8. Urban scene
      9. Other
   2. Monochrome: This category has no sub-categories and includes monochrome photos of any subject. It includes continuous-tone black-and white-prints or slides, sepia, and other tones.
   3. Photo-manipulation: This is a single category and includes photographs of any subject that have been altered through a major colour change, the application of art medium, digital alterations, and so on. Such changes must be the work of the submitting photographer. We may ask to see the camera original as well as the altered image.
   4. Snap shot: This category includes any informal photograph, taken quickly using a hand-held camera, up to 4 x 6 inches. This must be sent by Canada Post, with a stamped, self-addressed return envelope included. There are no prizes for this section.

Note: Photographs considered by the judges to be outside the above criteria may be removed from consideration.

Entries

LIFE prefers that photographs be sent in digital format, but we will accept 35mm slides and 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 prints. If you wish, you may crop digital photographs on your computer, place cropping marks on slide mounts, and indicate the cropping of prints with a short note, or crop marks on the back of the print. Slides are to be submitted in glassless slide mounts.

• Digital photographs are to be in JPG format, with a maximum file size of 2MB, and should be approximately 1000 pixels in the largest dimension.
• Prints should be unmounted, and may be colour, black and white, or toned monochrome.
• Slides may be colour, black and white, or toned images.

Each entry:

• Must be an original photograph that was taken by the contestant, either on film or digitally.
• Must have been taken for personal and private use; that is, not for commercial use.
• Must not be a photograph that has been copied or reproduced from a third-party source.

Unacceptable photo manipulation

No photo-manipulation is permitted, except within the Photo-manipulation category. However, this does not apply to cropping an image, adjusting its intensity, or removing artifacts such as dust marks or evidence of fingerprints on the negatives, and so on. Also, toning of a black and white photograph is permitted within the Monochrome category.

Entry deadline

Online entries must be completed and submitted by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time, Wednesday, March 31, 2010. Posted entries must be postmarked no later than March 31, 2010.

Judging criteria

Entries will be pre-screened and selected contestants will be asked to submit exhibition-quality prints for the final judging. All photographs entered will be evaluated by a panel of judges, all of whom will be professionals in some aspect of the graphic arts.

The photographs will be judged on:

• Originality and creativity
• Composition
• General photographic quality

Disclaimer

The LIFE Institute is not responsible or liable for any erroneous, damaged, destroyed, lost, late, incomplete, illegible, corrupted, incorrectly addressed or misdirected submissions or any damage or loss arising from, or connected with the Photograph Contest. Submissions that do not comply with the complete rules stated may not be eligible to win. All submissions become the property of The LIFE Institute.

By submitting photographs to this contest you are declaring your understanding of the rules of the contest. All decisions of the Committee and the Judges will be final and not appealable, nor will reasons be given.

Privacy/use of personal information

By participating in the Contest, the entrant:

1. Grants to the Sponsors and the LIFE Institute the right to use his/her name, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address (Personal Information) for the purpose of administering the Contest, including but not limited to contacting and announcing the Winners;
2. Grants to the Sponsors and the LIFE Institute the right to use his/her Personal Information for publicity and promotional purposes relating to the Contest, in any and all media now known or hereafter devised, without further compensation unless prohibited by law;
3. Acknowledges that the Sponsors and the LIFE Institute may disclose his/her Personal Information to third-party agents and service providers of any of the Sponsors and the LIFE Institute in connection with any of the activities listed in (a) and (b) above;
4. Grants to the Sponsors and the LIFE Institute the right to use her/his entry in publicity both before and after the contest and also the right to reproduce the entry in a catalogue of the final show should the Sponsors and the LIFE Institute choose to produce one. All other rights remain with the entrant.

The Sponsors and the LIFE Institute will use the entrant’s Personal Information only for identified purposes, and protect the entrant’s Personal Information in a manner that is consistent with the law in the Province of Ontario.

Sales

Any entrant may designate the LIFE Institute as her/his agent for the sale of copies of the entry at a price to be set by the entrant. LIFE will complete the sale and forward the proceeds to the entrant after deducting a commission of 30%.