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External competitions offer VCC members access to a world of photography beyond our Club. All VCC members can enter the external competitions in which our Club participates, providing they meet the requirements of the individual competition. Some competitions, for example, have certain residency requirements. New this year, CAPA will apply their own photographer classification to zonal competitions: look at the individual competition listing for Pacific Zone for more details.
Look at the current “2024-2025 Competitions Summary” page under the “Competitions” drop-down menu to see a list of the coming season’s competitions in a calendar listing.
One of the duties of your External Competitions Committee is to select our Club entries in accordance with the rules of each contest, and in a way that is fair and considerate of all of our members. Your committee members will each independently judge every entry from members (except their own) using Club software. Judges will not know the name of the photographer. One Committee member will scan the top entries for compliance with photographer limits. The judges will then discuss the rating results and make final selections in accordance with contest rules and their own best judgment. The Committee may invite a “guest” judge from time to time.
Once the VCC entries have been selected by the Committee, members will be notified which entries were selected and the Committee will enter the selected entries.
Managers of competitions are currently paying special attention to the rules regarding artificial intelligence.
CAPA's permitted machine learning AI rules continue to evolve. As of May 28, 2024, CAPA has identified 8 post-capture processors which use AI generative technology: Canva, Lightroom, Luminar Neo, Photoroom, Photoshop, Picsart, Pixlr, and Stylar AI. The generative features in these applications are not permitted.
AI machine learning features which ARE permitted include (as of May 28, 2024): Luminar Neo's "AI Structure", "AI Sky Replacement", and "AI Skin Enhancer"; ON1 Photo Raw's "AI Auto Enhance", "AI Match Batch Processing", and "AI No-Noise"; DxO PhotoLab's "DeepPRIME denoising, sharpening and PRIME deblurring"; Topaz Labs AI's "Gigapixel AI", "DeNoise AI", and "Sharpen AI"; and Photoshop 2024 tools that DO NOT trigger the Firefly algorithm, including "Spot Healing Brush", "Remove Tool", "Healing Brush Tool", "Patch Tool", "Content-Aware Move Tool", "Re-eye Tool", "Clone Stamp Tool" and "Pattern Stamp Tool". If in doubt, review CAPA's updated web site.
The latest Lightroom Classic release (13.3.1) now has a "generative remove" tool where there was once the "Heal" Tool, and which is now called the "Remove" Tool. As a "generative" AI tool that uses Adobe Firefly, it falls into the list of Disallowed tools. Also in the latest Lightroom Classic, the new "Lens Blur" is permitted as it is not an AI generative tool.
Images created totally electronically with no photographic origin, including renderings generated via text prompts, are prohibited. Post capture treatments using artificial intelligence and third party pre-sets may not add or generate textures or elements not captured by the photographer. The original RAW or JPEG of Potential winning images may be requested. CAPA uses a variety of techniques and proprietary algorithms to detect generative AI.
Some competitions allow both club and individual member entries, provided you are a member of the sponsoring club or organization. Members may not submit the same photo in a contest as club member and individual member. Photos that have won medal or honour recognition may not be entered into a second CAPA competition. We strive to notify our members of the selected photos in any contest in time for members to enter individually if they are members of CAPA. Members should understand that their entries not selected as Club entries can still be entered as individual entries.
Why should you enter an external competition? For those members that care about how our VCC is perceived among other clubs, external competitions maintain our Club’s presence in the photographic world. The main benefit of competition for an individual is that the act of submitting your own work for scrutiny by others is one of the steps in escaping your own subjective biases: this has the effect over time of forcing upon you a more objective view of your own work. Will you sometimes be disappointed? Of course. Will the judges always be right? No! However, overall, and over time, you will be led in the direction of better work. In addition, by paying attention to greater contests, you will see a lot of really good work.
First, look through the drop-downs to see which contests might be of special interest to you. Then, make sure you read both the rules of the sponsoring society, and, where they exist, the special rules and definitions particular to the selected competitions. We will post updated information in our “drop down” pages for each external competition the Club will enter, in which we will summarize the criteria for entry, and we will tell you the special rules for the themes. Updates are made as new information is made available.
If you have never entered an external competition, you might start with a competition that allows clubs more than 6 entries. Eastwood, for example, requires each club to select 30 entries, 15 from novice/intermediate members, and 15 from advanced. This particular competition also requires the judges to provide comments on every photo.
Note that CAPA is trying something new in their Pacific Zone competition this year: they have limited the number of entries per Club to 5 (from the previous 6) and to 2 (from the previous 3) for Individual members entering, but they are promising to provide the commentary of one judge for every entry.
You can see the photos VCC selected for external competitions on our web site, but you can also go online to view complete results of closed competitions. CAPA, for example, publishes contest galleries which are open to anyone to view.
If you want to go beyond merely participating in external competitions through the VCC, consider a personal membership in national organizations like CAPA and PSA.
To submit images to a competition, click Competitions-Submit Images to a Competition.
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