Welcome to the Southern California Council of Camera Clubs (S4C) Exhibition Website
Home of the S4C International Exhibition of Photography - now in its 54th year!
Recognized by the Photographic Society of America (PSA 2019-516) and Licensed by the Global Photographic Union (GPU L190146-M1G,2HM)
CONDITIONS OF ENTRY
General Conditions
- Sponsor and Exhibition Organizers: The Sponsor of this Exhibition is the Southern California Council of Camera Clubs (S4C). The Exhibition Organizers refers to the General Chair of the Exhibition, appointed by the Sponsor, and others delegated by the General Chair to assist with the organization and operation of the Exhibition.
- Exhibition Process: This Exhibition will be conducted according to the recommended practices of the Photographic Society of America (PSA).
- Eligibility: With exception noted in the following paragraph, 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 (see last section below of these General Conditions for more detail). Membership in any photographic organization is not required.
- Sanctions: Entries will not be accepted from any entrant who is currently sanctioned by PSA.
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Entrant: 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: Images entered into this Exhibition must originate as photographs (image captures of objects via light sensitivity) made by the entrant on photographic emulsion or acquired digitally. By virtue of submitting an image, the entrant certifies the work as his or her own (aliases are not permitted). Images may not incorporate elements produced by anyone else (for example: clip art, images or art by others downloaded from the Internet, photos by NASA).
- 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. Artwork or computer graphics created by the entrant may be incorporated, if the photographic content predominates in a way that is obvious to the viewer. Images may not be constructed entirely with a computer.
- Sequences: Sequences are NOT permitted.
- Entry/Sections: 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 single Entry into a Section (see Sections at right).
- Entry Presentation: An entrant's images will not be presented consecutively to the judges. The four or fewer images in a Section will be distributed throughout four rounds of judging in that Section. Distribution of images shall be in the same round order as submitted by the entrant.
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Certification/Posting: By virtue of submitting an entry, the entrant certifies the work in an image as their own and permits the
Sponsor to reproduce all or part of the entered material free of charge for display and/or publication in media related to the exhibition. This may include low resolution posting on a
website.
Entrants who indicate that their images may not be reproduced or used will not be eligible for awards and they and the offending images will not be eligible for inclusion in the audio-visuals of the Exhibition. Furthermore the offending images could be subject to disqualification at the sole discretion of the Exhibition Sponsors. - ALL MEDAL-WINNING IMAGES AND RANDOMLY SELECTED OTHER IMAGES WILL BE CHECKED FOR ORIGINALITY AND COPYRIGHT VIOLATION.
- Copyright: The Sponsor assumes no responsibility for any misuse of copyright by anyone.
- Titles: Titles will not be read at judging. 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 may 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.
- Identical Images: Images are considered to be identical if they are the same image or a like "in camera" or a "reproduction" duplicate of that image regardless of media, format, or title.
- Unique 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.
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Re-Use of Accepted Images: Once an image has been accepted in a PSA-recognized exhibition, that same or any 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.
- Images meeting the Monochrome Definition and non-manipulated color images from the same capture shall be considered the same image and be given the same title;
- PSA members working on Galaxy and Diamond Star Ratings shall be 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.
- Double Entry in Same Exhibition: An image or an identical image - or a monochrome version of an image - can only be entered once in the same S4C Exhibition.
- Acceptance Range: This Exhibition sets as a target that 29% - 35% of all images entered into a given Section will be accepted.
- Digital Image Format: Digital images must be in JPEG format and not exceed 1,400 pixels in width and 1,280 pixels in height. Images larger than the permitted size will automatically be rejected along with a request to resubmit a correctly sized image. There are no restrictions of filesize or on names of files (as distinct from restrictions on titles of images).
- Projection: Images will be projected on computer monitors with resolution at least 1400W x 1280H pixels that can display the images in their native resolution without re-sizing.
- Image Disqualification: Images may be disqualified (DQed) from competition and not scored or accepted if the Exhibition Organizers or the judges decide that the image not conform to these Conditions of Entry. In such cases no refund of fees will be made to the entrant. The Exhibition Organizers make reasonable efforts to review entered images for conformance to these Conditions of Entry and may give the Entrant the opportunity to submit replacement images if the Exhibition Organizers believe that the original submission should be disqualified. Such opportunity for resubmission may only be offered if the image is submitted in ample time before the Closing Date of the Exhibition.
- Entry Forms: Digital entries must be entered using the online entry process found at http://www.s4c-ex.org/enter. CDs and email attachments are NOT permitted.
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Fees and Payment: The entry fees are USD$9 per Section for all sections. All fees must either be paid via PayPal or by Credit Card
using the Sponsor's online payment system. Cash or checks are NOT accepted. Any entry without the appropriate fee will not be judged. The Sponsor will not forward images to any other
exhibition.
Subject to certain conditions, discounts are available for combined entries of 10 or more entrants with a single payment - email. Contact s4cex-info@pcms-photo.org for details. - Exhibition and Catalog: The catalog of the Exhibition will only be in the form of a PDF downloadable from the Exhibition website with links to all the images, and this will constitute one actual exhibition. A second exhibition will be held at a regular meeting of the Sponsor at a date to be announced.
- Medals & HM Certificates: Medals will be sent by first-class mail by the date specified in the Overview. Honorable Mention awards, however, will be in the form of electronic certificates in PDF format distributed online by the same date. Entrants may choose to print these HM certificates locally or store them in electronic format for later viewing.
- Email List: By virtue of submitting an entry, the Entrant accepts that his/her email address will be used for communicating information about this Exhibition; may be used for announcements of future PSA-recognized exhibitions sponsored by either the Sponsor or by the PSA Council of which the sponsor is a member (the Southern California Council of Camera Clubs); and may be used by PSA as indicated in the next paragraph. The Entrant may opt out of this email list after the Exhibition by notifying s4cex-info@pcms-photo.org. ALERT: opting out before the Exhibition catalogs are posted can result in the Entrant not receiving important Exhibition status information such as scorecards and the posting of the Catalog.
- Data Protection: By entering this exhibition, you, the entrant, are explicitly consenting to the personal details you have supplied, including email addresses, being held, processed and used by the exhibition organizers for purposes associated with this exhibition. You also explicitly consent to such information being sent to organizations that have accorded official recognition, patronage or accreditation to this exhibition. You acknowledge and accept that entering this exhibition means that the status and results of your entry may be made public.
- Judge Recusal: Image scores by judges who are close relatives or partners of the entrant will not be counted in the total score of that image. An average of the other two judges’ scores will be used. Such images are also not eligible for medals or honorable mentions, although they may be accepted into the Exhibition. Judges may not enter any Division/Section that they are judging.
- Chair Entry: The chair of a Division or of the Exhibition may not enter any Division/Section in the Exhibition for which they are responsible or when they have access to that Division/Section's images. Neither can any other person enter any Division/Section if they have access to the images prior to the judging.
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Breach of Conditions of Entry: If at any time it is determined in the reasonable discretion of the organizers of this Exhibition or
the judges before, during, or after the judging of this Exhibition that an entrant has submitted entries where one or more images 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. Fees may be
forfeited or refunded in these circumstances at the sole discretion of the Exhibition organizer. The entrant acknowledges that the decision of the Exhibition organizers or the judges is
final.
To ensure that images comply with these Conditions of Entry and definitions contained herein, the Exhibition 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 the original capture of the submitted image(s), confronting the entrant with evidence that one or more submitted images fail to comply with these Conditions of Entry, 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 provided evidence 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 conditions of entry, impose sanctions if deemed necessary, void the acceptances of any image found to violate PSA rules, include the entrant's name on the list of sanctions provided to exhibitions, and share such investigations with the International Federation of Photographic Arts (FIAP).
Entrants to this Exhibition automatically agree to all the foregoing terms by the act of entering the Exhibition and agree to cooperate with any investigation. - Notice: Before an entrant is permitted to submit an entry into this Exhibition the entrant will see a feature to affirm he or she has read these Conditions of Entry. If the entrant does not so affirm the entrant will not be permitted to enter this Exhibition.
Divisions and Sections
Projected Image Division: Color Class
There are two sections, Color General and Color Theme (Scapes).
Please use the Entry Form at: https://www.s4c-ex/enter
Color images will be judged both for their technical and pictorial merit. The image should be properly exposed, be appropriately in focus, and have appropriate depth of field. The image should have strong composition, pleasing quality, and color impact.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Images eligible for entry into PID Monochrome Class (see below) may NOT be entered into this Exhibition's PID Color Class. Spot color images with a greyscale background, however, may be entered.
Images must meet the requirements of the General Conditions at left.
Section 1: Color General
There are no other restrictions on content.
Section 2.: Theme (Scapes)
The image must be eligible for this Division (see Important Note above) and must be dominated by a broad landscape, cityscape, or seascape. Images that just encompass a narrow part of a scape (such as a cityscape dominated by a single building) may be disqualified by the Exhibition Organizers or the judges.
Projected Image Division: Monochrome Class
PROJECTED IMAGE DIVISION (PID): MONOCHROME CLASS There are two sections, Monochrome General and Monochrome Theme (The Human Figure).
Please use the Entry Form at: https://www.s4c-ex/enter
Requirements for a Monochrome Image
(applies to both
sections):
Beyond meeting any requirements imposed by the General Conditions at left, an image is considered to be Monochrome only if it gives the impression of having no color (i.e. contains only shades of gray which can include pure black and pure white) OR it gives the impression of being a grayscale image that has been toned in one color across the entire image (for example by sepia, red, gold, etc.).
A grayscale 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.
Borders, if any, must be colored the same as the overall image, that is, in shades of grey for a greyscale image; or toned in the same color as the rest of the image for a toned image. Pure black and pure white are acceptable shades of any color.
Monochrome images are judged both for their technical and pictorial merit. The image must be properly exposed, be in focus, and have appropriate depth of field. A monochrome image should have strong composition; pleasing quality; and texture, pattern, and/or tone impact. The content is unrestricted.
Section 1: Monochrome General
Any Monochrome Image may be entered into this Section. The content is unrestricted.
Section 2: Monochrome Theme (The Human Figure)
Monochrome Images where the human figure dominates the image and is the center of interest. The figure may be portraits, or partial or full figure, in any position, clothed or not. Nudes
must be tastefully portrayed*.
* At the sole discretion of the Exhibition Organizers.
Nature Division
There are two sections: General and Wildlife.
Please use the entry form at https://www.s4c-ex/enter
SINGLE WHITE OR GREY BORDERS OF 3 , 4, or 5 PIXELS IN WIDTH ARE PERMITTED. LARGER, SMALLER, BLACK, OR COLOR BORDERS ARE NOT PERMITTED. Entrants are, however, advised that borders of less than 5 pixels may appear incomplete in the smaller images used in the final Catalog due to jpeg artefacts.
Requirements for Nature Photography
(applies to both sections):
Beyond meeting any requirements imposed by the General Conditions at left, an image eligible for Nature Photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archaeology, in such a fashion that a well-informed person will be able to identify the subject material and certify its honest presentation. Furtheremore:
- The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining high technical quality.
- Human-made 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, that are acting on the human-made element.
- 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 may be converted to greyscale monochrome.
- Infrared images, either direct-captures or derivations, are not allowed.
- Sequences are not permitted.
(Click here for further clarification)
Only Wildlife photographs may be entered in the Wildlife Section. Photos elible for the Wildlife Section may also be entered in the General (Open) Section (subject to the Re-Entry rules in General Conditions above).
Section 1: General
Images entered into this Section may be any image that meets the above requirements for Nature Photography.
Images entered in Nature Open/General meeting these requirements can have landscapes, geologic formations, weather phenomena, and extant (that is, still in existence) organisms as the primary subject matter. This includes images taken with the 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.
Section 2: Wildlife
Images entered into this Section must meet the above requirements for Nature Photography. In addition:
Images entered in Nature Wildlife are further defined as one or more extant (that is, still in existence) zoological or botanical organisms free and unrestrained in a natural or adopted habitat.
Landscapes, geologic formations, photographs of zoo or game farm animals, or of any extant zoological or botanical species taken under controlled conditions are NOT eligible in Nature Wildlife sections.
Nature Wildlife is not limited to animals, birds and insects. Marine subjects and botanical subjects (including fungi and algae) taken in the wild are suitable wildlife subjects, as are carcasses of extant species.
(Click here for further clarification)
Photojournalism
There are two sections: Photojournalism General and Photojournalism Human Interest.
Please use the entry form at https://www.s4c-ex/enter
SINGLE WHITE OR GREY BORDERS OF 3 , 4, or 5 PIXELS IN WIDTH ARE PERMITTED. LARGER, SMALLER, BLACK, OR COLOR BORDERS ARE NOT PERMITTED. Entrants are, however, advised that borders of less than 5 pixels may appear incomplete in the smaller images used in the final Catalog due to jpeg artefacts.
Requirements for Photojournalism images
(applies to both sections):
Beyond any requirements imposed by the General Conditions at left, photojournalism images shall consist of images with informative content and emotional impact, reflecting the human presence in our world. The journalistic (story-telling) value of the image shall receive priority over pictorial quality. In the interest of credibility, images that misrepresent the truth, such as those from events or activities specifically arranged for photography or of subjects directed or hired for photography, are not eligible.
Techniques that add, relocate, replace or remove any element of the original image, except by cropping, are not permitted. The only allowable modifications are removal of dust, scratches or digital noise, restoration of the existing appearance of the original scene, sharpening that is not obvious, and conversion to greyscale monochrome. Derivations, including infrared, are not eligible.
Section 1: General
Any Photojournalism image. The content is otherwise unrestricted.
Section 2: Theme (Human Interest)
Human Interest images are Photojournalism images limited to those that depict a person or persons in an interactive, emotional or unusual situation, EXCLUDING RECREATIONAL OR ORGANIZED SPORTS ACTION.
Please download the PDF of the PSA Guidelines for Human Interest
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