Monthly Image Competition Rules

About

The Monthly Image Competition (MIC) provides a friendly competition, brings inspiration, and shares what others in the profession are producing. Because all UPAA members can judge the entries, winning participants know their images are appreciated and valued by their counterparts at some of the best colleges and universities around the world. 

The MIC is open to all active members, though the categories they may enter vary depending on membership type (see chart found below categories).

RULES

• Your entries are not required to have been published or displayed by your academic institution. 
• With exception to the PERSONAL VISION category and the STUDENT AND ASSOCIATE category, entries must have been taken in service of your institution. 
• Add a caption and title to your entry. Do not add your identity/photo credit in the title or caption field.
• Submissions in all categories are limited to single, finished images. You can utilize multiple exposures, layering of elements, etc. as long as the finished entry is presented as one still image.
• Submitted images must have been captured during the previous month – 1st to end of the previous month.
• You cannot enter the same or similar image into more than one category at a time. The Competition Chair reserves the right to reject any image that is essentially a duplicate of another done that month by the same UPAA member. 
• Putting similar images in various categories is not allowed. Choosing the appropriate category for image selection is one of the challenges of the MIC.

Categories

1. SPORTS ACTION: Photographs taken of athletes (including cheerleaders and mascots) in action during competition or practice in service of your institution.
 

2. SPORTS FEATURES: This category is for all other sports related photography other than sports action and marketing; fans/crowds, cheer, bands, coaching, sidelines.
 

3. SPORTS MARKETING AND ILLUSTRATION: Any type of photo illustrations or images (including sports portraits) taken for marketing purposes and/or athletics communications.  Photo retouching/editing is permitted. Any composite, generative fill, or AI work done in post must be noted in the caption.
 

4. PORTRAITS: Posed portraits of individuals or groups, in the studio, on your campus, or elsewhere in a university or college-related situation. The subject must be aware that they are being photographed. Other more candid “portraits” belong in the NEWS & COLLEGE LIFE category. Basic retouching/editing is permitted.
 

5. CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT: Open to photographs of buildings, structures, or grounds on and around your campus and college community.
 

6. NEWS AND COLLEGE LIFE: Photos captured while documenting your university or college-related events, activities, and campus happenings as they occur naturally (unposed and uncontrolled). Basic retouching/editing is permitted. Photographs in this category should adhere to accepted photojournalistic standards. Staged/controlled photos or composites should be entered in General Marketing and Illustrations.
 

7. GENERAL FEATURES: Photos captured while in the service of your institution that do not belong in any other category, exhibit graphic, aesthetic qualities, and/or are authentic moments not necessarily tied to a planned event. Basic retouching/editing is permitted. Photographs in this category should adhere to accepted photojournalistic standards. Staged/controlled photos or composites should be entered in General Marketing and Illustrations.
 

8. GENERAL MARKETING AND ILLUSTRATION: Any type of photo illustrations or images taken for marketing purposes and general communications. Photo retouching/editing is permitted. Any composite, generative fill, or AI work done in post must be noted in the caption.
 

9. SCIENCE AND RESEARCH:  Open to photographs taken in the lab, classroom, field, or in the studio for clinical or educational purposes. Images using composite, generative fill, or AI belong in MARKETING AND ILLUSTRATION.
 

10. PERSONAL VISION: Open to photographs of any subject that were made to satisfy your personal interests.
 

11. STUDENT AND ASSOCIATE: Only Student and Associate members may enter this category. Entries may be of any subject. Winning photos will place monthly, but are not eligible for Best of Show and no points will be awarded towards ranking. Points from this category will only be accrued to determine the Student Photographer of the Year 
 

Competition Schedule
The monthly image competition will run from September 1st until June 15th of each academic year. The times of the contest opeing and closing are Central times, please be aware of this and plan accordingly. 

• September 1st - 30th: images from June 1st through August 31st.
• October 1st - 31st: images from September 1st through September 30th.
• November 1st - 30th: images from October 1st through October 31st.
• December 1st - 31st: images from November 1st through November 30th.
• January 1st - 31st: images from December 1st through December 31st.
• February 1st – 28th or 29th: images from January 1st through January 31st.
• March 1st - 31st: images from February 1st through February 28th or 29th.
• April 1st - 30th: images from March 1st through March 31st.
• May 1st - 31st: images from April 1st through April 30th.
• June 1st - Early June, check your membership dashboard for exact dates: images from May 1st through May 31st.
   

Entering

• To enter, navigate to your dashboard (MY ACCOUNT in the dropdown menu), scroll down, select Enter Contest Now.
• Each image is to be sized 1600 pixels on the long side, maximum at 72 dpi. Cropping within these dimensions is at the discretion of the participant.
• Images must be in 24-bit JPEG format (RGB, 8 bits per channel), sRGB is the best color profile for web.
• Images in CMYK cannot be displayed in the competition even if accepted by the server. It is the member's responsibility to verify uploaded images displayed in their preview submission screen and ensure images have been converted to a RGB profile, sRGB preferred.
• You must click on the “Submit Another Entry” button to register your image in the competition.
• You can change any of your entry’s written fields or delete your entry by choosing "View My Entries" and then making appropriate changes.
• Changes / Deletions to submissions can be made up until the closing of the submission phase, noted on your member dashboard; the system automatically submits at that hour whatever was the latest edit of selections entered.
• Keep in mind that you will be judged by a diverse group of people who may deduct points if they believe your photo is in the wrong category.
• Unless otherwise notified submissions will be accepted from the 1st day until the 15th of each month regardless of what days these dates fall on. This time block is referred to as the MIC submission phase.
• Dates and Times for entry and voting are displayed on your member dashboard and based on the timezone set in your member profile. Check that this is set correctly by choosing "Edit My Profile" at the very bottom is the timezone option. Click "Save" when finished.
• You may submit up to 4 images per month, each taken in the previous month. These images can be spread over any of the categories.
• There is currently no category for photo essays or printed pieces (such as, but not limited to, posters) that display several images.

Image Viewing and Judging

Voting with integrity and without bias is vital for the feedback and growth of the UPAA membership. Please vote in a way that best reflects the score you feel an image deserves. Be aware of your potential favoritism, conscious or unconscious. This helps the MIC and other competitions be a reliable tool to measure our success and areas of potential growth.

• Full, student, and associate members are eligible to vote.
• When judging, unless you feel a photo is blatantly in the wrong place, the photographer should be given the benefit of the doubt. 
• Voting members will rate EACH image in each category on a star scale of 1 to 7, with seven being the highest score. Members will not be required to complete the voting in one session, and can return multiple times prior to the end of the month to complete their voting.
• Entries will be available for voting from the 18th until the end of each month (referred to as the MIC voting phase) regardless of which days they fall on. This two day “Off” period between the submission deadline and voting start time allows the MIC Committee to review the system and entries for errors and potential non-compliance of the rules. 
• Once the voting phase is open, members can view the galleries multiple times. The gallery default is to view all entries; however you may select each individual category from a drop down list.  It is recommended you judge each category on its own rather than an all in one approach, but this is at the discretion of the voter.
• Your vote can be changed at any time up till the end of the voting phase, and you do not need to vote for every image entered for your votes to count. That said, please do your best to vote on every image. 
• The database will calculate the scoring and determine Best of Show and 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in each category (except Personal Vision).
• Personal Vision will be awarded 1st and 2nd place only on a monthly basis. It will not count towards the member's accumulated points or Best of Show for this competition. Points for Personal Vision are tallied and kept separately in order to acknowledge members who have submitted strong work in this category at the symposium in June.

Awards 

• Best of Show is calculated as the highest points awarded (most popular image of the competition) by the voting regardless of category (eligible categories being Sports Actions, Sports Features, Sports Marketing & Illustration, People & Portraits, Campus Environment, News & Campus Life, General Features, Features & Illustrations, Science & Research). Once selected, it is removed from its scoring category and the remaining images in that category move up by one position, and are awarded 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th places accordingly.
• Best of Show, images placing 1st through to 5th, and the top two images in Personal Vision will be saved in the MIC Winners Gallery.
• Ties in any category will both be awarded with the total points applied for each winner. 

Points and Ranking

All photos entered (except for Personal Vision) receive points towards the Monthly Image Competition. These are the points that determine the images placement in the MIC.

• The formula used to determine MIC Points is Average Star Rating x 100

• The formula to determine Average Star Rating is Total Stars / Total Votes

For example:

• Your image earned a total of 336 stars from 85 votes, so your Average Star Rating is 3.953 (the equation is 336 / 85).
• Apply the points formula above (3.953 x 100), and you have 395.3 points.

Members will accumulate points as they enter the MIC during the year, which are tallied for the annual symposium in June. The person with the highest standing (most points) at the end of the competition year will be named MIC Overall Winner. Points earned throughout the year are a factor in determining the Mark Philbrick Photographer of the Year - POY.

Student Photographer of the Year will be awarded to the student member with the most points at the end of the year.