Rules & Fees

ELIGIBILITY
The 2024 still photography and multimedia competition is open to Professional and Student National Press Photographers Assn. members of the New England, New York/International, and Mid-Atlantic Regions ONLY (formerly NPPA Regions 1, 2, and 3). All entries must have been taken or first published between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023.

All entries must adhere to the NPPA Code of Ethics. If you have questions about the eligibility of your entries, based on the organization for which it was created, contact Contest Chair Andy Mendelson.

FEES
Single Entries $35.00 for up to 20 singles, picture stories, and individual or team multimedia entries.
Portfolio Entry $55.00: The price includes up to 20 singles, picture stories, or team multimedia entries at no additional cost, in addition to portfolio submission.
Portfolio Entry for Student Members $25.00: The price includes up to 20 singles, picture stories, or team multimedia entries at no additional cost, in addition to portfolio submission. For further information or to answer any questions, contact contest co-chairmen, Steve Falk, Andy Mendelson, or John Walker at nsc.contestchair@nppa.org

GENERAL GUIDELINES
-Entrants may only submit their own work, with the exception of the Team Multimedia Category (see below).
-A single photograph may be entered only once among the single-picture categories.
-A single photograph may appear as part of a picture story, but in no more than one story.
-A picture story/ multimedia entry may be entered both in an individual category and as a part of a portfolio.
-A clearly-labeled story summary must be included in the caption field of the first photo in a picture story.
-A single photo, a picture story, and a multimedia entry each count as one entry.
-All singles photo entries must have been shot in the contest year.
-ALL picture stories must start with a title slide, whether submitted on their own or as part of a portfolio.
-ALL entries that are un-viewable by the contest staff or judges will be disqualified.
-Multimedia URL’s will not be accepted behind a paywall.
-Photographs entered in the wrong category will NOT be reclassified and will be disqualified.
-Photographs taken outside of the United States, Canada, or Mexico are excluded from Spot News Single, General News Single and News Picture Story
-For all team multimedia entries, please list all individuals involved in the production.
-For portfolios, group the single entries together, starting with a title slide labeled “Singles.” Start each story with a title slide.
-Entries must be submitted using the online form. Entries must be from a single still camera frame and may not be electronically manipulated or altered (other than the normal balancing and toning of a digital camera image). No sandwiched negatives are permitted. Only burning, dodging, and spotting are allowed.
-Entries do not need to have been published but need to have been made between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022. The decisions of the contest judges and committee are final.
-Please remove ALL personal ratings or color codes from images.

FILE PREPARATION
Before uploading your images please make sure that your File Info/IPTC caption information area is filled out correctly. Your caption should include the date the photograph was made. The name of the photographer should not be visible in the caption but should be entered in the field below (IPTC Credit). The contest chair has the authority to disqualify any image that fails to have the required IPTC information properly placed.

Please place the following information in the specific corresponding text fields.  The contest chair has the authority to disqualify any image that fails to have the required IPTC information properly placed.

Title (Required): Every single image entry must have a title.

Captions (Required): Captions must be accurate and answer the basic questions of good journalism. They must be written in English only and follow basic AP style.
– The first clause should describe who is in the photograph and what is going on within the photo in the present tense followed by the city, state or province, and country (if outside the United States) as appropriate. The last portion of the first sentence should be the date. Use absolute dates and absolute locations, meaning you should have a date of, “Tuesday, November 3, 2021” and not just, “Monday” or “last Tuesday.”
– Captions must give attribution of action not seen (e.g. the scene of an accident where more than 10 died, according to police).
– Names should always be listed in order, left to right unless it is impossible for the caption to read normally otherwise.
– With multiple people identified within the caption, enough representations of placement are necessary so that there is no confusion for who is who.
– The second sentence of the caption is used to give context to the news event or describe why the photo is significant.
– If in doubt of the need for a second sentence, leave it off.
– Whenever possible, try to keep captions to no more than two concise sentences, while including the relevant information.
– Try to anticipate what information the reader will need.
– If the photograph is a portrait, the caption must contain a note stating that the photograph is a portrait and was posed and directed.
– For the story categories, a clearly labeled story summary must be included in the caption field of the story title slide in a picture story.

City, State/Province, and Country (Required)

Date (Required) – The date the image was made.

Photographer and Credit/Byline (please fill in both) (Required) – The name of the photojournalist who made the image. Please be consistent from photo to photo. For example, please use Joe E Smith for each image, not Joe Smith on one, Joseph Smith on another, J.E. Smith on a third, and so on.

Source (Required) – Your employer or client.

Copyright (Required) – Who holds the copyright on the image (this may be the entrant, employer, or client).

Contact Email (Required) – Please use the same address here as you will use when you create your account for submission.

Contact Phone (Required)  – Please use the same phone number here as you will use when you create your account for submission.

IMAGE FORMATTING
Images should be sized to be 3000 pixels on the long dimension. Image files must be saved as a JPG with a quality setting of High (9 on a 12-point scale, 8 on a 10-point scale). File sizes should be no more than 5 MB.

NAMING OF IMAGE FILES
Each image file that is entered must be unique. Therefore we are asking that each entrant at the start of the image filename put the category abbreviation then an underscore (_) then their phone number then an underscore (_) then the storyslug then an underscore (_) and then a sequential number.

Please label your images like the following: NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_01.jpg

For multiple images within the same entry continue story slug and numerical sequence
NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_02.jpg
NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_03.jpg
NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_04.jpg

Entries must be submitted using the online form. Entries must be from a single still camera frame and may not be electronically manipulated or altered (other than the normal balancing and toning of a digital camera image). No sandwiched negatives are permitted. Only burning, dodging and spotting are allowed.

Entries do not need to have been published but need to have been made between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023. The decisions of the contest judges and committee are final.

For Still Portfolio entries, include one label slide for all singles and one label slide for each story, as well as a slide with a screen grab for each multimedia in portfolios. They should follow the naming convention above. Slug the label slide ending with 01 in each category.