Competitions

MCC Photo Competitions

The Midland Camera Club has photo contests for members to present their work within the club. Nature and PID (Projected Image Division (PID) photo contests are used to determine what photos will be presented to the Photographic Society of America (PSA) as part of interclub competitions. This table gives the current photo competitions. PID is also called Open or Color Salon. All other competitions are internal to the Midland Camera Club.

Competition List
  • PSA Nature Guidelines are in a document listed below. See "PSA Nature and Wildlife Definition" No man made objects, with a few exceptions, and limited post processing.
  • PSA Projected Image Division (PID, or Open/Color Salon) guidelines are listed below. See PSA Interclub Projected....PDF. Any image can be submitted for this competition. There are no restrictions as to image modifications. Also, images of people are allowed. PSA notes a personal release is needed only if a people image is used for commercial purposes. If the image was not taken in a public place then a release should be gotten from the individual.
  • Internal Competitions and Show and Tell Events include yearly Scavenger Hunt and other events like holiday photos. These competitions use the same sizing guidelines as shown below but different naming conventions. Guidelines for content are provided for each of these special internal competitions or show and tell events. Naming conventions are noted in advance and often in the monthly newsletter.
  • Email photos to mccintake@gmail.com. Number of photo attached per email can either be one or more.
  • The subject name of the email must be the "NAME of COMPETITION" ... ie "Every Day Object", "PSA PID" or "PSA Nature"
  • Sizing: Horizontal images will be no more than 1400 pixels wide or 1050 pixels tall -updated Sept 16, 2019.
    • Vertical images will be no more than 1050 pixels tall.
    • (Unless your image proportions are in the exact ratio of 4 to 3, one of these dimensions will be less than the maximum.)
    • See documents on the bottom of the this page for details on how to properly format your image.
    • The top six images for PSA PID/Open will be submitted to PSA for further competition.
  • sRGB color space is recommended for optimum results.
  • All PSA competition images must meet PSA File Naming Convention; example: E-PICTURE TITLE MAX 25 CHAR-by My Name-MIDLAND
    • First letter is either "E" or "C";
      • E is used for PSA PID image submission - also called "Open" by MCC.
      • C is used for NATURE PSA submissions
    • The second part of the file name is the title with a maximum character length of 25
    • Third part of the file name is the photographers name
    • Fourth part of the name is the clubs name "MIDLAND"
    • Example is a PID (Open) image submitted by Kristina Erin Kaye of the Midland Camera Club titled "My place": E-MY PLACE-by Kristina Kaye-MIDLAND
    • Example is a Nature image submitted by Bob Wild of the Midland Camera Club titled "Big Bird": C-BIG BIRD-by Bob Wild-MIDLAND
  • Scavenger Hunt File Naming Convention is different: Use the number and subject from the list provided each year, plus Image title and Photographer Name. Use the same sizing and color space as PSA Competition images. This makes it easier to sort by competition category.
    • Example: 10 Barns - Chippewa Nature - by Phil Walenga.jpg
  • Show and Tell File Naming Convention is different: Please use the following naming convention for show and tell photos sharing events. Only change the text in red. Please do not use any special characters for the picture name such as !@#$%^&*()-. Especially do not use any extra "-" it will make organizing the images in Excel more difficult for me.
    • S - Picture Title Max 25 Char - by My Name - HOLIDAY STILL LIFE (as an example)
    • S - Picture Title Max 25 Char - by My Name - MY FAVORITE PHOTOS (as an example)
  • For member-judged PSA competitions, we will incorporate discussion around the top six images. Since only one photo per photographer can be submitted to PSA, photos will be grouped by photographer to pick the best image submitted by the photographer.
  • See "Create Lightroom Naming Preset for PSA.pdf" below to more easily create the file names for the above.