Nature Competitions

COVID-19 Notice: To ensure the safety of our members and external judges all entries into this seasons Nature competition will be digital images only.

The 2024 Nature competition will be judged by esteemed IPF member Dominic Reddin.

Format and Scoring for the Club Nature Competition

The nature competition is a one round competition (unlike the league). Each entrant can enter up to 6 images, as digital projected images.

Images must adhere to the FIAP definition for nature images as given below.

The following prizes will be awarded:

• Gold, Silver and Bronze medals for the non-advanced portfolio
• Gold, Silver and Bronze medals for the advanced portfolio
• A trophy for the best non-advanced portfolio
• A trophy for the best advanced portfolio
• A trophy and gold medal for the best overall image.

Images are scored out of 50 marks.
The best portfolio prizes are given to those photographers with the highest combined total in each of the non-advanced and advanced sections respectively. Therefore, to win a best portfolio prize you really need to enter 6 images.

In the event of a tie for any award, the judge will be asked to pick the portfolio or image that receives the award.

Remember also that any images entered in the Nature competition can also be entered in the POTY league competition, and all images entered are also available for selection to be entered in external competitions.

FIAP Rules

• Nature photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archeology, in such a fashion that a well-informed person will be able to identify the subject material and certify its honest presentation.
• The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining high technical quality.
• Human 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.
• 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 elements are not permitted.
• All allowed adjustments must appear natural.
• Colour images can be converted to grey-scale monochrome.
• Infrared images, either direct captures or derivations, are not allowed.
• Images entered in Nature sections meeting the Nature Photography Definition above can have landscapes, geological formations, weather phenomena, and extant 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.