Sixth Annual Photography Competition

Photo Contest: Rules, Terms and Conditions. The Nature Conservancy invites photographers to enter its Sixth Annual Photography Competition. You must read the following rules, terms and legal conditions before submitting any photos!

Click here to read the legal conditions.

The Nature Conservancy Sixth Annual Digital Photography Competition (the „Contest”) is open to ALL photographers at least 18 years of age, except employees of The Nature Conservancy and the immediate families of such employees. The contest is open to all participants regardless of residence or citizenship, so long as the laws of their jurisdiction allow participation.

WHAT TO ENTER:

• We are looking for striking digital images of nature, highlighting the diversity of life on Earth. Your images may be taken anywhere in the world. Your images may show animal behavior, portraits of wildlife in natural habitat, plant life, natural landscapes, weather or people interacting with nature.
• We are especially interested in images that showcase the wide range of habitats across our planet, including all types of forests, grasslands, lakes and rivers, deserts and arid lands, rainforests, marine habitats and coral reefs.
• Please do not include photographs of pets or domestic animals. Images of captive animals photographed in zoos and commercial game farms are also prohibited, however photos from state and national wildlife preserves are allowed. If you choose to include people in your submission, you are responsible for obtaining the necessary releases from the individuals depicted, and must be able to provide copies of those releases to The Nature Conservancy upon request. Entrants must not submit images that involve the willful harassment of wildlife, damage to the environment by the photographer, put any individual or animal in danger, or infringe on the rights of any other photographer or person.
• All photographs should accurately reflect the subject matter and the scene as it appeared. Photos that have been digitally altered beyond standard optimization (removal of dust, cropping, reasonable adjustments to exposure, color and contrast, etc.) will be disqualified. Multiple exposures that have been combined to produce a single „High Dynamic Range” image are acceptable. Images that do not meet these requirements may or may not be judged at the judging panel’s sole discretion.
• Photo captions must accompany all submissions, and should include the subject of the image, the location the image was taken, and the name of the photographer(s). Please clearly label animals as wild in digital caption information to assist judges in determining eligibility.

HOW TO ENTER:

• Each photo must be submitted electronically, by one (and only one) of the following three methods:
  • Via Flickr^TM – To submit your photos via Flickr^TM, use your Yahoo!® ID to login to www.flickr.com. If you do not have an account, you can sign-up for free at www.flickr.com. Flickr^TM and Yahoo!® are trademarks of Yahoo, Inc. After logging in, upload your images using the mechanism provided. If you are not already a member of The Nature Conservancy’s group on Flickr^TM, join by clicking „Join this Group?” on the group’s homepage. Flickr^TM is an online photo sharing web site that is made up of many groups, including a Nature Conservancy group. You can add your photos to the Nature Conservancy photo-sharing group and quickly enter many images for others to see.Browse to the image you wish to submit for the contest, and use the „Send to Group” function to add your images to The Nature Conservancy’s photo pool. Once added to the group, tag each photo with „PhotoContest-TNC11”. If you do not upload your photo to The Nature Conservancy’s group on Flickr^TM, or do not tag your photo with an appropriate tag, it will not be considered for the competition.

    If you have trouble using Flickr^TM, please consult their online help files. The Nature Conservancy is not responsible for any issues or problems you encounter while trying to upload a photo on Flickr^TM.

  • Via Facebook – To submit your photos with your Facebook credentials, visit photocontest.nature.org and click on the „Facebook” button to login. If you do not have an account, you can sign-up for free at facebook.com. After logging in, confirm your information and upload your images using the mechanism provided.
  • Photos submitted through this mechanism may be shared by The Nature Conservancy with our Flickr^TM and Facebook communities in direct connection with the contest. Any photos shared will be properly credited to their photographers based on the information provided during the submission process.

Via Manual Submission Process – If you choose not to use Flickr^TM to submit your image, you may complete our online submission form and email your photo to the email address specified after you complete the online submission form.

Photos emailed from an email address different than the one used on our online submission form cannot be attributed to the photographer properly, and therefore will not be considered eligible for the contest.

The Nature Conservancy reserves the right to upload photos submitted through this process to its public group on Flickr^TM.

ELIGIBILITY AND JUDGING:

• To ensure eligibility for the contest, all entries must have a resolution of 6 million pixels or greater (6 megapixels) to be made available upon request. Images that do not meet this standard can still be judged, but might not be honor from the competition (at the judges sole discretion) if the photographer is unable or unavailable to provide the proper resolution when asked.
• Resolution can be calculated by multiplying the pixel width of the image with the pixel height. For example, a photograph taken with a 6-megapixel camera set for the highest resolution and best quality produces images approximately 2832 pixels by 2128 pixels, which are acceptable under the rules (2832 x 2128 = 6 million).
• Entries may originate in any format – including, but not limited to digital files, digital prints, color transparencies, color prints, or black and white prints — so long as they are submitted electronically. Previously published material for which non-exclusive rights were granted may be entered as long as you still maintain the right to grant us a license (see „Your Rights” below). You must be able to disclose when and where the photo appeared previously to The Nature Conservancy upon request.
• Submissions may be watermarked if desired, but the watermark should be inconspicuous enough to not interfere with the judging of the photo. A watermarked photo might not be honored by the competition (at the judges sole discretion) if the photographer is unable or unavailable to provide a pristine, watermark-free version of the image when asked.
• Images will be judged on originality, technical excellence, composition, overall impact and artistic merit. The judges are a panel of Nature Conservancy staff members familiar with photography and responsible for selecting images for various Nature Conservancy printed and online marketing and membership materials.
• The Nature Conservancy shall determine winner eligibility in its sole and absolute discretion. All decisions made by the judges are final.

DEADLINES:

• Online entries can be uploaded starting 12:01 am Eastern Standard Time on May 31, 2011. Deadline for submitting entries is 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time on September 12, 2011.
• Entrants may be asked to supplement their submission (such as a paragraph about their photo, the highest resolution version of their photo, or a watermark-free version of their photo) anytime on or after October 1, 2011. Finalists will be announced on or before December 1, 2011. Public voting for the grand-prize winner will be held for at least a two-week period to begin after the finalists are announced and to end no later than December 21, 2011. Grand Prize Winner and Runners Up will be announced on or before January 15, 2012. There is a limit of one vote per person for each photo.
• The Nature Conservancy reserves the right to adjust any deadline(s) as the result of causes beyond its immediate control.

WINNING PHOTOS:

• The judging panel will select approximately 50 photos to be the contest’s Finalists and Honorable Mentions. The general public will select the Grand Prize Winner by popular vote from a pool of Finalists determined by the judging panel.
• The grand-prize winner’s image will be printed in the 2013 Nature Conservancy calendar. All entrants featured in the calendar will receive a copy of the calendar.

YOUR RIGHTS:

• Your photographs help The Nature Conservancy protect Earth’s amazing diversity of wildlife, plants and habitats. Thank you for helping to further our mission through your photography.
• You will retain all rights to any photograph you submit — including ownership if applicable. You only grant The Nature Conservancy rights (as described below) to your photograph if you are honored by the competition as an honorable mention, finalist, runner up or grand prize winner. Before you are formally honored by the competition, the Nature Conservancy will contact you to confirm that you wish to grant us rights to your image as described below.
• If your photograph is formally honored by the competition as an honorable mention, finalist, runner up or grand prize winner, you grant The Nature Conservancy a royalty-free, nonexclusive right, in perpetuity, to:
• Use the photograph on the Internet in support of our mission.
• Use the photograph in The Nature Conservancy’s non-commercial communications.
• Provide your photograph to other individuals and organizations for non-commercial use, TNC-related use in news stories, newsletters, reports, slide shows, displays, web pages, and the like.
• Use, in connection with the Photo Contest, your name, city, state and country of residence in promotions and other publications.
• Keep the files provided, and to archive the images on CD or in other electronic forms, so that your photos can be used to support our mission and be properly credited.
• As conditions of this permission, The Nature Conservancy shall credit all photographs with the caption „© Person’s Name” when the full name is available, or by the participants Flickr username when the participant’s full name is unavailable.

QUESTIONS:
Questions and inquiries about contest rules can be emailed to member@tnc.org.

Source: http://my.nature.org/photography/rules.html