Goal of the internal IFWP-competition is to have a medium to show different national photographic styles and various techniques. To encourage people to enlarge their own photographic knowledge and to promote nature photography by means of publications and through the publicity gained with this competition.
The IFWP-competition is organised by the national organisation who is in charge of the annual IFWP-General Assembly. The national association nominates a responsible person for the contest.
The organisation of the competition should be carried out within the scope of the annual General Assembly to enable member organisations to observe the competition.
The basic categories of the IFWP-competition are:
The best picture selected from the category winners is named "The IFWP-photograph of the Year xxxx". Special categories can be added for a specific years contest as a decision of Council. Such categories could be e.g. Animals in motion, Behaviour of mammals, Man and Nature etc.
The entries are either coloured or black and white transparencies, preferably
originals. - Addition 2007: Digital images and prints are also allowed.
Technical demands for digital images are provided, click here.
It is not allowed to participate with pictures photographed in zoos,
game farms, captivity or in other unnatural conditions unless a special category
for this kind of pictures is formed. Manipulated pictures are not allowed or if
otherwise agreed they must be marked (m = manipulated, c = captivity).
Each member organisation can participate in the competition. We recommend to select the national entries in a national (internal) competition in advance. If this is not possible, each member organisation has to define their own way of preselection. A maximum of 3 pictures per category can be submitted. All rights must be with the photographer. The pictures may not be older than 2 years (counted from the deadline). All entries must be with the competition organiser at the date fixed annually in the invitation. The transparencies must carry the name of the photographer, the category and a description of the picture (English and/or scientific name). The participating association is asked to prepare a list containing the names of the photographers and the descriptions of the pictures. All entries of an association must be sent in one envelope to the organiser together with a self-addressed envelope for the returning of the pictures and international reply coupons (number has to be fixed by the organiser). Or the participating pictures can be returned at the General Assembly personally. Every care will be taken with the photos entered for this contest, but the organiser cannot accept liability for loss or damage, however caused.
Publication of the winning pictures can be arranged either by the organiser of the competition, a member of the Council or another person, nominated by the Council. The organizer makes a press release of the results, incl. statistics, of the competition. All rights of the pictures remain with the authors, but the organizer has in connection with the publication of the results the right to publish the winning pictures without compensation for the photographer.
The jury should count min. 3 persons, nominated by the organiser of the competition. These persons may not be member or relatives of a member of any member organisation of the IFWP. The persons of the jury should as a group have a profound knowledge of photography and nature history or a related field. They act independently.
Certificates are produced by the organizing association and signed by the president of IFWP. The organising member association is asked to find a sponsor for the winner(s).
All changes of the rules of the annual IFWP-competition need to be carried out by the Council of IFWP.
Copyright: IFWP February 2002
The appropriate and the best format for sending and presentation of digital images is JPEG, saved at highest quality.
But be careful: the JPEG (.JPG) format is only for the final product. Working on a JPEG file and saving it over and again as JPEG file will cause more or less severe quality loss. Especially in quite monochrome or soft parts of the picture. Even if you cannot see it on the monitor, it may become very visible when projected on a 2m screen.
JPEG is for the final image - but the working files on your computer can be RAW or TIF or whatever, all uncompressed or lossless compressed. When you have made a JPEG that later has to be changed, just go back to the RAW or TIFF or the original file to do the editing for the new final JPEG of the image.
When you shoot in JPEG, choose allways the highest quality (= less compression) and when you like to store working files (edited originals) save them as TIFF. Make afterall only a JPEG for presentation or other final version, and keep the original.
Why not TIFF as final product?
TIFF files are very large in the meaning of storage capacity and therefore opening them takes time. In a presentation the audience has to wait for each TIFF quite a while before it opens. Using TIFF as presentation file is therefor unpleasant.
Pixels
Adapt the size of the images (in pixels) exact to the native resolution of the beamer for a good presentation. The worst presentation you will get when pictures are a few (10-40 %) pixels larger then the projection size is. Because the scaling method will have difficulties with the low surplus of pixels. When you project very large images, double or more than de beamer size, there is often no big problem, but mostly the images are a bit to soft in sharpness, caused by the scaling.
Remember that the projection field of a digital projector is not square, therefor the longer side of a vertical image cannot be of the same size as the longer side of a horizontal image.
Resize
images to the native resolution of the projector. Although most projectors can
adapt to several resolutions, only the native resolution will be really
sharp.
XGA = 1024 x 768 px
SXGA+ = 1400 x 1050 px
HDTV = 1920 x 1080 px
Talking about the size of an image, we are talking about the total amount of pixels of an image. Nothing is said about DPI or PPI, = pixels per inch. DPI is unimportant voor viewing on monitors and for projection. DPI or PPI is only for paper, for printing. Then the pixels are distributed to the inches of the print in a high or lower density, = resolution. Usually 300 DPI is needed for a good print.
For more information please write to the International Federation of Wildlife
Photography:
Henkjan Kievit (president)
or the members of the Council.