Competition Terms and Conditions

 

1. Contest Period: The First Round of the APNPI Image Competition (“Contest”) runs from March 7, 2024 through to April 23, 2024 at 11:59pm UTC-12.  All entries must be received by the deadline on April 24, 2024 at 11:59 pm UTC-12. The Second Round of the APNPI Image Competition (“Contest”) runs from August 13, 2024 through to September 4, 2024 at 11:59pm UTC-12.  All entries must be received by the deadline on September 24, 2024 at 11:59 pm UTC-12.  All inquiries regarding the competition must be received by 72 hours prior to the deadline in order to receive a response.  

  • The contest is run by APNPI (www.apnpi.com).  All inquiries can be directed to info@apnpi.com.  Inquiries made less than 72 hours prior to an entry deadline may not receive a reply before the deadline.
  • Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.

 

2. Eligibility: Open to all legal residents of the following countries who are 18 years of age or older, and are professional or amateur photographers: Canada (excluding Quebec), USA (excluding CO, MD, ND, NE, NJ, TN, VT), Australia (excluding Tasmania), Belgium, China, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom (collectively, “Eligibility Area”).  The contest is void outside the eligibility area and where prohibited or restricted by law. Subject to all federal, state, local, municipal and provincial laws and regulations.  Entrants are solely responsible for determining whether they are eligible based on their government regulations.  Refunds will not be issued for ineligible entries.  

 

3. Entries:

By entering the Competition You hereby accept the Competition Rules and Terms and Conditions.

The APNPI Newborn Photographer of the Year 2023 categories are:

  • Maternity
  • Newborn
  • Milestones – (ages 2 to 12 months)
  • Child (ages 1 year and up)
  • Creative

The non-member category is:

  • Newborn

Entries are submitted online.  This category requires a minimum of 50 entries or the category is forfeited.  All entries must be submitted in digital format, jpg only, electronically through our submission platform.  To enter, go to our official website: www.apnpi.com

  • There is a discount for APNPI members.  Please see Rules and Guidelines for more information on how to enter and for prices.
  • The person submitting the Entry must be the sole owner and creator of the Entry and will be deemed the “Entrant.”
  • Each entrant may upload an unlimited number of photographs, per category as per their membership eligibility.  Each entry must be a unique photograph. Each photograph can be used only once and may not be entered in more than one category.  
  • Entrants must be 18 years or older.
  • Entrants must be a member of APNPI to enter into the Newborn Photographer of the Year categories.  Non-members may enter in the non-member category.
  • The non-member category will not be broadcast.
  • During the online entry process, entrants are to upload their chosen photographs to the intended categories.
  • By entering the Competition, You agree and acknowledge that the APNPI is permitted to receive Your registration data. All personal information will be used by the APNPI in accordance with its Privacy Policy.
  • Once an entrant’s photographs are uploaded and accepted for entry, they cannot be amended or altered at a later date.  Any files uploaded incorrectly will be rejected and will not be entered into the competition. No refunds will be issued.
  • Photographs must have been taken within five (5) years before the date of entry and may not previously have won prizes or awards at time of entry in any other APNPI photography competition or previously been entered in an APNPI Image Competition.
  • Photographs already used in major adverts and/or advertising campaigns (including social media campaigns), magazines, will NOT be accepted.
  • Images must be from paid or portfolio building sessions.  
  • Images taken during photography workshops or as part of photography courses are not deemed to be solely the photographers own work and will NOT be accepted.  Images must not be from mentoring sessions, workshops, classes or group outings. Such images serve to disqualify the entry, and will be cause to revoke an award if identified after the completion of judging and delivery of said award.
  • Only one image per session and subject may be submitted to any one category. You may enter the same subject in another category provided the images are not the same as those already submitted.
  • You confirm that each person depicted in the Entry has granted permission to be portrayed as shown, unless copyright laws in your jurisdiction allow for the photographing of persons in a public place without consent.
  • Each Entry must not contain any infringing, threatening, false, misleading, abusive, harassing, libelous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, scandalous, inflammatory, pornographic or profane content.
  • Each entry must not contain any material that could constitute or encourage conduct which would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any law.
  • Each entry must not infringe upon the copyrights, trademarks, contract rights, or any other intellectual property rights of any third person or entity, or violate any person’s rights of privacy or publicity.
  • Entrants agree to fully indemnify APNPI in respect of all royalties, fees and any other monies owing to any person by reason of Your breaching any of the foregoing.
  • Entrants will accept the decision of the judges, and agree not to contact any judge directly in relation to your entry/entries, or engage in attacks on the judges or judging process in any media including social media.
  • APNPI has the right to disqualify or re-categorize any entry if it does not meet the basic requirements as listed in the Competition Rules, and the Terms and Conditions, and/or as deemed by the judges.
  • The APNPI and its Event Partners assume no responsibility and are not liable for any image misuse by external third parties.
  • The APNPI assumes no responsibility for any incorrect, inaccurate or incomplete information, whether caused by website users or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Competition, and the APNPI assumes no responsibility for technical, hardware or software failure of any kind, for lost network connections, garbled computer transmissions, other problems or technical malfunctions with regard to the Competition. The APNPI assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, corruption, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to or alteration of Entries. The APNPI is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer on-line systems, servers, computer equipment, software, failure of any e-mail addressed to the APNPI on account of technical problems, human error or traffic congestion on the Internet or any website, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to Your or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participation or downloading any materials in the Competition. If for any reason a contestant’s entry cannot be viewed or is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer viruses, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud or technical failures, the APNPI assumes no responsibility.
  • In no event will APNPI, its affiliates, subsidiaries and related companies, Event Partners, its advertising or promotion agencies, or its officers, directors, employees, shareholders, representatives or agents be responsible or liable for any damages or losses of any kind, including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages arising out of any contestant’s access to and use of the Website. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, everything on the Website is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for purpose or use or non-infringement.
  • All entrants must be ready to supply a high resolution image suitable for printing in an exhibition display. These large files will not be retained following exhibition, and all exhibition prints will be destroyed afterwards.
  • Images must be free of all watermarks and may not bear the name, seal, logo or indication of the maker.
  • Each category will have specific, required submission criteria. You must submit images to meet these requirements in order to successfully attain an award in your chosen category.  Images may be re-categorized at the discretion of the panel should it not meet the chosen category requirements.
  • Any image that depicts baby in a pose and/or prop that might compromise the baby’s safety, must be executed with adequate support from an assistant, and composite images should be used where appropriate (i.e.: frog pose and potato pose are no longer accepted).  When submitting these images, the maker must also submit the SOOC image to demonstrate safe practices. Judges may decide to disqualify an image if they feel adequate safe measures have not been taken, or demonstrated with the SOOC.
  • Any image that has been previously accepted and awarded with APNPI may not be used again in any category, class, or anywhere in competition with the APNPI.
  • Photographs may not be plagiarized.  If an entry violates copyright, trademark or any other applicable law, the entry shall be disqualified.
  • All post-processing of the image must be completed by the entrant.  Adjustments may be made to cropping, noise, sharpness, colour, tone and contrast, including dodging and burning and black-and-white conversions. Stitched panoramas, focus stacks and HDR images are also allowed. Competition organizers reserve the right to disqualify an image if they feel it lacks authenticity due to over-manipulation.
  • Any post-production and editing must be the work of the entrant.
  • Purchased digital backgrounds are not permitted for the purpose of APNPI Image Competition entries.  Entries must not include elements which You have purchased or secured the rights to use stock images, or procured from the public domain, such as skies, trees, buildings, animals, overlays, etc.  All image elements must be captured and/or created by the entrant alone.
  • No changes to your entry are permitted once paid for and submitted. No refunds will be issued after the entry fee has been paid.
  • APNPI references image competition standards and levels in keeping with industry standard print competitions.
  • Entry fees are non-refundable.
  • Entry fees are quoted in USD. The APNPI does not account or have any liability for any participants’ bank fees and charges that may be levied in currency conversion and currency transaction by the participating bank or institution.
  • All judges’ decisions are final.  Right of rejection and or right of refusal are at the discretion of the event organizers and can happen at any time.
  • Judges, sponsors, entry fees and prizes may be changed without notice up to the closing date of the competition.  
  • All entries are subject to the laws of Canada.
  • All terms and conditions subject to change without notice with the exception of copyright policy.

Entries received after the submission deadlines will not be accepted, and will not be refunded.

 

4. Judging

  • A panel of three APNPI trained judges reviewing images on a digital display will evaluate the images and an averaged score will be determined.
  • The judges will score images based upon the 12 Elements of a Merit Image.
  • Each image must receive a score of 80 or higher in order to be awarded a Merit.  
  • The judges’ decision is final.
  • Judges may or may not give commentary unless it has been requested in the purchase.
  • Winners will be selected by the judging panel at the end of the individual scoring round.
  • Once an entry has been scored, the recorded entry is final.  An entry can not be brought back for review.
  • A judge may not judge an image in which they have been directly involved in the production or postproduction of the image.
  • A judge may judge an image whose creator is known to them if they are able to submit an unbiased score.
  • A judge may decline judging an entry for a known creator where and when they hold bias for any reason.
  • Judging of images will adhere to standards of Professional Print Competitions.  Please see the resource section for more details on judging criteria.
  • Technical issues including but not limited to poor lighting, banding, digital artifacts, missed focus or tonal inconsistencies may be grounds for non-acceptance.
  • All winners will be chosen and notified by email within 8 weeks of the entry deadline.  Decisions of the Judges are final and binding.  
  • A list of the winners and their winning images will be published on the APNPI website within 12 weeks of the entry deadline.
  • The judges’ decision will be final, and we will not enter into any correspondence concerning the final decision or the way the competition is organized.

Judging Criteria and Considerations

APNPI Competition Images are judged in keeping with image competition industry standards.

Scoring Categories

100 – 96 Exceptional

95 – 90 Superior

89 – 85 Excellent

84 – 80 Deserving of a merit

79 – 75 Above Average

> 75 Below Exhibition Standard

 

Awards

79 or lower No Award

80-84 Receives a “Silver” award

85-89 Receives a “Silver Distinction” award

90-95 Receives a “Gold” award

96-99 Receives a “Gold Distinction” award

100 Receives a “Platinum” award

 

Awarding the APNPI Photographer of the Year

Judges will score all images once.  The average of each score will be calculated.  To win the APNPI Newborn Photographer of the Year award, the entrant must achieve a minimum of three Merit Images among both the Spring and Autumn Image Competition Rounds.  The entrant who has the highest average score among their top three winning images across any category, will be awarded the APNPI Photographer of the Year. One of the three images must have been awarded in the Spring and one in the Autumn competition. In the case of a tie, judges from both Spring and Autumn Image Competitions will be consulted to determine the Photographer of the Year based on a comparison of the recipients’ awarded images. The Photographer of the Year must have completed the APNPI Safety Course as well as achieved accreditation through APNPI in at least one category prior to the Autumn round of Image Competition in their year of award.

 

5. PRIZES:

  • The First Half APNPI Image Competition will award:
    • a Merit Badge to all entries that score 80 and above.  
      • All Images that are awarded a Merit will be featured in an online gallery on the APNPI website.
    • 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place Ribbons to the top category entries provided they have a minimum score of 80.
    • 2 free entries into the next APNPI Image Competition for the 1st place of each category.
  • The Second Half APNPI Image Competition will award:
    • a Merit Badge to all entries that score 80 and above.  
      • All Images that are awarded a Merit will be featured in an online gallery on the APNPI website.
    • 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place Ribbons to the top category entries provided they have a minimum score of 80.
    • 2 free entries into the next APNPI Image Competition for the 1st place of each category.
  • APNPI Photographer of the Year – is awarded to the entrant who has the highest average score of three winning images across both Competition Rounds in a given category and holds the APNPI Safety Course Completion and Accreditation with APNPI in at least one category. The award recipient will receive:
    • APNPI Trophy
    • 5 free entries into the next APNPI Image Competition
  • The non-member category winner must achieve a score of 80 or above.  If no entrant receives a score of 80 or above there will be no award given.  The entrant with the highest score above 80 will receive a Badge.
  • There are no alternatives available for prize winners.  Prize recipients are responsible for any import taxes or levies payable on receipt of prizes in your own country.
  • Winners will be published online on www.apnpi.com
  • Monetary prizes are paid in CAD, currency conversions to local currency are at winner’s expense at the time of conversion.
  • The APNPI accepts no responsibility for non-delivery of prizes from sponsors for reasons such as insolvency.

 

6. Image Specifications

  • You may not submit the same photograph in more than one category.  
  • All images must be submitted digitally as a JPG or JPEG.
  • All images must retain their original camera EXIF information so that all information is transparent and items such as type of camera, lenses, exposure used, etc, are viewable.
  • All images must be a minimum of 2800px on the longest side, with a minimum of 300 dpi resolution.
  • Each file must contain an embedded color profile of either sRGB or Adobe RGB1998 and be saved at a JPEG quality setting of 12.
  • Entries that cannot be authenticated, or are not of an acceptable quality may be discounted from the competition by APNPI at any time.
  • All Images must be given a suitable title.  
  • All entries must be unmarked on submission.  No studio signature, photographer name or watermarks should appear on either the image or within the image title.  File names will not be seen by judges, but the titles will be read aloud. Entries that are identifiable by any marking will be disqualified.
  • Images must be named in the following format: Month and year being entered, category, last name, first name, city, country, image title.  Incorrect naming may result in disqualification. For example: Jane Smith from Toronto Canada would name one of her images as follows: May2023_NewbornPosed_Smith_Jane_Toronto_Canada_SleepingBeauty.jpg
    • For SOOC files: follow Image# with _SOOC (i.e. May2023_NewbornPosed_Smith_Jane_Toronto_Canada_SleepingBeauty_SOOC.jpg)
    • Email your SOOC images to info@apnpi.com
  • No changes to your entry are permitted once paid for and submitted. No refunds will be issued after the entry fee has been paid.
  • Model releases must be available for all individuals in all entries.  The entrant must obtain and have access to all necessary releases (model or property) and agrees to hold APNPI harmless against all claims and liabilities arising out of APNPI’s display, publication and promotion or use of any image entered in the APNPI competition.
  • If an entry violates copyright, trademark or any other applicable law, the entry shall be disqualified.
  • No digital manipulation of any kind on the subject matter is permitted.  Entrants can make basic digital corrections including tone and contrast, burning, dodging, cropping, sharpening, noise reduction and minor cleaning work which includes removal of minimal background items such as a piece of rubbish or a person distant in the background of a landscape portrait.
  • Nothing should be added and nothing should be taken away from the subject’s natural body in the photograph during post production.  Normal processing of RAW image files and minor adjustments to colour and contrast are acceptable. MINOR digital adjustments including tone, cropping, sharpening, noise reduction, and general minor cleaning up are permitted providing that this complies with the competition’s principles of authenticity so that it does not deceive the viewer or misrepresent the reality of the nature of the subject.  Information regarding any post-processing to any photograph may be queried by email within 48 hours of a submission deadline.
  • If entrants reach the final round of awarding category titles, APNPI may ask for the original raw file or high resolution image so our photography experts can verify the natural integrity of an entrant’s image. This is to insure ethical standards are maintained and the original file will not be circulated. If an entrant cannot provide the RAW or original file with original data e.g. EXIF and/or IPTC information of their image upon request of APNPI then the entrant’s image will be automatically disqualified from the judging process.
  • For any specific post-processing queries before you upload your entry during the competition, please email info@apnpi.com PRIOR to submitting your entry.  No changes will be made after you have submitted your entry.  Inquiries made to info@apnpi.com 72 hours before the final deadline may or may not receive a reply.  

The APNPI reserves the right to disqualify images for any reason throughout the competition. This includes, but is not limited to explicit or inappropriate imagery, ethical breaches, safety issues, improper formatting or written communication from the entrants in matters regarding the competition.

We DO NOT accept these types of photographs:

  • photographs that could be interpreted as cruel, harmful or non-respectful of an individual’s wellbeing
  • photographs of babies with animals
  • photographs of babies in glass containers, or babies/small children with toys that are not suitable or healthy for their age (e.g. children’s toys with small plastic parts)
  • photographs of babies exhibiting potentially problematic behaviours with human interpretations or for comedic effect

Any photograph that cannot be authenticated upon entry or is not of an acceptable quality meeting our Terms and Conditions at time of upload will be disqualified.  No refunds will be issued.

 

7. Copyright

  • Your entry to this competition constitutes your agreement to allow your photographs, your name, occupation, city or residence to be published as a selected award winner.  All entrants agree that they will participate in related publicity and agree to the use of their name and likeness for the purposes of advertising, promotion and publicity in connection with the APNPI Image Competition and/or any related APNPI activities/events, without additional compensation.
  • Copyright remains with the creator of the image.  Entrants are free to republish their photographs as they wish wherever they wish and in whatever medium they want.
  • By entering in this competition, you allow APNPI and its Event Partners to use any image submitted, without payment, for marketing, promotional, and educational purposes of promoting the event and for future APNPI competition events.  You hereby grant APNPI a non-exclusive, irrevocable license in each Entry throughout the world in all media for any use in connection with the Competition, including, but not limited to:
    • judging the Competition during the year of entry
    • displaying at public exhibitions showing APNPI Image Competition Awards in perpetuity.
    • inclusion within the Website and/or an Awards catalogue in perpetuity.
    • inclusion within any materials promoting of the Competition and / or any exhibition organized by APNPI or its Event Partners, in the promotion of the APNPI Image Competition in perpetuity.
    • sub-licensing the Entries to the press for reproduction in connection with the Competition and any exhibition in perpetuity.
    • allowing viewers of the Website to view images on a computer screen, PDA or mobile telephone, in perpetuity.
    • Inclusion within APNPI created educational resources for the purpose of preparing photographers for Image Competition.
  • Please be sure to obtain all permissions and model releases where appropriate prior to submitting your images.
  • The APNPI will endeavour to credit all photos when promoting the APNPI Image Competition in print or online through the APNPI channels of communications and media. If you find your image not credited contact the APNPI. The APNPI may use your photo indefinitely and numerous times without notification of use.  The APNPI unfortunately cannot inform you or automatically send you emails, notices or printed materials where your photo has been used or placed in APNPI branded material.