Before entering into the competition please read carefully the following Rules and the Terms and Conditions of the Birdo - Bird Photographer of the Year competition. By submitting an entry to the competition, you are agreeing to be bound by the following Rules:
1. PARTICIPANTS
The Birdo Bird Photographer of the Year is open to everyone of all ages and nationalities, both amateur and professional photographers and is free of charge. Every entrant needs to complete a registration on the competition website. One or more entries can be submitted but the images must comply with the categories, furthermore, each category sets out specific restrictions regarding age and technical requirements.
Entrants must accept the Terms and Conditions, including the copyright statement and the privacy notice of the Contest. The photographer must be the author and the copyright holder of the photographs submitted. By entering the competition, the entrant declares that third parties do not have any rights over the photos uploaded.
2. ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Birdo aims to give photographers the opportunity receive recognition for their work in this challenging genre and put their creativity to good use in raising awareness on bird protection. Birdo therefore only accepts photos that are based on the principle of ethical bird photography. Entrants must not distress, disturb or damage the wildlife for the purposes of photography. Photos can only depict wild birds photographed in natural or urban habitat. Images of tamed, captive or nesting birds will be deleted immediately.
Despite of recognizing the legitimacy of drone photography, we do not accept drone images either, because the natural movement of birds can be impeded by drone photography.
3. JUDGING PROCESS
The Contest takes place in two rounds. Images submitted in the first round, after a preliminary check, will be published on the Competition website. The Jury will judge the submissions to the Competition anonymously. The judges will choose a shortlist of entries (maximum 500 images). These will remain published while the other entries will be deleted from the website.
Shortlisted images also appear on the Facebook and Instagram pages of the Contest, from which the public will select by voting the best image (Peoples’s Choice).
Entrants that are shortlisted for the second round of judging will be required to provide raw format files or, if unavailable, original untouched JPEGs and a brief introduction of the entrants. These must be supplied by the given deadline otherwise it is considered an irreplaceable deficiency.
The Jury will evaluate and score the images, in respect of each category, taken to the second round. All decisions by the judges will be final and binding.
4. COMPETITION PRIZES
4.1. Grand prizes
Birdo - Bird Photographer of the Year
The overall winner of the Contest is the photographer who presents outstanding work in most categories and achieves the highest scores overall.
In the event of a tie, the grand title will be awarded to the photographer, who achieves the highest scores overall based on the points awarded by the jury in the second round.
Birdo – Young Bird Photographer of the Year
The title Birdo - Young Bird Photographer of the Year is awarded to the young photographer, whose at least two out of the submitted images achieves podium, and one of them is selected for 1st or 2nd place.
4.2. Category Awards
Single image categories
- - 1st, 2nd and 3rd place
- - 2 highly rated photos
Scores given for awarded images
- - 10 scores for 1st place
- - 8 scores for 2nd place
- - 6 scores for 3rd place
- - 2 scores for highly rated photos
Photo series category
- - 1st place
Photos submitted in the photo series category will not be participated in the Bird Photographer of the Year competition.
4.3 Additional prizes
People’s Choice Award
A shortlist of entries (maximum 500 images) will anonymously and automatically enter for the People’s Choice Award, viewable for voting by the public through social media. The photo with the top votes at the end of the people’s choice voting period will be named the People’s Choice Award winner. Two of the audience voters will be rewarded too.
Special awards
The entrants may also receive additional prizes offered by the contest partners and sponsors. Details regarding prizes on offer by the sponsors will be available and updated on the competition website.
Sponsors are free to decide which photo from the final shortlist of 150-200 images to award with a special prize based on their own criteria.
All winning photographers will benefit from extensive global press and social media promotion of the awards by Birdo and its partners.
- - Presentation of award-winning and highly rated photos across the country
- - Appearance on the Birdo website and social media platforms, presentation of winners
- - Media coverage (Nature Photography Magazine)
5. DEADLINES
First round: June 1 – July 31, 2022
Submission start date: June 1, 2022
Submission closing date: July 31, 2022
Judging process (first round): August 1 - 15, 2022
Second round (submission of original files): August 16 - 31, 2022
Judging process (second round): September 1 – September 25, 2022
Public voting: September 14 - 30, 2022
Award Ceremony: November 26, 2022
The Awards Ceremony will be held at the Tatai Vadlúd Sokadalom (the largest nature conservation event in the Middle and Eastern Europe).
6. CATEGORIES
The Birdo Bird Photography of the Year Contest 2022 consists of 6 categories for individual images (C1-C6), an artistic category (C7), a documentary photo series. (C8), an open format (C9) and a portfolio category for young photographers (C10).
C1 Bird Portrait
C2 Birds in the Environment
C3 Bird Behaviour
C4 Birds in the Air
C5 Details
C6 Birdo Special Theme: Birds at Dusk
C7 BirdArt
C8 Story-telling
C9 Open
C10 Youth
Conditions per category:
Categories C1 to C6
- - images should be single frame photographs
- - 3 photos per category, in total 18 images may be submitted
- - images must comply with the rules of technical requirements
- - only images for which the RAW or DNG file is held are accepted
- - entrants are aged 18 years or above on the 31 July 2022
Category C7
- - images should be single frame photographs
- - in total 3 images may be submitted
- - images must comply with the rules of technical requirements, digital manipulation is actively encouraged only in this category, but the entrant must hold the original RAW images from the montage or multiexpo,
- - only images for which the RAW or DNG file is held are accepted
- - entrants are aged 18 years or above on the 31 July 2022
Category C8
- - a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 8 photo series must be uploaded
- - only one series is acceptable per Entrants
- - images must comply with the rules of technical requirements
- - images taken with any device can be submitted
- - images with or without an original RAW or DNG raw file are allowed here
- - this category is open to everyone in terms of age, a representative may act on behalf of a minor aged entrant
Category C9
- - images should be single frame photographs
- - in total 3 images may be submitted
- - images must comply with the rules of technical requirements
- - images that do not have an original RAW or DNG raw file are only acceptable here
- - submitted images should be at least 10 megapixels
- - this category is open to everyone in terms of age, a representative may act on behalf of a minor aged entrant
Category C10
- - images should be single frame photographs
- - up to 10 images may be submitted in this category
- - images must comply with the rules of technical requirements
- - only images for which the RAW or DNG file is held are accepted
- - entrants are aged 18 years or below on the 31 July 2022, a representative of a minor aged entrant may apply for the Contest
Entrants may submit images in any category if they meet the above criteria for that category, but an image can only be entered once.
7. REGISTRATION AND SUBMISSION
7.1 Registration
Every entrant needs to complete a registration on the competition website prior to submission. Anyone registering more than once will be excluded from the Contest. During account registration the following information should be given:
- - name
- - e-mail address
- - telephon number
All personal information provided during registration will not be stored or used for after the competition as laid out in our Privacy Policy.
7.2 Image submission in the first round
All means of taking the photo is eligible that ensure sufficient quality of images are eligible (e.g. DSLR, MILC, bridge, analogue, compact, mobile phone etc.), that meet the criteria of the category, but dronphotos are not acceptable.
Images can be submitted anytime during the entry period, but once the image is uploaded it cannot be modified afterwards. The same image cannot be entered in more than one category. The image must not contain any reference to the identity of the author, otherwise the image will not be eligible for participation.
Images will be checked against the minimum technical requirements from the moment of upload and that are not of acceptable quality will be immediately disqualified from the competition. The entrant will be informed of the disqualification and another image can only be uploaded during the entry period. Please read carefully the technical requirements before submission!
If there are less than 10 entries submitted in a category, the Jury reserves the right to transfer the images to other categories and not to publish results in the relevant category. The entrants of this category will be notified about this fact in email.
All images must have complete information attached as follows
- - the title of the image
- - the type of camera
- - species of the bird
- - the location where the photo was made
- - a short description (maximum 500 characters) of the way the image was taken
7.3 Image submission in the second round
In the second-round raw format files or, if unavailable, original untouched JPEGs of the images should be uploaded by the deadline on the same file name as the one submitted in the first round.
The following information should be given in the second round:
- - date and time
- - type of camera
- - focal length
- - aperture
- - shutter speed
- - ISO
- - flash
- - a brief introduction of the entrant (maximum 800 characters): since when has s/he been dealing with photography, why has s/he started taking photos, why is s/he interested in birds
- - in the Story-telling category a detailed description (maximum 500 characters) of what project is presented by the series.
8. RULES OF THECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
In the first round digital images must be uploaded in JPG format saved in the best quality (Photoshop, jpg options: quality = 12), high-resolution, sRGB colour space and the file size cannot exceed 2 megabytes.
Entrants that are shortlisted for the final round of judging will be required to provide original format files (such as RAW, DNG, JPEG), the image size at least 10 megapixels.
For analogue entries, the original camera file of the image and the highest resolution TIFF file available without interpolating must be submitted in the second round.
8.2. Entry rules on manipulation
- - submitted image must contain all available EXIF data
- - the entry cannot be made by enlarging from a smaller image
- - cropping the photo over the 50% of the original image will lead to disqualification
- - any page size is acceptable, but standard page sizes (1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4, 16:9) are highly recommended.
8.3 Changes that are not acceptable
- - changing the content of the image
- - combination of two or more photos, not of the same scene exept in BirdArt category
- - the addition or deletion of objects in the image
- - borders, signatures, dates or watermarks
8.4. Normal processing of the original file is acceptable. That includes:
- - cropping the photo up to 50%
- - the use of digital half-filters
- - HDR, stitched panoramas
- - as the correction of technical defects and lens defects
- - HDR and panorama photos from combining multiple shots
- - removal of dust spots and moderate reduction of image noise
- - minor adjustments to colour, white balance, tone, lighting levels and curves, shadows and highlights, saturation, contrast, sharpness
The jury decides on whether the image has been significantly retouched or altered beyond the limit of acceptance.
8.5 In the BirdArt category the following image processing techniques are also acceptable
- - a conversion to black and white or infrared
- - in-camera multiple exposures but only for an image created by combining consecutive shots taken at the same scene
9. EXCLUSIONS
9.1 Exclusion of images
If an image is submitted that does not comply with any rule of the Contest, the Jury will exclude the photo from the Contest and will delete it.
It must be considered that the RAW file and the original untouched high-resolution file corresponding to the photograph will be requested. Failure to submit the original file within the established deadlines will result in the disqualification of the photograph.
The failure to upload a brief introduction (maximum 800 characters) by the deadline specified in the call for entry into the second-round, results in the withdrawal of the entrant in the Contest.
If the jury has to exclude all entries from a category, Birdo make no award in that category.
9.2 Exclusion of entrants
Those Entrants will be excluded from the Contest who:
- - upload a photo that violates ethical principles
- - do not submit self-made photos
- - register with more than one username
The Birdo reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify and remove any entry that does not comply with the requirements laid out in the Contest Rules. If a breach has occurred, but is discovered after an award, then Birdo may withdraw the relevant entry from any of the Exhibitions and/or related activity and require the return or reimbursement of any prize already received.
10. COPYRIGHT PROVISIONS
By entering the competition, entrants the Birdo Photo Contest the unlimited non-exclusive use of high-resolution images for activities in all media ((azevmadarfotosa.hu, birdo.hu, birdphotocontest.eu), including social media, online and print, in relation to the contest and all promotional activities (advertising, publications, press releases by third parties, albums, exhibitions etc.) without any remuneration being due.
In connection with publishing the submitted photos, the Organiser indicates the full name of the entrant as author.
