Competitions Overview
Only current State College Photo Club members may submit photos to our competitions. To learn about membership, click here.
We participate in club and inter-club competitions.
Club Competitions
Six of our eleven monthly meetings are devoted to providing feedback on photos through competition. Meeting time is devoted to a friendly discussion of strengths, weaknesses, and improvements.
All elements of submitted images must be completely your own work (for example, use your own skies for sky replacement).
| Date | Competition | Judge |
|---|---|---|
| October 21, 2024 | Theme Competition: Markets This includes farmers’ markets, garage sales, auctions, craft shows, or wholesale and retail markets. It could be the market itself, the participants, the mood… whatever captures your interest. | Members |
| January 20, 2025 | Open Competition Note: Photo(s) must have been taken within the last 2 years. | Members |
| February 17, 2025 | Theme Competition: Architecture Note: Photo(s) must have been taken within the last 2 years | Members |
| April 21, 2025 | Theme Competition: My Town What captures the life and spirit of where you live? It could be your street, neighborhood, village, town, or county. You choose the venue and the subject. | Stephen Rubin, PSU photography professor |
| May 19, 2025 | Theme Competition: Macro and Open Competition | Members |
| July 21, 2025 | Theme Competition: Wildlife Use what you learned from our earlier guest speakers and June field trip to Hoot Hollow and submit a photograph of that deer eating your hosta or any animal from the wild of your choice. Pets discouraged. | Members |
| September 15, 2025 | Best of the Year Competition | Guest judge, TBA |
Common Questions
How do I prepare my images?
- Images should be 2000 pixels on their longest side and 300 ppi
- Save your image as a jpeg file in sRGB*
- File size should be no more than 2 MB
- Filename must include your full name and a title
*Note that repeated saving in jpeg format results in an excessively compressed file that is pixelated or lacks critical detail when viewed on the projector at meetings. We recommend you save full-size edited image as TIFF files until your final save as jpeg.
How do I submit my images?
- You may submit two images per competition.
- You may resubmit any images that have never won an SCPC ribbon previously.
- Each competition has its own upload page, accessed from your wwwStateCollegePhotoClub.org login. We use PollUnit to submit and score images.
- Images must be submitted to PollUnit via the link provided during the submission window.
- The image filename must include your full name and the title.
- If two competitions are offered concurrently (for example, May 19, 2025, is both a themed and open competition), you may distribute your two images however you choose (2 themes, 2 opens, or 1 in each).
How are images scored?
- Score photographs by accessing the online polling pages from your www.StateCollegePhotoClub.org log-in, in the same way you submitted images.
- You may score your own images.
- If you participate in scoring, you must score all images. Partial scores will be disgarded.
- You may score, even if you have not submitted images to this category.
- When scoring, view images on a big screen – desktop monitor or cast to a TV monitor. Smart phones will not show realistic image quality.
- Scoring is out of 15. The following rubric was created as a guideline:
What are the prizes?
Ribbons are given to first, second, third place, and honorable mention winners for each competition. We post winners to SCPC’s Facebook & Instagram pages. At September’s end-of-year meeting, ribbon-winning images from all monthly competitions are critiqued and ranked by an outside judge, and winners are awarded ribbons and social media posts. End-of-year cumulative points winners are also awarded ribbons.
Inter-club Competitions
PSA PID
We belong to the international organization Photographic Society of America (PSA) and participate in Inter-Club competitions in the Pictorial Projected Image Division (PID). Three times a year, our club submits six photos chosen by members. We compete against seventeen other clubs in twelve states and five countries. We have been steadily rising in the PSA club rankings.
Why compete with other clubs? We become exposed to different styles of photography and learn about what’s considered best in camera clubs throughout the world.
For more information about PSA please visit here.
The 2024-25 calendar for PSA PID competitions is:
| Date | Competition |
|---|---|
| November 1, 2024 | PSA Inter-Club 1st Submission View past winners at: https://psa-photo.org/page/competition-results We compete in PID Color in Group F |
| February 1, 2025 | PSA Interclub Competition 2nd Submission. |
| April 1, 2025 | PSA Inter-Club Competition 3rd Submission |