BPS Competitions

Competitions are important in the life of photographic societies and they can be a great way to improve your photographic skills by learning from an external judge’s comments on the images presented.

Each year, a number of BPS Competitions for prints, projected digital images (PDIs) are held. Entry into the competitions is entirely voluntary., but encouraged.

Inter-club Competitions with neighbouring South London clubs are held for colour prints, monochrome prints and PDIs and our panels are usually chosen from images seen in the previous year.

The Kent County Photographic Association holds an annual print exhibition.


BPS Internal Competitions

Each season, there are four competitions for prints and four for PDIs (Projected Digital Images).  All entries in these competitions are commented on and marked out of 10 by an external judge.

There is also a competition for Monochrome Prints.

Dates of competitions and names of the invited judges are given in the BPS Programme. 

There are also separate panel competitions for prints, and PDIs

 

There are also 2 panel competitions

One print panel competition (consisting of 5 to 9 images on a theme. (Caithness Bowl for Standard and Intermediate, and Blackbourn Trophy for advanced)

One PDI panel competition (consisting of 5 to 9 images on a theme. (Dennis Berry trophy – all classes combined)

The Dennis Berrry Trophy is judged by members, all others are judged by an external judge.

The dates for these are given in the BPS Programme. 

Rules and Resources

The detailed rules for BPS competitions can be found here. They include rules for:

BPS Print competition series
Projected Digital Image competition series

Dennis Berry PDI theme competition
Blackbourn Trophy and Caithness Bowl prints on a theme competition.

The rules for the annual Monochrome Print competition are here.

The photographer retains copyright for all entries.

The following resources may be useful:

Print Labels: Prints entered for our print competition series must have a completed BPS label at the top left on the back of the print. These are available from the Competition Organiser, or they can be printed from the file here.

Preparing Images for Projection: Here are some notes on how to prepare images for PDI competitions in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

Classes

For the season’s series of print and PDI competitions there are two classes: Standard and Advanced.

Judges will usually offer more comments and feedback on Standard Class prints and less for the other classes, with the advanced class usually marked more stringently.

Members choose their class at the beginning of the season. New members would normally choose the Standard Class, while more experienced photographers would choose the Advanced Class.

Advice can be given as to which class is suitable, if required.

Trophies

At the end of each season, trophies are awarded to the winners of the club competitions and Certificates of Merit are awarded to the runners-up. The trophies are:

 

Print Cup

For the highest aggregated score in the Standard Class Print Competition.

 

Harry Fairhurst Trophy

For the highest aggregated score in the Advanced Class Print Competition.

 

Curves Trophy

For the highest aggregated score in the Projected Digital Image Competition.

 

Harry Wykes Trophy

For the highest combined print/PDI score.

   
 

Dennis Berry Trophy

For the winner of the PDI theme competition.

 

Blackbourn Trophy

For the winner of the Advanced Print class images on a theme competition.

 

Caithness Bowl

For the winner of the Regular Print class images on a theme competition.

The dates for these are given in the BPS Programme

Enter a Competition

More information about entering BPS competitions is provided in the Members Area, but can also be entered here