Competition News Archives | Canadian Association for Photographic Art

June 2018

Our monthly Competition News is aimed at providing all CAPA members and camera clubs with timely information relating to our competitions.

For this month, we have included information below under the appropriate title.

2018 Close-Up Competition

This competition was extremely popular and many outstanding images were submitted:

1 – Club category: 162 image from 25 clubs

2 – Individual category: 248 images from 63 CAPA members

Many thanks to the three CAPA judges: Sunchie Yang, Bharat Mistry and Leonie Holmes.

For the Club category, three camera clubs received CAPA medals:

1 – Gold Medal – Toronto Digital Photography Club

2 – Silver Medal – Richmond Hill Camera Club

3 – Bronze Medal – Burnaby Photographic Society

You can view the winning images on our Winners – Club webpage here.

CAPA members were also awarded CAPA medals for the individual category:

1 – Gold Medal – Rick McKenzie of Dundas, Ont.

2 – Silver Medal – Lance Gitter of Thornhill, Not

3 – Bronze Medal – Yun Wang of Burlington, Not

You can check out their winning images on our Winners – Individual webpage here.

The final competition reports have been loaded onto our website. You can be view these reports only after logging into the website with your username/password and by selecting the Competition Reports option on the Competitions dropdown menu. If you cannot see the Competition Reports submenu then you are still not logged into the website.

Each of these reports are now in our new bilingual format. This format will continue to be enhanced and we seek your suggestions on how it can be improved.

Uploaded Presentation Photographs

Over the past few months, we have received and uploaded photographs of entrants being awarded their CAPA Awards. You can check out these photographers below by selecting the respective hyperlink:

If you have a presentation photograph which has not yet been uploaded to our website, please forward the image and details to our Director of Competitions at competitions@capacanada.ca.

Importance Of Reading & Complying With All Competition Details

In the past few months, we have had four different categories of image disqualifications:

A – watermark contained on a submitted image;

B – name of the photographer on the lower right corner of the image;

C – same image was submitted in both the ‘individual’ and ‘club’ categories of competition

D – submitted image had previously received a CAPA award

To avoid the embarrassment of having your image disqualified, it is important that you ready and comply with all the details on the respective competition page prior to submitting your images into a CAPA competition. Each competition page also has a hyperlink to our CAPA Eligibility Criteria and the details of this webpage must also be adhered to.

If you are unsure of your images has received a CAPA award or wondering if your image is acceptable for a competition, you can email our Director of Competitions at competitions@capacanada.ca.

2018 Four Nations Competition – Selected 80 Top Images

We have selected the top 80 images for CAPA’s submission to the international 2018 Four Nations Competition.

These images were selected from our top images from our October 2017 – April 2018 competitions. The noted selection was made by three separate teams of CAPA judges.

The photographer of each selected image has been contacted and they have us their permission to include their image in this competition.

All images will be uploaded on June 24, 2018. During the summer, all submitted images from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will be judged by three internationally recognized judges.

Competition results will be received sometime prior to September 1, 2018.

Forthcoming 2018-2019 Competition Cycle

We have posted on our competition for the 2018 -2019 competition cycle and they can be viewed here. Check on our Competition News in September 2018 for any changes or enhancements to these competitions.

Questions, Suggestions or Concerns

If you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of CAPA competitions, please email our Director of Competitions at competitions@telus.ca.

May 2018

Our monthly Competition News is aimed at providing all CAPA members and camera clubs with timely information relating to our competitions. For this month, we have included information below under the appropriate title.

2018 – 2019 Competitions Now Posted

The majority of the 2018 – 2019 competitions are now posted on our Current Competitions webpage which can be viewed here.

After the closing of the 2018 Annual Photo Challenge competition, we will be posting the 2019 Annual Photo Competition and its theme will be reflections.

Over the past few months, we have received many email messages about the large number of wildlife/nature images dominating the CAPA awards in the 2017 Fine Art and the 2018 Open Theme competitions. In an effort to ‘balance-the-playing-field‘ for all photographers, we are undertaking the following changes with our 2018 – 2019 competitions:

Fine Art – the selection of judges will be heavily favoured in the area of fine art. In addition, images that are submitted with little or no modification to emphasize an artistic purpose or theme will be disqualified by the Competition Host. Competition Host for this competition is a recognized and respected fine art photographer.

Open Theme – the new competition details will be updated to contain two themes – Wildlife/Nature and Everyone Else. By doing so, we don’t disadvantage wildlife/nature nor all other submitted images. Each theme will be judged separately by separate judges.

Monochrome – contains four themes – People, Landscape/City-scape/Sea-scape, Architecture (inside/outside) and Flowers/Plants (wild or cultivated. As noted the Nature/Wildlife animal//birds have been excluded from this competition because there is already a dedicated Nature competition for them.

I would encourage you read these specific competitions to obtain more details. If you have questions, please do not hesitate in emailing our Director of Competitions at competitions@capacanada.ca

We have been working CAPA Zone Director Alain Dubeau and CAPA President Rod Trider to create a new 2019 Canada: My Country competition. For this competition, there are 13 different themes representing 10 provinces and 3 terrorizes. The aim of the competition is to seek out the best photographic images in these geographical regions. Check out this competition here.

All the above competitions were designed to encourage and recognize outstanding image in a wider range of themes. By doing, we are endeavouring to demonstrate that we are listening to your suggestions and concerns.

Bilingual Format For CAPA Competitions

As you will notice from 2018 – 2019 competitions, the majority of the competition pages are now in a bilingual format.

It is only natural that our Association embrace photographers in both official languages.

In the forthcoming months, the parallel translation format will be changed to accommodate an easier means viewing of our webpages on a wider range of devices – computers, laptop computers, ipad and cel phones. In addition, our final competition report will also be a bilingual format.

We extend a special thank you to our CAPA Zone Director Alain Dubeau for providing us with the french translation.

Importance Of Reading & Complying With All Competition Details

In the past month, we have had four notable disqualifications for the following reasons:

A – Watermark contained on a submitted image;

B – Name of the photographer on the lower right corner of the image;

C – Potential Merit Award image was disqualified because it had previously received a CAPA Award

D – Gold Medal winning club lost their medal standing because one of their images had previously received a CAPA award

On the two latter disqualifications, all camera club representatives and CAPA members are reminded that it is their responsible to ensure that the submitted image has not be previously received a CAPA Award. We do maintain a CAPA database of past winners. If you are unsure of your images has received a CAPA award, you can email the Director of Competitions at competitions@capacanada.ca.

Do NOT assume that the competition details are identical to a previous competition.

It is imperative that all entrants read and comply with the details contained in a competition webpage which also includes a hyperlink to our CAPA Eligibility Criteria.

2018 Open Theme Competition

This competition was extremely popular:

1 – Club category: 222 image from 37 clubs

2 – Individual category: 450 images from 115 CAPA members

The submitted images were broken down into six categories as outlined below.

The pie chart below reflect the distribution of the six categories in the Open Theme Competition.

Many thanks to the three CAPA judges: Derek Hayes, Jim Sutton and Michael Easton.

For the Club category, three camera clubs received CAPA medals:

1 – Gold Medal – Montreal Camera Club

2 – Silver Medal – St. Catharines Photographic Club

3 – Bronze Medal – The Chinese Canadian Photographic Society of Toronto

You can check out their winning images on our Winners – Club webpage here.

CAPA members were also awarded CAPA medals for the individual category:

1 – Gold Medal – Missy Mandel of Toronto, Ont

2 – Silver Medal – Mary Chambers of London, Ont.

3 – Bronze Medal – Norman Dougan of Kamloops, BC.

You can check out their winning images on our Winners – Individual webpage here.

2018 Audio Visual Presentation Competition

Last year, the Audio Visual competition was cancel due to an extremely low level of participation.

Ann Alimi (Toronto Camera Club) felt this competition was worthy of being revitalized. She worked hard at updating the entire competition and tirelessly promoted participation in this competition.

Based on Ann’s own initiative, we had the following number of entrants in this competition:

1 – Club Competition – 11 entrants

2 – Individual Competition 37 entrants

For the Club category, the following three camera clubs were awarded a CAPA medal:

1 – Gold Medal – Lakeshore Camera Club

2 – Silver Medal – Toronto Digital Photography Club

3 – Bronze Medal – Richmond Hill Camera Club

You can view the competition report after you log into the CAPA website and select the Competition Report from the Competition menu.

For the Individual category, the following CAPA members are receiving a CAPA medal:

1 – Gold Medal – Yun Wang of Burlington, Ontario

2 – Silver Medal – Rita Villis of London, Ontario

3 – Bronze Medal – Pat Zuest of Toronto, Ontario

Many thanks to the three CAPA judges: Sunchie Yang, Norm Ullock and Helene Ullock.

A special thank you is extended to Ann Alimi for her outstanding efforts to revitalize this competition. She an outstanding photographer in her own right.

Canada: My Country Competition

This competition was also popular:

1 – Club category: 120 image from 20 clubs

2 – Individual category: 243 images from 67 CAPA members

These images were broken down into six categories as outlined below.

The pie chart below reflect the distribution of the six categories in the Canada: My Country Competition.

For the Club category, three camera clubs received CAPA medals:

1 – Gold Medal – The Chinese Canadian Photographic Society of Toronto

2 – Silver Medal – Richmond Hill Camera Club

3 – Bronze Medal – Toronto Digital Photography Club

You can check out their winning images on our Winners – Club webpage here.

CAPA members were also awarded CAPA medals for the individual category:

1 – Gold Medal – Norman Dougan

2 – Silver Medal – IIana Block

3 – Bronze Medal – Robert Parker

You can check out their winning images on our Winners – Individual webpage here.

Many thanks and congratulations to all entrants in supporting this competition.

2018 Close Up Competition

Unfortunately, there will be a delay in judging this competition as two of the judges will be out of the area for a week or two. It is expected that the final report will be approved in early June 2018.

Forthcoming 2018 Competition

For CAPA members, we have one remaining competition for you and has associated prizes for the winning images:

2019 Annual Photo Challenge Competition (Only available for individual CAPA members) – closes on May 31, 2018

Questions or Concerns

If you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of CAPA competitions, please email our Director of Competitions at competitions@telus.ca.

April 2018

Our monthly Competition News is aimed at providing all CAPA members and camera clubs with timely information relating to our competitions.

For this month, we have included information below under the following titles.

2018 Black & White Competition

As of this date, the Black & White competition now holds the record for the largest number of:

entrants who submitted images in a CAPA competition – 186 (37 + 149); and
submitted images for a CAPA competition – 789 (219 + 570).

Submitted images were grouped into six photographic genres with the associated totals

Category	Individual	Club	Total
Landscape	112	52	164
People	133	78	211
Insect/Bird/Animal/Plant	120	35	155
Object Primary Focus	66	22	88
Architecture	110	27	137
Vehicle/Train/Boat/Aircraft	29	5	34
TOTAL	570	219	789

Based on these totals, the following pie chart was created.

As the statistics have outlined above, the Black & White competition was extremely popular. Therefore, this competition will be included in the 2018 – 2019 competition cycle but will be revised as the Monochrome competition and will contain four genres:

Individual/Groups (street photography is included)
Landscape/City-scape
Architecture (inside/outside)
Flowers/Plants (wild or cultivated)

Each genre will be judged separately. If this competition format is found to be popular then it will be used in our 2019-2020 competition cycle for other competitions.

Check out this new competition here.

2018 – Survey Sent Out To Camera Clubs

In January 2018, we sent out a survey to all camera clubs seeking ideas and comments to enhance CAPA.

Unfortunately, we received a very low response to this survey. However, the collective responses to one question did provide us an insight into which competitions are popular with camera clubs – as noted below.

We used these responses to assist us in determining what competitions to offer in our 2018 – 2019 competition cycle. In the near future, it maybe beneficial to send out a similar survey to all our CAPA individual members.

Altered Reality Competition Results

This competition closed on February 28, 2018 and the images submitted were as follows:

1 – Club category: 158 image from 28 clubs

2 – Individual category: 227 images from 60 CAPA members

The three judges for this competition were:

1 – Carol How – CAPA Judge (Crescent Beach Photography Club)

2 – Frank Pali – Certified CAPA Judge (Not a member of a camera club)

3 – Gilles Vezina – Certified CAPA Judge (R.A. Photo Club)

Many thanks to the judges for assisting in this competition.

This competition was hosted by CAPA.

Check out the winners of the competition as follows:

1 – Winners – Club – Altered Reality – CHECK OUT WEBPAGE HERE

2 – Winners – Individual – Altered Reality – CHECK OUT WEBPAGE HERE

All the entrants in this competition have received a copy of the final competition report. This report can be reviewed by logging into the CAPA website and selecting Competition Report from the Competition dropdown menu. If the Competition Report is not displayed, you are not logged into the website.

2018 – 2019 CAPA Competitions

In March, we sent out a message to all camera clubs seeking volunteers to host of one of our 2018 – 2019 (September 1, 2018 to June 1, 2019). Based on this request, the following competitions will be proceeding as of September 1, 2018:

Nature – hosted by: Richmond Hill Camera Club – Closing Date: October 30, 2018
Fine Art – hosted by: Derek Hayes & Friends – Closing Date: October 30, 2018
Photo Journalism – hosted by: Hamilton Camera Club – Closing Date: November 23, 2018
Altered Reality – hosted by: Lance Gitter – Closing Date: January 15, 2019
Monochrome – hosted by: CAPA Director of Competitions – Closing Date: January 30, 2019
Open Theme – hosted by: Toronto Digital Photographic Club – Closing Date: February 20, 2019
A Photo Series Of 4 Photos – hosted by: Shuswap Photo Arts Club – February 20, 2019
Audio Visual Presentation – hosted by: Toronto Camera Club – Closing Date: March 31, 2019
Portraiture – hosted by: Prince George Photo Society (Selena Laing) – Closing Date: March 31, 2019
Canada: My Country – hosted by: Director of Competitions – Closing Date: April 30, 2019
2019 Annual Photo Challenge (Open only to CAPA members) – hosted by: CAPA Director of Competitions – Closing Date: May 31, 2019
International Four Nations Competition – hosted and coordinated by: CAPA Director of Competitions – Closing Date: July 1, 2019
Wildlife- hosted by: – Closing Date:
Open Print – hosted by: – Closing Date:

SPECIAL NOTE: We are still seeking a Competition Host for the Wildlife and Open Print competition. The Wildlife competition can be hosted as either a ‘live-judging‘ or a ‘remote-juding‘ competition. If you or your club is interested in hosting one of these competitions, please email the Director of Competitions at competitions@capacanada.ca

The competition details for the following 2018-2019 competitions are now posted on Current Competitions webpage:

Nature
Fine Art
Photo Journalism
Altered Reality
Monochrome
Portrait
A Photo Series Of 4 Photos
Open Theme

In the forthcoming weeks, the remaining 2018-2019 details will be posted. You will be able to upload your images to these competitions after September 1, 2018.

Four Nations Competitions

We have received some enquires about the international Four Nations competition and how images are selected by CAPA for this competition.

The participating organizations in this competition consist of:

Australian Photographic Society
Canadian Association For Photographic Art
Photographic Society of New Zealand
Photographic Society of South Africa

Each year, the hosting of this competition rotates through the participating photographic organizations. This year’s host is the Photographic Society of South Africa. In 2019, it will be CAPA’s turn to host this competition.

Noted competition consists of four categories and the corresponding number of images to be submitted each year:

Open Theme – 35 images
Nature – 15 images
Monochrome – 15 images
Our Country – 15 images

Each contributing organization must submit 80 images. All 80 images must be submitted by 80 different photographers. No previously submitted image can be re-submitted.

Each year, this competition closes on July 1st. After the closing date, all submitted images will be randomly sorted and judged by at least three individuals not residing or citizen of the four participating countries. These judges will be either PSA and/or FIAP certified judges.

For CAPA’s submission to this competition, the new process will be as follows:

select the top 50-100 scoring images from each of our 2017 – 2018 competitions
three independent Certified CAPA Judges will re-score all the selected images
scores will be sorted from highest to lowest
top images will selected for each of categories for the Four Nations competition
seek permission to submit the image from the photographer
submit our selected 80 images to the Four Nations’ Competition Host
receive the competition results
advise the photographers of results
post the results on our website
all future CAPA competition webpages will contain a note that the top 50 scored images in each competition will be considered for selection into the Four Nations competition

Check out the results from the 2017 Four Nations Competition here.

If you have any questions or concerns relating to this competition, please Sheldon Boles (Director of Competitions) at competititions@capacanada.ca

Forthcoming 2018 Competition

As a reminder, we have three forthcoming competitions in April and May:

1 – 2018 Canada: My Country – closes April 18, 2018

2 – 2018 Close-up – closes April 30, 2018

3 – 2018 Annual Photo Challenge (only open to CAPA Individual Members) – closes May 31, 2018

March 2018

Our monthly Competition News is aimed at providing all CAPA members and camera clubs with timely information relating to our competitions.

For this month, we have included information below under the appropriate title.

2018 Black & White Competition

This closed on January 2018 and took considerable time to judge the close to 800 images submitted:

1 – Club category: 219 image from 38 clubs

2 – Individual category: 570 images from 149 CAPA members

Several new camera clubs entered images for the first time: Birdnet Camera Club (In China with 220,000 members), Prince George Photo Society and the Port Franks Camera Club.

For twenty-three CAPA members, this was their first time in participating in a CAPA competition.

Despite the unexpected large number of submitted images, the Victoria Camera Club did an outstanding job in hosting this competition.

Many thanks to the three CAPA judges: Michael Easton, Neil le Nobel and Rick Shapka for their assistance.

For the Club category, three camera clubs received CAPA medals:

1 – Gold Medal – Richmond Hill Camera Club

2 – Silver Medal – Images Alberta Camera Club

3 – Bronze Medal – Jiahua Elite Photography Association

You can check out their winning images on our Winners – Club webpage here.

CAPA members were also awarded CAPA medals for the individual category:

1 – Gold Medal – David Laronde of North Vancouver, BC

2 – Silver Medal – Norman Dougan of Kamloops, BC

3 – Bronze Medal – Missy Mandel of Toronto, Ont

You can check out their winning images on our Winners – Individual webpage here.

Two images from this competition were disqualified for the following reasons:

1 – watermark on surface of the image

2 – entrant entered the same image in both the Club and Individual categories of this competition.

Reminder For All Competitions

A question has been raised whether a stock image or an image on internet can be incorporated as an element in an image submitted for competition.

The answer is no. Point #1 of our CAPA Competition Eligibility Criteria states:

1. the submitted image is their original work and must not contain the elements created by someone else;

The CAPA Eligibility Criteria for these two types of disqualifications are as follows:

8. they will NOT enter an identical or simultaneously the same images or one that is substantially the same in both the ‘individual‘ and ‘club‘ components of a CAPA competition;

9. the image will not contain any watermarks, name of the image or name of the photographer;

Each competition detail webpage contains a hyperlink to the CAPA Eligibility Criteria page. It is important that each entrant review this webpage prior to submitting an images for the respective competition.

How To Upload Competitions Webpage

This webpage has been updated to reflect the current layout and processes in uploading an images to a CAPA competition.

A hyperlink to this document is contained in all CAPA competition pages. You can view this new document here.

Potential CAPA Competitions

For our 2018 – 2019 competition cycle (September to June), we have the following potential competitions:

2019 – Photo Challenge	Altered Reality	Audio Visual Presentation	Capture The Perfect Flower Theme
Close-Up	Fine Art	Four Nations	Monochrome
Nature	Open Print	Open Theme	Photo Travel
Photo Journalism	Portrait	Story Telling With 4 Images	Wildlife

The Director of Competitions will be the Competition Host for both the 2019 Photo Challenge and the Four Nations Competitions.

For the other competitions to proceed, we will need a Competition Host for each of the remaining competitions. A Competition Host can be either a camera club or 1 or 2 CAPA members and will be assisted by the Director of Competitions.

Competitions can be conducted by either the traditional ‘live-judging‘ or our new ‘remote-judging‘ feature on our website. For the ‘remote-judging’ Competition Hosting, the processes have been streamlined and a step-by-step document will be provided.

Camera Clubs or CAPA members who are curious or interested in hosting one of these competitions, they can contact the Director of Competitions by emailing Sheldon Boles at competitions@telus.ca.

We will need to finalize the competitions being hosted by the end of March 2018. By mid-April 2018, the Director of Competitions will be announcing which competitions will be proceeding in the 2018 – 2019 competition cycle. In so doing, photographers will be given advance notice to plan their photographic outings.