Beacon Camera Club

in partnership with

Worcestershire Arts and Music

announce the

Worcestershire

'Young Photographer of the Year'

Competition 2012

This competition is open to anyone of age 19 or under who is attending full-time education in the county of Worcestershire - from primary school to sixth-form. All schools - Primary, Middle, High, Sixth-form, Academy and Independent - are included in those entitled to enter. The competition is divided into three categories according to age and the 4 winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) in each category will be awarded their prizes at a prestigous event in April 2012.

Why are we holding this competition? We have had several club meetings to which we have invited student members of photography departments (where they exist!) from local schools. It is apparent from those attendees and their teachers that there is a lot of enthusiasm for this subject in children and young adults of school age. However, not all schools are fortunate enough to be able to conduct a specific course in photography and it is the aim of our club - in line with its stated purpose and constitution - to help in this by promoting photographic skills in members of the public. Our aim is to 'seed' the youth of our community with the desire to explore the field of photography and the opportunities that exist for its well-skilled proponents in the wider world. The competition will be judged by a panel of qualified photographers: prizes will be awarded at a formal 'awards' night at a local venue.

We hope that the long-term result of this initiative will be to broaden the knowledge of photographic skill and techniques in those that take part, and perhaps to encourage participants to become members of our club (or one like it) in the future.

The subject matter for the photographs is for you to decide: anything goes but the source material MUST be photographs of your own taking. You can submit up to three images at any time up to the closing date and you can even change your submissions right up until the last minute, if you wish. Your school/college will have registered a contact who will be responsible for uploading your images for judging. If you don't know who that person is, look for your school on this list.

How much does it cost to enter? Nothing - there is no entry fee for this competition.

But I don't have a good enough camera!...we hear you say. This is no reason not to enter! We have seen some excellent images taken with camera 'phones and in any case, we will be judging the photograph on its merits, NOT according to the make of camera used to take it! We will be looking for eye-catching, well-composed images which mean something or tell a story, or depict an everyday object or in an unusual way, etc., In fact ANY type of image taken with ANY type of camera. As the competition requires digital images, if you use conventional film you will need to have your negatives/slides/prints scanned to produce an image of the appropriate type - contact us if you need advice on this.

Images will be accepted from the 1st. September 2011 up to midnight on the 29th. February 2012, so you have plenty of time to get snapping. After this date, all entries will be assessed by our panel of judges and a short-list of 100 entrants will be produced. The authors of those short-listed images will receive a priority invitation to a prize-giving evening at which the shortlisted images will be displayed, the winners announced and the prizes awarded. The rest of the audience attending the prize-giving will be granted entry on an allocated-per-school basis, with any remaining tickets being available as 'first come, first served'.

The competition is for photographs or images which will be displayed by projection onto a large screen at the prizegiving. The shortlisted entrants will be asked before that day to submit full resolution digital image files which will be used to generate top-quality framed prints from the winning entries, to be presented to the winners.

Of course, there are rules! We have tried to keep them to a minimum - they can be found here. Someone at your school will have volunteered to co-ordinate your entries and submit them for judging - you can find out who that is by checking this page. If there is no name alongside your school, find a teacher to volunteer and ask him/her to contact us so that we can register your school.

So, it's time to get those shutters clicking! We look forward to seeing your entries.

Co-ordinators: To log-in to upload your entries, you will need the login name and password that has been issued to you to enter them on the submission page, which can be reached via this link. Detailed instructions on what to do when you get there are in this document

For more details, you can download the introductory letter and leaflet.