The club has at least 5 internal competitions each season, that are open to all members. The club also participates in competitions arranged by the Lancashire & Cheshire Photographic Union (Photographic Alliance of Great Britain PAGB affiliated). The rules relating to external competitions are liable to change each year and are not listed here. Details of L&CPU competitions can be found on their own website which can be accessed by using links on the Affiliations page of this website.

Annual Print Competition:

Two sections: Colour & Monochrome

Members may submit up to 8 prints distributed as they wish between the two sections. The entries from each member should clearly state their 7th & 8th choice submissions so that if the entry is particularly large the Competition Secretary can limit submissions to 5 or 6 prints per member. No image that has previously been submitted to this competition may be resubmitted in a subsequent year.

The print can be any size to the maximum of the mount which is 400mm x 500mm and no more the 4mm thick. No appendages (eg velcro self adherent strip) to the mount are permitted apart from flush labels, lest they run the risk of damaging the prints of others during transit / storage.

The back of the mount should give the title of the image, but the name of the member should not be included on the mounted image.

Annual Projected Digital Image (PDI) Competition:

Two sections: Colour and monochrome

Members may submit up to 8 images distributed as they wish between the two sections. The entries from each member should clearly state their 7th & 8th choice submissions so that if the entry is particularly large the Competition Secretary can limit submissions to 5 or 6 images per member. No image that has previously been submitted to this competition may be resubmitted in a subsequent year.

The image size should correspond to L&CPU requirements: Image files must be in sRGB colour space, and saved in jpg format, at maximum quality (Monochrome images also). The maximum dimensions of the image are 1600 pixels (horizontal) x 1200 pixels (vertical) and a file size of up to 2mb (no more, but smaller file sizes are acceptable).

John Dixon Trophy:

In this competition each member is invited to submit a panel of 4 mounted prints, that relate to each other in some way to be defined by the photographer. The prints may be colour or monochrome - or a mixture if that helps what the photographer is trying to say (but a mixture of colour and monochrome would potentially be unique!). The constraints on the mount sizes is the same as for the annual print competition. The information on the mount should be a name for the set, and a name for each individual print. The author should also indicate orientation and order of the print in a viewing sequence, which could be one row of four or two rows of two. This means as well as the names you will need something like 1. upper row left, and perhaps on the next 2.upper row right, then 3.lower row left ....etc.

Members need to be aware that the judge is invited to award marks for each individual print (25), and for the set as a whole. The marks for the set (100) constitute half the marks available, and it would be unusual for the marks awarded for the set not to determine the eventual winner.

Themed competitions:

There are usually two themed competitions in each season, the themes being chosen over a year ahead. The themed competitions for 2024-25 are:

Landscape

Unusual Angle or Viewpoint

Rules for themed competitions:

Members are invited to submit up to 8 images on the theme, and these may be projected digital images monochrome, projected digital images colour, prints colour, prints monochrome - or any combination of these genre - provided the total number of images submitted does not exceed 8. For example if you submit 5 PDI colour, 2 PDI monochrome you may only submit one more image which could be a monochrome print or a colour print but not both, unless you decide to reduce the PDI total.

The requirements for size of PDIs and prints is the same as for the other competitions (see above).