The Dunedin Photographic Society runs three kinds of competition throughout the year.

Print & Projected Image of the Month (Monthly Competitions)– These are an opportunity to submit work for critique. The critique is intended to be constructive and give you suggestions on how to improve and grow as a photographer. It’s amazing how often someone may point out something such as a distracting patch of light that you hadn’t noticed…. now it’s obvious and all you can see!

The varying themes encourage members to try something different and are open to interpretation, ‘open’ means you can submit anything you like. Any degree of processing will be considered. The only subjects which tend to be stricter are Natural History and Photojournalism. These should accurately represent the subject/event.

This is a good place to start showing your work. All images will be commented on.  Points are awarded to everyone who submits an image and extra points are awarded for the top three images on the night.  Points standings can be found here: Standings.

Successful images from this competition should be considered for the seasonal exhibitions.

Seasonal Exhibitions (Seasonal Exhibitions)– The club runs four seasonal exhibitions Spring and Autumn Print, and Winter and Summer Projected Image.   You can enter up to 6 images in each of the the Open and Natural History sections (note: the seasons are just to indicate the time of the year the exhibition is held – it is not a restriction on the type of image you can enter).  The images entered are submitted to accredited judges or ‘experts’ for appraisal. The purpose of these is to produce an exhibition of quality work, and therefore not all images will be accepted. The judges are directed to accept a percentage of the images submitted and will provide comment on only those that have been accepted.

While it can be disappointing not to have images accepted, it is important to realise that judging can be subjective; an image accepted by one judge may have been rejected by another.

Successful images from the seasonal exhibitions should be considered for the Festival.

Dunedin Festival of Photography (Festival)– The Festival is run once a year by the Society and is open to any NZ resident or society member to enter. This competition attracts a large number of entrants including those with photographic honours and professional photographers, and as such the standard is high. Acceptance into the festival should be seen as an impressive achievement and a stepping stone to the PSNZ Regional or National exhibitions. These images are not critiqued but are displayed in a local gallery for a week where they can be viewed by the public.

For new members, entering your images for the first time is always the hardest.  You do need to have a bit of a thick skin, but positive feedback feels good and shows you a way forward.  So don’t be shy, start entering now.