ELIGIBILITY
The 2025 still photography and multimedia competition is open to Professional and Student National Press Photographers Assn. members of the New England, New York/International, and Mid-Atlantic Regions ONLY (formerly NPPA Regions 1, 2, and 3). All entries must have been taken or first published between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024.

All entries must adhere to the NPPA Code of Ethics.

FEES

For further information or to answer any questions, contact contest co-chairmen, Steve Falk, Andy Mendelson, or John Walker at nsc.contestchair@nppa.org

GENERAL GUIDELINES

●      All entries must have been taken or first published between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024 (see below for specifics regarding story entries). Entries do not need to have been published.

●      Entrants may submit only their work.

 ●      A single photograph may be entered only once among the single-picture categories.

●      A single photograph may appear as part of a picture story but in no more than one story.

 ●      A picture story/multimedia entry may be entered both in an individual category and as a part of a portfolio.

 ●      A single photo, a picture story, or a multimedia entry each count as one entry.

●      All singles photo entries must have been shot in the contest year.

●      All picture stories must start with a title slide, whether submitted on their own or as part of a portfolio.

●      ALL entries that are un-viewable by the contest staff or judges will be disqualified.

●      Multimedia URLs behind a paywall will not be accepted.

●      Photographs entered in the wrong category will NOT be reclassified.

●      Photographs taken outside of the United States, Canada or Mexico are excluded from Spot News Single, General News Single and News Picture Story categories.

●      For portfolios, group the single entries together, starting with a title slide labeled “Singles.” Start each story with a title slide.

●      Entries must be submitted using the online form.

●      Entries must be from a single still camera frame and may not be electronically manipulated or altered (other than the normal balancing   and toning of a digital camera image). No multiple exposures, panoramas or stitched photos, produced either in-camera or with software, will be accepted. See the NPPA Code of Ethics for full details.

●         AI-generated images are not accepted in any category.

●      The decisions of the contest judges and committee are final.

●      Entrants must be prepared to provide file(s) as recorded by the camera for images that proceed to the final stages of the contest when requested… Failure to provide these files when requested may result in the entry being excluded.

●      PLEASE REMOVE ALL PERSONAL TAGS, COLOR CODES AND RATINGS FROM ALL IMAGES

FILE INFORMATION

●      Before uploading your images please make sure that your File Info/IPTC caption information area is filled out correctly. The contest chair has authority to disqualify any image that fails to have the required IPTC information properly placed. Do not put your name anywhere in the caption.

Captions (Required):

●      Every single image entry must have a title

●      For the story categories, within the caption block of the title slide, include a short overall story description at the top of the caption (up to 100 words).

●      Captions must be accurate and answer the basic questions of good journalism. They must be written in English and follow basic AP style.

●      The first sentence should describe who is in the photograph and what is going on within the photo in the present tense followed by the city, state or province and country (if outside the United States) as appropriate. The last portion of the first sentence should be the date. Use absolute dates and absolute locations, meaning you should have a date of, “, December 17, 2022” and not just, “Monday” or “last Tuesday.”

●      The second sentence of the caption is used to give context to the news event or describes why the photo is significant. If in doubt do not use a second sentence.

●      Captions must give attribution of action not seen (e.g. the scene of an accident where more than 10 died, according to police).

●      Names should always be listed in order, left to right, unless it is impossible for the caption to read normally otherwise.

●      With multiple people identified within the caption, enough representations to placement are necessary that there is no confusion for who is who.

●      Whenever possible, try to keep captions to no more than two concise sentences, while including the relevant information.

●      If the photograph is a portrait, the caption must contain a note stating that the photograph is a portrait and was posed and directed.

●  For the story categories, a clearly-labeled story summary must be included in the caption field of the story title slide in a picture story.

City, State/Province, and Country (Required)

Date (Required) – The date the image was made.

Photographer and Credit/Byline (please fill in both) (Required) – The name of the photojournalist who made the image. Please be consistent from photo to photo. For example, please use Joe E Smith for each image, not Joe Smith on one, Joseph Smith on another, J.E. Smith on a third, and so on.

Source (Required) – Your employer or client.

Copyright (Required) – Who holds the copyright on the image (this may be the entrant, employer, or client).

Contact Email (Required) – Please use the same address here as you will use when you create your account for submission.

Contact Phone (Required)  – Please use the same phone number here as you will use when you create your account for submission.

IMAGE FORMATTING
Images should be sized to be 3000 pixels on the long dimension. Image files must be saved as a JPG with a quality setting of High (9 on a 12-point scale, 8 on a 10-point scale). File sizes should be no more than 5 MB.

NAMING OF IMAGE FILES
Each image file that is entered must be unique. Therefore we are asking that each entrant at the start of the image filename put the category abbreviation then an underscore (_) then their phone number then an underscore (_) then the storyslug then an underscore (_) and then a sequential number.

Please label your images like the following: NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_01.jpg

For multiple images within the same entry continue story slug and numerical sequence
NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_02.jpg
NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_03.jpg
NWPS_2125551212_storyslug_04.jpg

Entries must be submitted using the online form.

Entries must be from a single still camera frame and may not be electronically manipulated or altered (other than the normal balancing and toning of a digital camera image). No sandwiched negatives are permitted. Only burning, dodging and spotting are allowed.

Entries do not need to have been published but need to have been made between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2024. The decisions of the contest judges and committee are final.

For Still Portfolio entries, include one label slide for all singles and one label slide for each story, as well as a slide with a screen grab for each multimedia in portfolios. They should follow the naming convention above. Slug the label slide ending with 01 in each category.