1. Eligibility

1.1 AOP Photographer and Assisting Photographer members may enter the Photographer and Open, and Emerging Talent categories.

1.2 All membership types & non-members are permitted to enter the Open and Emerging Talent categories.

1.3 Member subscriptions must be fully up to date and if membership is terminated prior to the presentation of the AOP Awards or AOP Project the entrant will be disqualified and any successful entry/ies removed.

1.4 The majority of all elements of the work submitted must have been originated by a person (the Entrant). Any other elements incorporated must have been created under the express direction of the Entrant and all elements created on or after the stated date.

1.5 Work submitted must not have previously been entered into any AOP Awards including the Students Awards.

1.6 No entrant will be allowed to be part of either the decision-making process or the judging process.

2. Copyright

2.1 No copyright is transferred to the AOP in respect of any works entered or accepted.

2.2 Entrants shall be deemed to warrant that they own copyright in the entire work and/or, if necessary, and in the event of a collaborative entry that they have permission from any other represented rights-holder/s to enter and be credited for the work, and that all necessary model and/or property releases have been obtained. The Entrant undertakes to indemnify the AOP and the sponsors of the AOP Awards or AOP Project in respect of any breach of the same.

2.3 Entrants grant to the AOP a non-exclusive licence to use the work submitted for the purposes outlined below in s.3.

3. Entries

3.1 Entries may only be submitted online.

3.2 Any and/or all AOP Awards selected entries may be reproduced in various publications and outlets to promote the Awards.

3.3 The AOP may use any and/or all submitted images in digital displays presented at the AOP Awards 2021 ceremony and party.

3.4 All successful entries from the AOP Photography Awards’ categories will be published in the AOP Awards Book, together with the winning images from the Open Award categories. Original prints may be displayed in the AOP Awards Exhibition, and AOP Awards on Tour exhibition if there is one.

3.5 The successful entries will be displayed indefinitely on the AOP Awards website, unless specifically requested otherwise by the Entrant in writing to the AOP office.

3.6 The AOP and the sponsors of the Awards reserve the right to display, reproduce and publish in any media, any successful entry, without payment, until the end of the stated date, for the sole purpose of promoting and publicising the AOP and the AOP Awards. The AOP also reserves the right to display all the successful images on the Awards website and archive for an indefinite period unless the Entrant requests otherwise in writing to the AOP office. The photographer will be credited whenever the work is published or displayed.

4. Exhibition prints

4.1 All exhibition prints will be produced by the AOP at its cost using its preferred supplier(s) for the purposes of the exhibition only, both at its original location and any touring locations that may be secured over the subsequent 12 months. These prints are the property of the AOP and may be destroyed at the end of any exhibition period and any case at the end of a 12-month period following the launch of the exhibition.

5. Risk and Insurance

5.1 The AOP and any venue hosting the exhibition will not be responsible for any loss or damage to entries or exhibition prints, whether or not caused by negligence.

5.2 While the AOP makes every effort to ensure that the AOP Awards Book is of the highest standard, we are unable to guarantee the quality of the reproduction.

6. General

6.1 All entries must meet the conditions required under Entry Procedure, Technical Specifications and Format.

6.2 You may only enter a piece of work once into the AOP Awards.

6.3 Entries must be submitted online by following the instructions. A current valid email address must be included – all communications from the AOP will be made via email.

6.4 All judging will be of digital files.

6.5 There are no restrictions on the number of entries made per person. Entries can consist of either individual images, a series of images or a short moving-image piece, with no restrictions on subject matter.

6.6 The AOP reserves the right to use its own discretion throughout, which may include, but is not limited to: Disqualifying any entrant not complying with the rules; Amalgamating categories if they are under-subscribed; Changing or removing category headings when selected images are published in the AOP Awards Book.

6.7 If it is believed that a contravention of the rules has taken place, the AOP reserves the right to examine original material in the form of RAW or processed files, film negatives/positives or any other media. Any entrant unable or unwilling to supply the necessary material on request will be disqualified.

6.8 Entry fees will not be refunded if entries/entrants are disqualified or entries withdrawn.

6.9 The AOP and/or curators will not move work from one category to another. An incorrect entry into a category will result in the image being withdrawn (at the Entrant’s request), and the entry fees will not be refunded.

6.10 There will be no appeals against the decision of the curators and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the decision-making process.

6.11 Any successful entrant to the AOP Awards or AOP Project may be called upon during the ensuing 12-month period to participate in any appropriate marketing and PR activities for and on behalf of the AOP. By entering the AOP Awards, entrants agree to take part in this activity.

6.12 Any work selected and sold from the exhibition, including online from the Awards site, will attract the usual AOP Gallery Sales Commission Fee (currently 30% of the sale price).

6.13 By entering the AOP Awards all entrants are deemed to have accepted without reservation all the terms and conditions of entry.

7. Entry Procedure, Technical Specification and Format – Stills

7.1 When entering a Series or a Project, each group of images must be treated as a separate entry.

7.2 Where a number of images have been entered as a Project, the AOP will only exhibit up to 8 of the total number of images. The entrant will be able to decide on the images to be selected for exhibition, if successful.

7.3 Any images that are unsuccessful in the AOP Photography Awards may be entered into the Open Awards after the entrant has been informed of the outcome.

7.4 Neither the entrant’s name(s), nor any copy, must appear anywhere on the image.

7.5 Entrants may name images, however, please note that they will be re-named within the AOP entry-system, for unique and anonymous identification purposes.

7.6 File names must only contain letters (upper or lower case, and/or numbers (0-9), and/or underscore character plus the suffix .jpg. Any other characters including further dots, hyphens or spaces could result in your file being rejected during the upload process.

7.7 Images submitted online should be RGB and in JPEG format. They should be no larger than 2500 pixels on the longest edge. Your final file size must not exceed 10 megabytes.

7.8 Images submitted online must contain the following in the appropriate metadata fields (which will not be visible to judges) – Entrant name (in Author or Creator fields), filename/image number (in Headline or Description fields), image title (in Document Title field), image captions (in Description field).

7.9 You are responsible for preparing your images for viewing on a monitor so we suggest that images are targeted/optimized for, and tagged with, the sRGB or sRGB IEC61966-2.1 colour profile and not Adobe RGB or any other working- or output-space profile.

8. Entry Procedure, Technical Specification and Format – Moving image

8.1 A thumbnail image of your moving image entry must be uploaded, as stated above for stills. Your moving image file can then be uploaded via the link included in the submission confirmation email.

8.2 Only the following format will be accepted for judging:

• H.264 or H.265 encoded MP4 files
• Resolution: 1920 (width) x 1080 (Height) (HD)
• Maximum File size: 2GB
• Maximum length: 5 minutes. If your submission is successful, you may be required to submit an additional shorter edit of the winning entry, for screening during the presentation.

8.3  Please note – Quicktime .MOV, Flash .SWF and Windows WMV files will not be accepted, nor will .OGG or WebM encoding.

8.4 The entrant(s) name must not appear anywhere in the entry in the form of credits or otherwise.

9. Innovation – in addition to the rules laid out in s.7 and s.8

9.1 Where more than one person has contributed to the entry, the roles and responsibilities of each should be made clear in the event that credits and copy are required.

9.2 In the event of the above (9.1), only one person is to act as the Entrant.

10. Dates & deadlines:

10.1 Check the relevant AOP Award or AOP Project.

10.2 All successful entrants must supply high-resolution digital files by set deadline of each Award or AOP Project. All image credits need to be uploaded at this point.

10.3 Copy will NOT be checked, so it is your responsibility to ensure all image credits are correct. Details of the procedure will be given when informed of the results. The high-resolution version must be supplied online as:

• The high-resolution version must be supplied online as:
• a jpeg file saved with minimum compression
• be 3500 pixels along the longest side, and
• be at a resolution of 100ppi, and
• contain appropriate metadata with name, image number, image title, image captions.

11.  AOP events

The following terms and conditions apply to Delegates who book onto talks, workshops, portfolio reviews and any other events delivered by the Association of Photographers (AOP):

11.1      Non-attendance

If you are unable to attend, you may pass on your ticket at no extra cost, provided that you notify us of the change and provide us with the name of the new attendee at least 5 working days prior to the event.

11.2      Refunds – Tickets are non-refundable.

11.3      Payment Terms – Payment is required immediately in order to secure the booking.

11.4      Photography

11.4.1         AOP may arrange for photographs and/or video footage to be taken at events and used for promotional purposes. These purposes may include but are not limited to printed documents or media, editorial use, use in advertising press and use on the internet for the purposes of promoting the AOP.

11.4.2         Delegates who do not wish for their likeness to be used in this manner must notify us prior to the event.

11.5      Data Protection 

11.5.1         By submitting registration details, Delegates agree to allow AOP and companies associated with the event to contact you as required for the organisation and administration of the event.

11.5.2         The contact details (name and email address) of registered Delegates will be placed on the Attendee List. This list will be provided to our sponsors. Delegates who do not wish to be included on this list should advise us of this at the time of booking.

11.6      Events beyond our control

11.6.1         If the event is cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control, the full cost of the place will be refunded.

11.6.2         The AOP will not be liable for any other costs incurred by Delegates in the event of such a cancellation.

Contact details:

Any questions or notifications should be directed to the AOP at: info@the-aop.org