2024 Eyes of History®: Still Contest Information and Rules

• All photographs entered in the contest must have been made by active or life members in good standing; associate members are not eligible. An individual who has never before been a WHNPA member may become a member and enter the contest at the same time so long as they pay the dues for the calendar year when the entries were made as well as the next year’s dues.
• Entries must have been taken or initially published between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2023. Previously entered images are not eligible. Previously unpublished and un-entered photos from prior to 2023 are allowed to be entered only as part of long-term picture stories.
• The content of a photograph must not be altered in Photoshop or by any other means. No element should be digitally added to or subtracted from any photograph and the image must be a truthful representation of whatever happened in front of the camera during exposure. Retouching to eliminate dust and scratches is acceptable. Reasonable adjustments in Photoshop or Lightroom are acceptable. These include cropping, dodging and burning, conversion into grayscale, and normal toning and color adjustments that restore the authentic nature of the photograph. Excessive changes in density, contrast, color and saturation levels that alter the original scene are not acceptable. Backgrounds should not be digitally blurred or eliminated by burning down or by aggressive toning. Frames or borders outside the image area are not allowed nor is text — digital or otherwise — allowed on the image. The judges and contest committee reserve the right to see the original (un-retouched) raw image files, negatives and/or slides, including images made before and after the contest image. Any photographer violating these standards will be disqualified from the competition. The contest chair will inform the contest judges of these guidelines.
• Photographs made with non-professional digital cameras, like the iPhone or point-and-shoot cameras, are allowed in the contest. Keep in mind that like all submitted images they must adhere to the same non-alter guidelines stated above (they can not be digitally altered or manipulated images, i.e., taken with filters or other creative apps).
• Entries must be true to the spirit and principles of both the WHNPA bylaws and the profession of photojournalism. Photographs that were made while on assignment, or while on staff, for a non-journalistic organization, are not eligible to be entered. This prohibition includes, but is not limited to: NGO’s, political campaigns, governments, sports teams and organizations such as the International Olympic Committee, corporate and advertising work.
• Photojournalists covering sporting events while employed or contracted by editorial news organizations that have a paid partnership/exchange with the sports organization, team or league they are covering are eligible to enter those photographs in one of WHNPA’s three sports categories, as well as in the entrant’s Photographer of the Year portfolio, as long as the individual is paid directly by their employer or contracting agency, and not the team/league/tournament they are covering. Team photographers and other photographers paid directly by a league or team are ineligible to enter. This rule modification applies only to sports coverage.
• Any entry submitted where the byline or credit has changed from how it was originally published will be disqualified. Transparency is paramount.
• The contest committee reserves the right to modify an entry at the committee’s discretion. This includes but is not limited to re-categorizing an entry, correcting caption issues, fixing metadata, or disqualifying an entry. Please, try not to burden our volunteers with fixing your contest errors.

Entries

A photographer will be limited to 25 entries plus one (1) Photographer of the Year portfolio. A picture story and a political portfolio each are considered one entry. Individual pictures from a picture story may be entered in single picture categories but must be entered separately. Individual pictures from a picture story may not be used in another picture story. Each entry must be entered in one category only (exception: qualifying individual pictures and stories may also be included in political portfolio and general portfolio). More than one picture on an individual file is not permitted. The Contest Committee reserves the right to re-categorize any entry. Pictures that are flagrantly entered in the wrong category may be disqualified.

Entry Fees

There will be an entry fee of $75.00 (plus $2 processing fee) per entrant; For those entering fewer than five (5) entries the fee is $30.00 (plus $1 processing fee) per entrant. The fee must be made payable through PayPal. If your WHNPA membership dues have not been paid by the contest deadline, your entry will not be judged. The committee cannot accommodate late entries after the deadline has passed.

New This Year!

The contest committee has eliminated the category points we used previously to determine the Photographer of the Year. Instead, the first place winner of the Portfolio category (now named Photographer of the Year/Portfolio) will be awarded the Photographer of the Year. Portfolio requirements have remained unchanged.

Important Tips

We strongly recommend that you do all of your cropping and toning adjustments first, and initially save images into a folder on your hard drive. Entering the caption information and renaming the images will be much easier to do as a group, one right after another. Though it may look intimidating at first glance, inputting info with Photo Mechanic will only take a couple of minutes for each image.

The Contest Committee strongly recommends you tightly edit your picture stories, your Political Portfolio, and your General Portfolio. Though this isn’t an editing contest, judges always favor tightly edited stories and portfolios. A mediocre photograph will likely hurt the entire body of work.

Image Specifications

• Each image should be rendered as a RGB or Grayscale file. Do not use CMYK.
• Final individual image size should be at least 10-12.5 inches longest dimension at 250 DPI, or 2500-3000 pixels longest dimension. Uncompressed RGB file size should be about 10-15 megabytes. File size after compression would be about 2-5 megabytes.
• Save images as large JPEG files and use Baseline (“Standard”) under Format Options when doing so.

Caption Instructions

These are the fields in the Photo Mechanic IPTC Stationery Pad that will need to be filled in. Please see the screenshot examples at bottom of the list.

Description/Caption: This will include a brief and concise caption for the photograph.

Your caption must be in AP Style which includes the description followed by LOCATION, DAY OF THE WEEK, AND DATE. This is solely for the volunteers who donate their time to make it easier on them designing the annual WHNPA book of winners.

Example: FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019.

If this is the first image in a picture story entry then please put a story summary at the beginning of this field, followed by the caption for the first image. Please Note: It is absolutely essential that your remove your name and another other identifying information, including the name of your agency or publication, from this field.

Headline: The title of the image or the picture essay.

Keywords: Your email address.

City: The city in which the image was made.

State: The state in which the image was made.

Country: The country in which the image was made.

Date: The date when the image was made (In Photo Mechanic, you can select “Capture Time” from the pulldown menu on the right hand side of this field and the program will fill in the date).

Photographer: Your name.

Title: Your title.

Source: The publication or organization for which the image. If not on assignment specify “Independent”.

Copyright: The image’s copyright holder.

Captioning for singles:

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Captioning for stories:

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File Naming Instructions Using The Unique Identifier Code

Your Unique Identifier Code for the Contest is built from your initials (use the letter “x” if you have no middle name) combined with your two-letter organization code. See below for codes. If your organization is not listed then please use “oz.”

Example: Chip Somodevilla’s Unique Identifier Code: crskk (initials: crs, organization Getty Images: kk)

For Single Picture Entries

Enter the three-letter category code, underscore (“_”), the photographer’s unique identifier, underscore, number of entry in a particular category (01, 02, 03, etc.), one word slug of your choice (ten or fewer characters), and end with .jpg. (All characters should be lower case.)

Examples:
For Chip Somodevilla’s third entry in Presidential category: pre_crskk_03glance.jpg
For Jim Lo Scalzo’s first entry in the Feature category: fea_jjlii_01pray.jpg

For Picture Story Entries

Enter the three-letter category code, underscore (“_”), the photographer’s unique identifier, underscore, one word slug of your choice (ten or less characters), underscore, number of image in story order, and end with .jpg. (All characters should be lower case.)

Example:
For Chip Somodevilla’s first entry for Picture Story/Politics:

Photographer of the Year/Portfolio (PFO)

1. Portfolio should show the breadth and versatility of an entrant’s work and should demonstrate skill in a variety of categories, including politics. Judges will be asked to to select the best “body of work.”
2. Portfolio must contain a minimum of 22 pictures and a maximum of 45 pictures. You must have at least one picture story and a maximum of three picture stories. Also, a portfolio must contain at least three entries from the political categories: Presidential, On Capitol Hill, Insiders Washington or Picture Story/Politics (which counts as a single entry). A black slide is required to separate picture stories as well as single entries.
3. Name the individual pictures in the order you want them to be projected. All pictures in the portfolio will be named using the three-letter category code (PFO), underscore (“_”), your Unique Identifier (five-letter name/organization) Code, underscore, the number of the image in portfolio order and end with .jpg Example: pfo_crskk_01.jpg, pfo_crskk_02.jpg, pfo_crskk_03. jpg, etc.
4. Black Slides and a Contact Sheet are also required. See instructions below.

Political Portfolio (PPP)

1. The Political Portfolio must be comprised solely of images from exactly one Picture Story/Politics and single pictures from the political categories (Presidential, On Capitol Hill, Insiders Washington and also single images any Picture Story/Politics entries other than the one story entered in its entirety as part of the political portfolio). Again, to be clear: ONE picture story PLUS single images taken from the entrant’s other political category entries. There is a maximum of 20 pictures total in the Political Portfolio.
2. Name the individual pictures in the order you want them to be projected. All pictures in the portfolio will be named using the three-letter category code (PPP), underscore (“_”), your Unique Identifier (five-letter name/organization) Code, underscore, the number of the image in portfolio order and ended with .jpg Example: ppp_crskk_01.jpg, ppp_crskk_02.jpg, ppp_crskk_03.jpg, etc.
3. Black Slides and a Contact Sheet are also required. See instructions below.

Black Slides And Contact Sheets

• A black slide is required to separate picture stories as well as single entries in portfolios. You may use title slides instead; for example, you might use a title slide with the word “SINGLES” followed by all your single pictures, then have a title slide with the words “PICTURE STORY #1” followed by that pictures story, etc. DO NOT put the title of the picture story on the slide. These slides will not count against the total number of images in your portfolio.
• A contact sheet is required for picture stories and portfolio entries. To create a digital contact sheet first prepare the individual images and make sure the files are correctly renamed and in their proper order, and collected into their folder. In Photoshop, go to FILE > AUTOMATE > CONTACT SHEET II… to open the contact sheet dialog box. Designate the folder using the “Choose…” button. Set the document dimensions and thumbnail columns/rows as shown in the example below, and press “OK.” Photoshop will generate the contact sheet (or multiple sheets in the case of portfolio entries), which you should then flatten (go to LAYER > FLATTEN IMAGE) and save into the folder along with the image files, numbering it as if it were the 13th and/or final image in the story. Click to View Example

Photographer Of The Year

The contest committee has eliminated the category points we used previously to determine the Photographer of the Year. Instead, the first place winner of the Portfolio category (now named Photographer of the Year/Portfolio) will be awarded the Photographer of the Year. Portfolio requirements have remained unchanged. Reminder, the winner is expected to produce a video about their winning work to be shown at the 2024 Eyes of History® gala.

Political Photo Of The Year

Judges will select one single image as Political News Photo of the Year from the top winners in each individual political category (Presidential, On Capitol Hill and Insider’s Washington) and individual images from the Picture Story/Politics and Political Portfolio top winners. Reminder, the winner is expected to produce a video about their winning work to be shown at the 2024 Eyes of History® gala.

Judging

Please watch the WHNPA events page for information on this year’s Eyes of History® contest judging.

Contact

Please direct questions to a contest committee member or the chair at [email protected]

WHNPA Contest Committee

Al Drago (Chair), Independent
Saul Loeb, AFP
Alex Wong, Getty
Kevin Dietsch, Getty
Alex Brandon, The Associated Press
Jonathan Ernst, Reuters
Bonnie Cash, Independent
Tasos Katopodis, Independent
Linda Epstein, WHNPA Associate member
Gina Martin, WHNPA Associate member

Advisors

Jim Lo Scalzo, European Pressphoto Agency (past chair)
Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images (past chair)
Andrew Harnik, The Associated Press (past chair)

Click here to begin the entry process.