Official Rules

The “Nurturing the Wild” Photography Competition is jointly hosted by the Nurture Nature Campaign, the Trinidad & Tobago Photographic Society (TT-PS), and photographer Faraaz Abdool (herein ‘competition manager’).

Entrants, and their legal guardians where applicable, are responsible for complying with these Official Rules.

These rules along with the FAQs constitute the guidelines for the competition.

Eligibility

The contest is open to photographers of all ages, professional or amateur, who are Trinidad and Tobago nationals or who reside in Trinidad and Tobago.

No executive member or staff member of the TT-PS or the Nurture Nature Campaign may enter this competition.

The competition manager and the competition judges may not enter this competition.

Entrants below 18 years of age at the date of entry must only enter the competition with permission from their parent or legal guardian. This must be indicated by selecting the appropriate options on the submission form.

Entry Requirements

By submitting an entry, each entrant agrees to the Official Rules and warrants that his or her entry complies with all requirements set out therein.

This competition accepts digital submissions only.

All submitted photo(s) must be in JPEG format and resized to 1200 pixels on the longer side. Your original photo(s) must also be able to produce a JPEG with a minimum of 2500 pixels on the shorter side without upsizing (no interpolation).

Photographs must not be digitally manipulated. Acceptable editing includes cropping as well as adjustments to color, contrast, exposure, and tone. As far as possible, the images should reflect the true nature of the experience captured. The addition or removal of elements via cloning is not allowed, except for very minimal applications such as the removal of dust spots.

Submissions must be taken in Trinidad and Tobago within 4 years prior to the start of the competition, or on or after January 1, 2018.

By entering the Contest, an entrant represents, acknowledges, and warrants that the submitted photograph is an original work created solely by the entrant, that the photograph does not infringe on the copyrights, trademarks, moral rights or intellectual property rights of any person or entity, and that no other party has any right, title, claim, or interest in the photograph. Participants must possess the exclusive rights to each submitted work and are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions relating to the subject captured including model releases and property releases. The Nurture Nature Campaign, TT-PS, and the competition manager will not be held accountable for any consequences arising out of participants not obtaining the necessary permissions.

All submissions must be accompanied by a relevant caption of 50-300 words. Captions should ideally include a conservation-minded message, they can also be used in tandem with the image as a powerful storytelling tool.

By entering the Contest, participants agree that no animals were bought or traded for the purpose of this competition, and that any submitted photo was not obtained via harmful or unethical practices.

The Competition reserves the right to contact the Entrant for:

Age verification
Additional information about submission
Full sized, unedited JPEGs or RAW files
Any other purpose deemed necessary in relation to the Competition

How to Enter

To enter, visit www.tt-ps.org, and complete an entry form with the required information.

Each entry consists of a completed entry form, digital image upload, caption text, and the required entry fee.

Online submissions open on January 1, 2022 and close on March 15, 2022 at 5:00 PM AST.

Entries are limited to a maximum of 3 images per category. If more than 3 entries per category are received from any participant, only the first 3 entries received will be judged. Fees for entries in excess of the allowed images will not be refunded.

The entry fees for a single entry are as follows:

Fees per Entry	Adult	Youth
Early Bird (before Feb 1)	$25 TTD	$0 TTD
Regular (Feb 1 to Mar 15)	$55 TTD	$25 TTD

In order to ensure your anonymity before judges, submitted file names and captions must not contain any information that may divulge the identity of the photographer.

One member of the TT-PS executive acts as the contest administrator and is recused from any judging of images. The contest administrator oversees the processing of contest entries and is responsible for sorting the images according to age group and category and then assists administratively during both phases of judging.

Ethical Guidelines & Review

For this competition that is underpinned by the tenets of conservation photography, the photographer has a responsibility to report on the natural world in an ethical, factual, and honest manner. To ensure this responsibility is upheld, all photos shall undergo an initial ethical review, and guidelines are here to ensure proper behaviours.

Guidelines

The welfare of your subject must take precedence over any photograph. Under no circumstances would it be considered acceptable to exploit, harass, or otherwise negatively impact the lives of any animals for the sole purpose of a photograph.

This competition shall not accept any images of nesting birds, their eggs, or extremely young birds in the nest. While the circumstances surrounding each situation would vary, the general practice is discouraged for this competition as it opens the door for further unethical behaviour such as removal of vegetation around the nest and photographing nestlings with flash.

Photographs taken at animal feeding stations are considered acceptable. Baiting of animals using live bait is not allowed, however. For example, using a captive-bred white mouse to induce a wild boa constrictor feeding for a photo would not be allowed.

Photographing captive animals is only permissible for the category “Captured Lives.”

Landscape photography from a drone is acceptable. The use of drones will not be tolerated for photographing wildlife due to the impacts caused by their noise.

The use of audio playback to attract birds and other wildlife for a photograph is not accepted in this competition.

Flash photography of nocturnal animals heavily dependent on sight (for example owls and nightjars) is expressly prohibited, as the sudden burst of light can easily damage the animal’s sensitive eyes.

The photographer is responsible for compliance to the laws and regulations of Trinidad and Tobago, including but not limited to: airspace regulations, private property observances, and COVID-19 guidelines.

The photographer is responsible for obtaining any special licenses such as model releases, should the submitted image include any person.

Captions that are supplied with each submission must be complete, true, and accurate. Any special details such as methods of attraction (for example birds at a feeder or birdbath) or methods of obtaining the photograph (for example via a drone or camera trap) must be included in the caption for context.

Review

After the closing date, the contest administrator compiles all the entries by category and age group.

All photos shall be initially reviewed to ensure they meet ethical standards and minimum standards for quality.

Entries deemed to fall short of ethical or quality considerations would be subject to further investigation and/or disqualification.

All accepted submissions are then passed to the judging stage.

Judging

Judging shall proceed in three stages: initial review, scoring, and final review. These stages are directly guided by five criteria for judging.

Entries will be judged only under the category in which they have been submitted.

No refunds will be given to any entries which are unsuccessful in the preliminary judging/shortlisting or final judging phase.

The contest will be judged digitally, meaning that only digital images will be seen by the judges.

The judging process will be conducted anonymously, meaning that at no point do judges have any knowledge of the creators of the submissions. Judges only see the images along with the image title, caption, the category, and age group (Adult or Youth).

The judges are provided with a spreadsheet where they can enter the scores of the individual photos out of 50 points. Each entry then shall be scored ultimately out of 150, as the sum of the individual scores submitted by each of the three judges.

Decisions of the judges are final and binding.

Criteria

The judging criteria for both phases of judging are as follows with a maximum of 50 possible points for an image

Adherence to Theme

Communication of the concept outlined in the respective category.
- Maximum of 10 points

Composition

Artistic relevance within the frame.
- Maximum of 10 points

Creativity/Uniqueness

Demonstration of a fresh perspective on the given theme.
- Maximum of 10 points

Story Telling

The ability of the image and caption to work together to create a compelling story.
- Maximum of 10 points

Technical Prowess

Proper demonstration of competence in managing exposure, focus, colour, and light.
- Maximum of 10 points

Initial Review

In the first stage of judging, our three judges shall review all entered and approved photos according to the category of their submission in order to establish a beginning understanding of the quality of the submissions.

Shortlisting

In the second stage of judging, our three judges shall receive all accepted submissions and score them according to the identified criteria on a scale of 0 to 50 points.

Shortlisted images shall be defined as the images with the top 5 highest scores in each category, meaning there will be at least 30 images selected for the shortlist, with more selected in the event of ties.

The creators of all shortlisted images shall be contacted to provide the competition with the original, unedited image files (RAW or JPEG) to ensure that the image falls within the acceptable digital manipulation guidelines.

In order to not bias scoring, each judge will not be able to see the specific scores provided by the other judges.

Final Review

In the third stage of judging, judges shall be asked to again score all images that were selected for the shortlist. Judges work together in this final stage.

The top three scoring images in each category shall win 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. In the event of a tie, the three judges shall vote to select a clear winner.

People’s Choice Selection

A People’s Choice Award shall be given to the shortlisted photo that receives the highest popular, online vote measured by Facebook likes.

The time period for voting shall be approximately 1 month between the announcement of the shortlisted images and the selected winners.

Only likes on the original photo can be counted (not likes from re-shares), and the use of bots is strictly prohibited.

HADCO Grand Prize Selection

A HADCO Grand Prize shall be awarded on the basis of the third stage of judging. The highest ranking image according to the collective opinion of the judges shall be awarded this prize. Images from both adult and youth divisions are eligible to win this prize.

Exhibition of Images

All shortlisted and prize winning images shall be exhibited online at www.tt-ps.org, www.nurturenaturett.org, and the social media accounts for each organization.

Creators of shortlisted images will be asked to provide a high-resolution copy of the image within one week of being notified via email.

Prize winners will be asked to provide a short bio.

Prizes

Category Winners (Adult)

Each category winner receives a cash prize of $3,400 TTD.

2nd place in each category receives a cash prize of $2,000 TTD.

3rd place in each category receives a cash prize of $600 TTD.

Category Winners (Youth)

The winner of Captured Lives shall receive a dinner on the Caroni Swamp experience with Nanan’s Tours for the winner and 3 others, one of whom must be a legal adult.

The winner of Wild & Beautiful shall receive a Little Tobago tour with Frank’s Tours for the winner and 3 others, one of whom must be a legal adult.

The winner of Biodiversity in Danger shall receive a boat tour through Nariva Swamp to Bush Bush Wildlife Sanctuary with Sham’s Nariva Swamp Tours for the winner and 3 others, one of whom must be a legal adult.

All youth category winners will also receive a Right Start account with a starter amount of $600 TTD courtesy Republic Bank Limited.

Second place winners receive a gift basket from the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists Club. They would also each receive a Right Start account with a starter amount of $500 TTD courtesy Republic Bank Limited.

Third place winners receive a professionally framed print of their submission. They would also each receive a Right Start account with a starter amount of $400 TTD courtesy Republic Bank Limited.

HADCO Grand Prize Winner

The HADCO Grand Prize winner will receive a $6,000 TTD cash prize and a desktop professional EPSON photo printer valued at $5,432 TTD.

The winner will also receive a commemorative trophy

People’s Choice Award

The winner will receive a cash prize of $2,000 TTD.

Use of Images

By submitting an image to the Competition, the photographer (and their legal guardians where applicable) grants the Nurture Nature Campaign a perpetual, non-exclusive license (CC BY-NC) to reproduce the submitted images in print and digital media with attribution for the sole purpose of promoting non-commercial conservation photography competitions and other wildlife conservation activities in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean.

Photographers retain all intellectual property rights and privileges to their images.