Annual ContestNo big prizes, just
the respect of your peers.
One of our medals is the reward for all the hard work you put in chasing those great shots in far-flung destinations. It's the most coveted prize because it says you succeeded in the most competitive environment there is, against the top talent of the moment.
The Judges are industry professionals who select gold, silver, and bronze medals in each of the categories below.
| Category | |
The contestant who has entered the most consistent images over the year will get the ultimate accolade,
World Champion
The deadline for entries to the annual contest is December 31st. Winners are announced on February 1st
Entries go through several rounds of judging. At the end of the year all our trusted
members are asked to shortlist images. The final rounds are taken from this shortlist.
If you get on the shortlist it is quite an achievement, even if you don't
go forward. If you do progress to the later rounds you will be asked to provide
hi-rez images. These are required for technical assessment. If hi rez images are not available at time of judging the entries will be disqualified. If you don't
respond to our emails you will be disqualified.
Keep your email address up to date and make sure we get through your Spam filters.
Our emails always have our site URL in them.
Grand Master: The contestant/s who have excelled in a particular field will be awarded Grand Master status.
Porfolios: You can group your images into a portfolio and these will be judged as part of the annual contest.
 Monthly Hotshots
Monthly winners are chosen by our editor (no medals, just your name in lights for a month!). It is no coincidence that many of the Hotshots end up in the annual awards!
Peoples' Choice
You can vote for your favorite images using the vote link by each image (on the
entry pages). The voting system is just there to give underwater photographers a bit of encouragement, a chance to
gauge your efforts against others, and a bit of fun. Any entrant who spams or is suspected of spamming the
votes will have all their images publically marked down. Remember, the only vote that has
value is the one someone else awards you.
FAQ's
All entries are small files so you will ask for high-rez in
Jan? If shortlisted and required by the annual judges
Image processing / cropping is allowed in every
category? Yes, provided the result is realistic. There is a
special category for edited images. Please state what techniques you have used as others may
be interested
Are watermarks recommended? No, they can be
detrimental to judging. However, you must balance this with the copyright
protection issue...
Are borders allowed? Yes, but they can be
detrimental to judging.
Intellectual Property
 Security We protect displayed images from casual copying in a variety of ways (disabling right clicks, using applets etc.). However, no one can stop the determined image thieves and we cannot be responsible for copyright infringements.
Always remember that, once on the web an image can be copied. If you display it, it is on your computer - somewhere. This is why we only show low resolution files (max 400 pixels). Such sizes are not suitable for magazine publication.
If you see images stolen, tell us. We'll work with you to gain satisfaction. Tick the copyright box on upload to
stamp your name on the image. This alone will stop 90% of copying as most people
do not realise that images on the web are not free!
All images on this site are the copyright of their respective owners. Do not steal them unless you want a big legal bill!
You've read the rules Now read how to win our photo-contest!
Image Specifications
 Mac Users Only JPEG/JPG files can be accepted.
The file name must
have the .jpg extension included at the end.
File Size We do
not want hi-rez files uploaded. Our server will timeout, thus wasting your time and ours - so resize images prior to entry.
Use Photoshop or some other image editing program to prepare your image before upload. Images should be maximum 450 pixels longest side.
Files are also resized by our server to...
- conserve space on our server
- for uniform display that is fair to all
- to allow fast downloading!
So there really is no point to large uploads... |