Award Rules
1. General
By entering the MIPA Competition you hereby accept the following competition rules:
1.1. To qualify to enter the MIPA competition, you must be over 18 years of age or older, professional and amateur photographers alike.
1.2. Entries must be submitted no later than the deadline of listed on the Competition URL, https://maltaphotoaward.com
1.3. By entering the Competition, you agree and acknowledge that MIPA is permitted to receive and review your registration data. Participants agree that personal data including, but not limited to, name, mailing address, phone number, and email address may be collected, processed, stored and otherwise used for the purposes of conducting and administering the MIPA competition.
At any time, participants have the right to access, review, rectify or cancel any personal data held by MIPA by sending an email to the following address: support@maltaphotoaward.com
1.4. To enter the competition, you must submit your entries on the official MIPA Website
1.5. Application Form
1.5.1. The submission of online applications to participate at MIPA Awards 2020/21 starts on Monday 14th December 2020 at 16:00 CET and shall end on Sunday 7th March 2021 at 23:59 CET.
1.5.2. In order to be considered for the competition participants have to register for a new member account, submit their desired photographs, and read and accept the Terms and Conditions.
1.6 Application Fees
Participants have to pay the entry fee of €10 per photo through any of the following:
By PayPal or with Credit Card (Mastercard, Visa Card or American Express)
1.7 The Technical Requirements for submission, which have to be met by all participants are specified in Section 7 of these MIPA Rules.
2. Jury
2.1. All entries will be reviewed and pre-screened by the MIPA team.
2.2. The screened entries are then reviewed by our international jury, see our website: https://maltaphotoaward.com/jury
2.3. The jury will choose the winners at its discretion in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of MIPA (see www.maltainternationalphotoaward.com) and Technical Requirements and Conditions in Section 7 of these rules. The decisions of the jury are final.
2.4. Should it reveal only after the decision of the Jury that one the conditions were not met by a winning participant the Jury reserves the right to withdraw the MIPA Award.
3. Awards
3.1. Prize Category
3.1.1 The following category will be offered for MIPA 2020/21: Travel
3.1.2 The total cash prize money to be distributed during this edition of the MIPA Awards is €10,500, distributed according to the below provisions.
3.1.3 In this single award category, one winner ranking 1st will be awarded as the MIPA Photographer of the Year 2020/21 with a cash prize of €7,500.
3.1.4 Photos ranking 2nd, 3rd, Top 5 and Top 15 will also be awarded cash prizes as per the following table:
- Second Place: €1,000
- Third Place: €500
- Top 5 (4th & 5th): €250
- Top 15 (6th-15th): €100
3.1.5 All 15 winning photographs will be included in the MIPA Online Gallery and the next edition of the MIPA electronic publication to be published in Spring/Summer 2021.
3.2. MIPA intends to announce the winners of this edition at a date to be confirmed in late Spring 2021.
3.3. A photographer may win multiple awards but the same photograph/series cannot win multiple cash awards.
3.4. A photograph or series that has already won a cash prize in a previous photography competitions is not eligible to be submitted for the award.
3.4.1. Notwithstanding the above, a photograph or series that has won a cash prize in a photography competition in the period between the same photograph's submission in a MIPA Award and the announcement of results for a MIPA Award, will still be eligible and will be accepted by MIPA as a correct submission.
3.5. If a series/photograph was submitted to a previous MIPA competition but received no cash prize, then that series/photograph is still eligible.
3.6. Winning photographs may also be included in the future in MIPA related online galleries, publications, electronic publications as well as exhibitions and/or screenings and projections at arts institutions and festivals worldwide. Each photographer retains copyright of his or her images, and proper credit lines will be attributed to each photographer when exhibited or screened anywhere by MIPA.
3.7. The full name of each entrant whose work is selected as one of the winners will be published online.
3.8. Cash prizes will be paid by wire transfer or other electronic methods. Any fees incurred for foreign currency transfers will be deducted from the winning amount.
3.9. No cash alternatives will be offered for any prizes.
4. Warranties of Participants
4.1. MIPA reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify and remove any photograph that does not comply with the following requirements, even after the photograph appears on the website. You warrant, in respect of the photographs submitted by you, as follows:
4.1.1. You are the sole copyright owner and creator of the photographs.
4.1.2. You have the right to enter your photographs in this competition.
4.1.3. To the best of your knowledge, the photographs do not contain any infringing, threatening, false, misleading, abusive, harassing, libelous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, scandalous, inflammatory, pornographic or profane content.
4.1.4. The photograph does not infringe upon the copyrights, trademarks, contract rights, or any other intellectual property rights of any third person or entity, or violate any person’s rights of privacy or publicity, and your photograph does not include:
4.1.5. trademarks owned by third parties.
4.1.6. copyrighted materials owned by third parties.
4.1.7. names, likenesses or other characteristics identifying celebrities or other public figures, living or dead.
4.1.8. entries in which you have purchased or secured the rights to use stock images.
4.2. In case the photos are submitted on behalf or in representation of a photographer, you have been authorized by the photographer to accept the Technical requirements and Conditions of Participation in his/her name.
4.3. You agree to fully indemnify MIPA in respect of all royalties, fees and any other monies owing to any person by reason of your breaching any of the foregoing.
4.4. You confirm that each person depicted in the photograph has granted permission to be portrayed as shown—and has the right to grant that permission. Any costumes, props or other materials used must be rented or borrowed with the permission of the owner, and all other relevant permissions must have been obtained.
4.5. For the awarded participants only:
4.5.1. You irrevocably agree that in connection with the competition for the “Malta International Photo Award” and/or the exhibitions planned afterwards, including marketing and press material related thereto, either my first and last name, or pseudonym (artist’s name) may be stated,
4.5.2. Upon request of “Malta International Photo Award”, you will submit the photos in high resolution for the purpose of ensuring best reproduction quality (e.g. prints for the exhibitions) and highest image quality for the platform on which they are being featured (e.g. competition website).
5. Copyright, Reproduction & Rights Granted
5.1. MIPA recognizes you retain full ownership of the copyright in each photograph that you have submitted.
5.2. Not every photograph submitted to the competition will be publicly visible on MIPA. There are too many submissions for each one to be shown on the site. The pictures on the website are pre-selected by MIPA editors.
5.3. All entrants agree that all photograph(s) submitted to the competition may be reproduced (with photographer copyright credit) and used to conduct and promote MIPA the respective MIPA competitions. You hereby grant MIPA with a right to use submitted photographs in the framework of such promotional activities.
5.4. Any photograph used by MIPA shall carry a credit line. Any failure to provide such credit line shall not be deemed to be a breach, as long as MIPA uses its reasonable endeavors to rectify such failure within a reasonable period from the date of notice of such failure.
5.5. In the event that you are awarded at the “Malta International Photo Award” you hereby authorize MIPA and/or third parties appointed by MIPA, unlimited as to time, territory and content, irrevocably and also royalty- free,
to use my photos for press, marketing and communication purposes in connection with the competition for the “Malta International Photo Award” and the exhibitions planned afterwards and also on the internet, including social media,
to use, display or project my photos in the context of the “Malta International Photo Award” (e.g. in galleries, at photo festivals, etc.), for inclusion in the MIPA Publication that will be sold on the MIPA online shop at shop.maltaphotoaward.com, the exhibitions planned afterwards and also on the internet including social media,
to display or project my photos, or to have them displayed, within the scope of exhibitions, specifying the competition provided that, in each case, credit is given by stating either my first and last name, or, if upon my explicit request, my pseudonym (artist’s name).
5.6. In the event that you are awarded at the “Malta International Photo Award 2020/21”, you agree that the produced images (e.g. prints, posters, edited photos) will pass into the ownership of “Malta International Photo Award 2020/21” and thereby become part of the historical archive dedicated to the culture of photography. “Malta International Photo Award 2020/21” is not allowed to sell these photos.
5.7. All photographs that do not make it past the first internal shortlisting by the MIPA international jury will be deleted and will not be used for any further activities of MIPA.
6. Data Protection
6.1. MIPA processes, uses and stores the data stated by the participants upon submission of the photo series for the duration of the competition, in order to properly implement and manage the competition.
6.2. Neither MIPA nor any third-party partner of MIPA will use such data for any further purposes without written consent of the respective participant.
7. Specifications for Submitting Photographs
7.1. All digital files must be must be in JPEG or .jpg format, and must be at least 1,200 pixels wide (if a horizontal image) or 1,500 pixels tall (if a vertical image). Photograph must not exceed a file volume of maximum 12MB.
7.2. ICC profile must be embedded. AdobeRGB, sRGB or grayscale Gamma 2.2 are recommended. No CMYK.
7.3. Pictures must not show the name of the photographer, agency, or publication, or any other information (these details can be included in the metadata of the pictures but must not be visible on the picture itself). Any kind of watermarks are unacceptable and such submissions will be disqualified.
7.4. All pictures must have accurate captions, written in English only.
7.5. Only single exposure and single frame pictures will be accepted. The following are not accepted:
- Multiple exposures, polyptychs (diptychs, triptychs, and so forth)
- Stitched panoramas, either produced in-camera or with image editing software
7.6 The content of a picture must not be altered by adding, rearranging, reversing, distorting or removing people and/or objects from within the frame.
There are two exceptions:
(i) Cropping that removes extraneous details is permitted;
(ii) Removing sensor dust or scratches on scans of negatives is permitted.
7.7. Adjustments of colour or conversion to grayscale that do not alter content are permitted, with two exceptions:
Changes in colour may not result in significant changes in hue, to such an extent that the processed colours diverge from the original colours.
Changes in density, contrast, colour and/or saturation levels that alter content by obscuring or eliminating backgrounds, and/or objects or people in the background of the picture, are not permitted.
The above rules have been updated as of Friday, 5th March 2021.