The competitions programme consists of the monthly league for members as well as submissions to 2 annual Irish Photographic Federation (IPF) club competitions: the IPF National Shield and the IPF National Club Championships.
Monthly League Competition
Over the course of the season the club runs 7 monthly competitions for members. The aggregated monthly scores determine who is crowned the TPS Photographer of the Year at the end of the season.
League judging takes place the on the last Tuesday of each month; therefore submissions must be received by the previous Tuesday at the latest. Details for entry are as follows:
There are three competition divisions in the club: Novice, Intermediate and Advanced.
Members may submit images for entry into three competition categories within their division: Mono Print, Colour Print, and Projected (Digital). Each image will be marked out of 20 by an impartial guest judge, and winners will be announced on judging night.
Printed images must be presented on mounting boards no larger than 20×16 inches (51×41 cm). All submissions should have a completed competition entry label affixed to the back.
The club stocks black and ivory mounting boards which can be purchased for €2.50 each.
Digital images should be submitted in jpeg format resized to 2,400 pixels on the longest side with a resolution of 240 dpi. This will allow the club to add the image to a database from which it can be considered for entry into future IPF club competitions. Further instructions can be found on the Tutorials page. Please send images to tpscompetitions@gmail.com on or before entry night.
The committee requests that all images, whether for entry into the projected or print categories, are submitted in digital format. Members are asked to adhere to the following naming convention:
Member Number-Division-Title-Category e.g. 12345-Advanced-Selfie-Mono Print
All members join the club as Novices or Intermediates (based on initial grading) and are promoted upon winning one section of the Novice Competition.
Likewise, only members who win a section of the Intermediate Division are promoted to Advanced division. Members who achieve distinctions or other awards in photography may be moved into Intermediate or Advanced.
IPF National Shield
The IPF National Shield is an annual inter-club competition open only to photographers competing at Novice or Intermediate levels. Each club may submit 2 panels of 8 images, one colour and one monochrome. Each photographer can submit only 1 image to each panel.
The IPF National Club Championships is an annual inter-club competition open to all clubs affiliated to the IPF. Each club may submit 2 panels of 10 images, one colour and one monochrome. Each photographer can submit 2 images to each panel.