In this, the second post in the series, I will continue from the previous discussion on what a salon is and why bother to enter, to share some practical information on how to enter salons and exhibitions.
The posts in this series are:
Background
Following encouragement from Mike Watson, I entered a few Salons and Exhibitions over the last year. It is something that we want to actively promote as a club, but there are at the moment only a few members I'm aware of that enter external salons and exhibitions.
Last year, Mike said to me, have a go and you'll most likely be surprised, and indeed I was… which is why I'm repeating that advice to everyone. To that end, I thought I'd put together this series of articles to share my (albeit limited) experiences in the hope that it inspires other members to give it a shot.
How to enter?
Normally, each salon has its own website and entry is online. The salon's page usually introduces the exhibition, specifying which photographic bodies it is affiliated with, detailing the key information including what catagories and sections there are as well as what awards will be made and entry costs. The salons page will also importantly define key dates like the entry closing date, when judging will take place and when results will be published. The page will also have a link to the online entry form.
Here is the page for the upcoming 2021 Cheltenham International Salon of Photography (CISP) - http://www.cheltenhamcameraclub.co.uk/wordpress/salon/
Each Salon usually has a rules page that is important to read, these define the sections in detail, along with the rules for each section etc. Obviously there is no substitute for reading the rules completely, however once you have familiarised yourself with a few, most are quite similar so you will naturally find yourself just looking for the important differences and key pieces of information. Other than the specific rules on the sections you aim to enter, one of the most important is things defined in the rules that you will have to check on all salons are the requirements for image size and dimensions.
Below is a link to the Cheltenham Salon rules. On Page 8 you will see it specifies JPEG files in sRGB colour space, with dimensions of 1920 (max horizontal) x 1200 (max vertical) and a maximum file size of 5MB
The entry is via an online entry form… this is basically a webpage that you sign up to, that you enter your details then the title of each image and upload the image file. You will find that most will not accept images that don't meet the image size and dimension requirements so it's important to size your image files correctly beforehand. You will then be directed to the secure online payment system, often this is done by paypal which is the method I would personally suggest using as it is very secure and can be trusted. Other systems may be available if you prefer those, this will be obvious and most people will be familiar with this kind of method.
(Note: For those interested, I can write a post on exporting image files from lightroom separately)
How much does it cost?
Costs vary from salon to salon, some are cheaper than others, but entries are usually about £1-£2 per image as a guideline.
Usually however there is usually a flat fee for the first four images entered or for each section entered and you can normally enter 4 images per section.
For example, Cheltenham this year (2021) the pricing structure is as follows:
Therefore if all of the four allowed images were entered in each of 3 sections (For example Colour, Mono and Nature) it would equate to £1.25 per image.
How are images scored and accepted?
The scoring is actually rather easy to understand. Normally each section has three judges who independently score the image between 2 and 5. This generates a score of between 6 and 15.
The acceptance mark is us usually 12.
Therefore your image stands a very good chance of receiving an acceptance, and it is an achievement certainly to be proud of.
I very much hope that you find this, and other posts of interest, use and encouraging. Please do like and share this article using the links at the below
If you have found this post interesting and useful, please do comment below or like & share it.
The other posts in this series are: