Rules

Organizer

The 35AWARDS contest is conducted by the organizers and founders of the 35photo.pro platform (hereinafter referred to as the "Organizer"). It is open to an unlimited number of participants and aims to promote photography as a form of art worldwide.

Jury members are appointed by the organizer, and their final decisions regarding the photos, finalists, and winners are not subject to appeal. Any author whose photograph meets the competition requirements can be a bidder. Authors (photographers) from any country can participate in the competition without restrictions.

To be eligible to enter the competition, you must be over 18 years of age.

Basic Terms

The author (photographer) is an individual who has captured a photo and submitted the work for competition, holding full copyrights and authority to make decisions on all organizational issues related to participation in the competition.

Venue and dates

Registration and voting are conducted on the 35awards.com website.

Based on the results of the photo contest, the 100 best single works, the 25 best serial works, and the 100 best photographers will be revealed, as well as works that received special recognition from the international jury. Additionally, rankings of the best single works and photographers will be organized by nominations, city, and country.

After the completion of the competition, an annual catalog will be released, which will include not only the works of the winners but also the best works from the competition. All additional information about the catalog will be published on a special page after the summarization.

Stages of the Main Contest

1. Contest start. Registration of authors for participation in the contest
2. Submission of works by authors to the contest
3. Voting. A more detailed description of the voting stages will be additionally published on the contest website
4. Summarizing the results of the contest
5. Production of the catalog

Stages 1–2 are carried out during the entire submission period.

To apply for participation, the author must register and then submit their works on the 35AWARDS.com website using the form specified in the "Registration of authors and works" section of these Rules.

The organizers are entitled to send informational newsletters to all contest participants. Holders of additional prizes may be determined by the representatives of the companies providing the prizes from among the finalists. Winning works are announced at a special online ceremony (for the annual contest) as well as in a dedicated section on the contest website. The exact time of the announcement will be published later.

Based on the results of the contest, the winner in each nomination will be invited to join the editorial board for the next calendar year after the contest in which they won. This ensures the transparency of the procedure for forming the 35photo.pro editorial board.

• An author cannot vote for their own works.
• It is possible to vote for the same work only once within one voting stage.
• An author can take only one prize-winning place with the work that received the highest number of votes within the current contest.
• The final voting results will be published step by step after the completion of all three stages.
• If several works receive the same number of votes in the 1st or 2nd stage, all these works proceed to the next stage.
• If in the 3rd stage several works receive the same number of votes, the winner will be determined by an additional vote.
• Photographs submitted in multiple nominations. If the same work is simultaneously submitted in different nominations and reaches the 3rd stage of the main award, it may be represented only in one nomination — the one where it has the highest rating. This rule has been introduced to maintain diversity and equal conditions during the voting stage.

Rights of the Competition Organizer

The contest organizer reserves the right to unilaterally change the Contest Rules, notifying participants 5 days prior to the date the changes take effect, by posting the new Rules of Competition on the Site.

The contest organizer has the right to remove participants and revise the procedure for determining the winner in the event of detecting fraudulent activities by a bidder or other persons benefiting the bidder. This includes deception, fraud, and other illegal activities by which a bidder might acquire prizes, as provided by these rules, or obtain a privileged position in relation to other participants.

Nominations

The number and names of the nominations for the competition will be published later on the competition website. Organizers reserve the right to move a picture to another nomination if deemed necessary. If a nomination receives a small number of entries, it may be combined with other nominations.

If photos within one nomination or thematic competition are very similar (e.g., similar combinations of objects, cropping, shooting angle, or tone), the administration reserves the right to keep only one photo at its discretion.

Throughout all competitions, the use of only one version of a photo is allowed. Uploading the same photo with different tones (for example, uploading a photo in both color and black and white) is not allowed.

Starting from 01.03.23 (9th 35AWARDS). For the main award, photos that have not previously participated in the annual award are accepted (within the award, the photo can be submitted to different categories). In thematic contests, a photo can participate no more than 3 times.

Register photos

Authors and photo registration occur on the 35awards.com website in the relevant section, using a specially prescribed form.

Image Format - JPEG, RGB

Photo sizes - from 1500 pixels (large size)

Photos submitted for the annual 35AWARDS contest must have been taken in 2015, 2016 or 2017. For other thematic competitions, there are no specific year-of-shooting requirements.

Photos allowed:

• Technical retouching is allowed, including adjustments to exposure, contrast, saturation, sharpness, conversion of the image to black and white, and white balance, as well as correction to remove objects that accidentally appear in the frame.
• Cropping is permitted, but increasing the image size is not allowed.
• Images obtained by traditional chemical methods may be scanned.
• Creating HDR files, exposure bracketing, focus stacking, and panoramas are allowed.

The photos are not allowed:

• Collage (editing) is permissible, including the addition, deletion, or moving of objects, introducing additional graphic elements, and changing the background using graphic editors. Uploading collages is permitted in the "Conceptual Photography" and "Staged Photo" categories at the annual competition, or in thematic competitions if explicitly allowed in the contest rules. UPD 03/02/24. In competitions and the “Conceptual Photography” nomination, moderate use of neural networks is acceptable, provided that the basis is photography.
• Frames, inscriptions, and other added graphic elements (formal definition).
  • Any frames, overlays, borders, and decorative elements around the perimeter of the image are prohibited — regardless of thickness, shape, color, transparency, or placement. Even a 1-pixel line on one side is considered a frame and is prohibited.
  • Any added texts, captions, logos, watermarks, author’s marks, credentials, links, hashtags, nicknames, etc. on the image are prohibited.
  • The following are also considered frames or additional elements: semi-transparent/transparent stripes, decorative corners, vignettes with hard edges, contour lines, as well as “film”/“polaroid” fields added in an editor.
• Radical color modification.
  • Only standard corrections are allowed (exposure, contrast, saturation, white balance, etc.).
  • Changes that go beyond photographic correction are prohibited: color inversion, recoloring/replacing the color palette, artistic filters, or effects that create an unrealistic color rendering of the scene, unless explicitly permitted by the rules of a specific category.
• Distorted proportions. Intentional stretching, squeezing, or any other alteration of the natural proportions of the image is not allowed. The photograph must preserve the correct aspect ratio and realistic proportions of objects.
• Excessive post-processing. Overuse of filters, noise reduction, blurring, heavy skin retouching, or artificial effects that significantly distort reality is prohibited.
• Photos of screens. Uploading pictures taken directly from screens (monitors, TVs, phones, etc.) is not allowed. Please submit original image files only.
• Duplicates. Only one final version of each photograph may be submitted to the competition. Submitting multiple variations of the same shot (for example, both color and black-and-white versions, mirrored images, or slight changes in tonality) is not permitted. A sequence of nearly identical frames taken within a few seconds may also be considered duplicates; in such cases, please select and submit only the best single frame.
• The use of images, or portions thereof, generated by neural networks is permissible (exception, AI-photo nomination).

The original photo

In the case of advancing to the semifinal (3rd stage), the author is required to upload the highest resolution file in JPG format, Adobe RGB to the site. The uploaded file should appear identical to the photo submitted to the contest (including any editing), and, if possible, retain EXIF information. Should questions arise regarding the work, the organizer reserves the right to request the original, unedited file from the camera from the photograph\’s author. The deadline for file submission is 10 days following the conclusion of the third stage of voting. Notifications regarding the necessity to upload will be sent via email or an informational message on the participant's personal page. Upon receiving this message, the author must supply the organizers with the files through a specialized form.

The crop of the photo must be identical to the web version presented for the competition and evaluated by experts and the jury.

Author and Intellectual property

Individual requirements

Additionally

Terms

Start of photo submission to the contest: 01.03.2016

End of photo submission to the contest: 25.2.2017

Dates for other stages of the competition will be announced on the contest webpage.

Informing Participants About the Competition Conditions

The invitation to participate in the contest, along with its conditions, is available on the 35awards.com website. The organizer reserves the right to further publish information about the project, including in the media.

Final Provisions

In cases of conflict between the author and the organizers, or disagreement with the current rules where a solution cannot be found, the author\’s participation in the competition will be terminated. This termination includes the cancellation of participation in the project and the removal of all submitted photos from the resource.

All additional information regarding the contest is available on the website pages or will be sent to the email specified in the participant's profile.

By entering the competition, participants hereby accept these competition rules.