COPYRIGHTS & USAGE STATEMENT

I declare that I am authorized by the holder of the copyright (or the right to copyright) to submit photographs to the Giga Photo Contest. Giga Photo Contest recognizes and respects that copyrights are held by the photographer. I grant permission to Giga Photo Contest to use my submitted photographs in exhibitions, in publications, and in promotions of the competition itself, and for educational, research, and advocacy purpose of UNICEF.

Winning photographs and other images selected become part of the permanent collection of the UNICEF archives.

Key steps

Create a free account on Picter.com if you haven't already done so. You will receive an email with a confirmation link. You can return as many times as necessary to upload your material. Submissions to Giga Photo Contest will be made online through Picter.

Picter's servers for Giga Photo Contest will open on 1st April 2025 and will close on 30th April, 2025 at Midnight (GMT +01:00). The categories will be judged on 6th and 7th May, 2025. To know more about the jury members, please go to https://gigaphotofestival.global

Please read these categories and rules carefully.

Registration & Submission through Picter

Participation in Giga Photo Contest 2025 competition is free.

We are using Picter contest platform, which is the same as other major competitions.

Create a free account at Picter if you haven't already done so. You will receive an email with a confirmation link.

You can return as many times as necessary to upload your material. The Giga Photo Contest 2025 will appear on Picter from 1st April 2025 and will close on 30th April 2025.

Photo captions and information

**Captions **play a big role in the judging process and often decide if a photograph progresses to the next stage or not. By default, we prefer editorial captions.
Captions that are inaccurate or that falsely represent the picture content may be disqualified.
IPTC data may be embedded into images using Photoshop, Photo Mechanic, Aperture, Lightroom and other image editing solutions. 
The following IPTC fields are required for entries:

o Caption/Description

o City, State/Province and Country

o Date – The date the image was made

o Photographer and Credit -- The name of the photographer who made the image. Please be consistent from photo to photo.

o Source – Your employer or client, if any

o Copyright – Who holds the copyright on the image (this may be the entrant, employer or client)

o Contact Email – Please use the same address here as you will use when you create your account for submission.

o Contact Phone – Please use the same phone number here as you will use when you create your account for submission.

Do not include your credit or byline in the caption. Include your credit only in the creator/author fields.
When you upload your images to Picter, the system will complete the contest information fields from IPTC metadata.
After uploading your images to Picter, you will be able to sequence the photos and see that your caption information is present in Picter.
Please edit or add information to the file BEFORE uploading to Picter, embedding the information, or replace the photo if you need to make changes.

File type

Images should only be submitted as .jpg files.
The .jpg image should be saved in "maximum quality", or with a compression ratio greater than 9. The maximum size is 5,000 pixels. 300 dpi, minimum.
Photos from smartphone cameras are eligible.
Diptychs or triptychs are allowed, if it's a truthful combination of 2-3 authentic images.
Film borders are acceptable only if the image was originally taken on negative, slide or Polaroid film.

Individual photos and series

A photo submitted in a single category may also appear in the multiple image category.
A multiple image story can only be submitted once.
The order or sequence of images you create upon entering will be preserved. You may change the sequence after you upload the images.
Giga Photo Contest will not change the order of the pictures after you submit the entry.
Please include the story summary in addition to the caption in the description field in the first image of each story.

AI Images

Giga Photo Contest will not accept AI-generated images in any category.

Rules for digital processing

Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of people in the photographs.
Treat all the people photographed with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion.
Photo-editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. The content of a photograph must not be altered by adding, rearranging, reversing, distorting or removing people and/or objects from within the frame.
Giga Photo Contest accepts two photographic modes: color and black & white. Black & white images should be bi-tonal and display a full grayscale range of 256 intensities from deep-shadow blacks to highlight whites. Black & white image files that artificially impose a color shift, such as sepia or cyan tones, will be disqualified.
Photos from smartphone cameras are eligible. However, the use of software capture filters that changes the image through excessive tonal aberrations, textures, vignettes, or other artistic manipulations will be disqualified.
Diptychs or triptychs are allowed.
Film borders are acceptable only if the image was originally taken on negative, slide or Polaroid film.

Visual integrity

Always obtain verbal consent, except in public places where national laws don't require it, and participants are unrecognizable. Strive for the strongest consent possible; written consent is needed in certain situations.
Respect the privacy and protection rights of children and women in vulnerable situations. Avoid identifying children visually or by name if it puts them at risk.
Ensure imagery does not perpetuate harmful stereotypes.
For the junior visual storyteller category, please download the consent forms in Arabic, English, French, Russian, and Spanish below: https://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AMZIFVRI4WB#/SearchResult&VBID=2AM4WNBXCUZ2Y&PN=1&WS=SearchResults
For more information, please check UNICEF's visual guidelines: https://rise.articulate.com/share/HEawae7Xb4jZ76C_GdURUAz-UwkCUefd#/lessons/dPb2KDvwmZx1ofW5PeJJO4l6b7HC7nSh

The Judging

All subsequent rounds of discussion and judging will be broadcasted on our social networks and open to everyone.

The judging results will be broadcasted on our social networks. The decision of the judges is final.