Eligibility

All photographs entered in the contest must have been made by active orlife members in good standing; associate members are not eligible. An individual who has never been a WHNPA member may become a member and enter the contest at the same time so long as they pay the dues for the calendar year when the entries were made as well as the next year’s dues. Those who have previously been members, but their membership has lapsed may re-apply for membership, but they may only enter work produced or published after the date of their new membership application Submission.

Entries must have been taken or initially published between January 21, 2025, and December 31, 2025. Previously entered images are not eligible. (Previously unpublished and un-entered photos from prior to 2025 are allowed to be entered only as part of long-term picture stories, as long as they were taken in the previous year (2024). Photographers who move out of the area during the year can enter the contest, but only photographs that were made while they were active members and still living in the area can be entered. Photographs made after they moved from the DC region cannot be entered. Photographers who move into the area during the year can enter the contest, but only the photographs that were made once they moved to the DC region are Eligible.

The content of a photograph must not be altered in Photoshop or by any other means. No element should be digitally added to or subtracted from any photograph and the image must be a truthful representation of whatever happened in front of the camera during exposure. Retouching to eliminate dust and scratches is acceptable. Reasonable adjustments in Photoshop or Lightroom are acceptable. These include cropping, dodging and burning, conversion into grayscale, and normal toning and color adjustments that restore the authentic nature of the photograph. Excessive changes in density, contrast, color and saturation levels that alter the original scene are not acceptable. Backgrounds should not be digitally blurred or eliminated by burning down or by aggressive toning. Frames or borders outside the image area are not allowed nor is text — digital or otherwise — allowed on the image. The judges and contest committee reserve the right to see the original (un-retouched) raw image files, negatives and/or slides. Any photographer violating these standards will be disqualified from the competition. (The contest chair will inform the contest judges of these guidelines.)

Photographs made with non-professional digital cameras, like the iPhone or point-and-shoot cameras, are allowed in the contest. Keep in mind that like all submitted images they must adhere to the same non-alter guidelines stated above (they can not be digitally altered or manipulated images, i.e., taken with filters or other creative apps). No use of AI editing, tools or AI Enhancement.

Entries must be true to the spirit and principles of both the WHNPA bylaws and the profession of photojournalism. Photographs that were made while on assignment, or while on staff, for a non-journalistic organization, are not eligible to be entered. This prohibition includes, but is not limited to: NGO’s, political campaigns, governments, sports teams and organizations such as the International Olympic Committee, corporate and advertising work. Photojournalists employed or contracted by editorial news organizations with paid partnerships and other editorial content partnerships/exchanges with sports organizations or sports leagues may enter those images in sports categories, so long as the individual is paid directly by their employer or contracting agency.

Any entry submitted where the byline or credit has changed from how it was originally published will be disqualified. Transparency is paramount. The contest committee reserves the right to review any submission and alter an entry at the committee’s discretion. (This includes but is not limited to recategorizing, correcting mistakes, fixing metadata, or disqualify an entry.)

Requirements and Fees

A photographer will be limited to 25 entries plus one (1) Photographer of the Year portfolio. A picture story and a political portfolio each are considered one entry. Individual pictures from a picture story may be entered in single picture categories but must be entered separately. Individual pictures from a picture story may not be used in another picture story. Each entry must be entered in one category only (exception: qualifying individual pictures and stories may also be included in political portfolio and general portfolio). More than one picture on an individual file is not permitted. The Contest Committee reserves the right to re-categorize any entry. Pictures that are flagrantly entered in the wrong category may be disqualified. Entry must be labeled and submitted correctly or face disqualification without exception. Our volunteer members, your generous colleagues, do not have time to reorganize or resubmit erroneously contest Entries.

Entry Fees

There will be an entry fee of $95.00 per entrant; For those entering fewer than five (5) entries the fee is $50.00 per entrant. If your WHNPA membership dues have not been paid by the contest deadline, your entry will not be judged. The committee cannot accommodate late entries after the deadline has passed.

Important Tips

We strongly recommend that you do all of your cropping and toning adjustments first, and initially save images into a folder on your hard drive. Entering the caption information and renaming the images will be much easier to do as a group, one right after another. Though it may look intimidating at first glance, inputting info with Photo Mechanic will only take a couple of minutes for each image.

The Contest Committee strongly recommends you tightly edit your picture stories, your Political Portfolio, and your General Portfolio. Though this isn’t an editing contest, judges always favor tightly edited stories and portfolios. A mediocre photograph will likely hurt the entire body of work.

Image Specifications

Each image should be rendered as a RGB or Grayscale file. Do not use CMYK.

Final individual image size should be at least 10-12.5 inches longest dimension at 250 DPI, or 3000 pixels longest dimension.

Uncompressed RGB file size should be about 10-15 megabytes. File size after compression would be about 2-5 megabytes.

Save images as large JPEG files, and use Baseline (“Standard”) under Format Options when doing so.

Caption Instructions

Photo Mechanic

All caption and ITC information should be filled out before uploading to the Picter website. Picter does allow you to add information after uploading but we strongly discourage this as the information does not attach to the file’s metadata.

The following instructions are based on the IPTC caption information window in Photo Mechanic. These are the fields in the Photo Mechanic IPTC Stationery Pad that are required.

Description/Caption: Images require a concise caption for each photograph.

Your caption must be in AP Style which includes the description followed by the LOCATION, DAY OF THE WEEK, AND DATE. This is solely for the volunteers who donate their time to make it easier on them designing the annual WHNPA book of winners.

Example:

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019. If this is the first image in a picture story entry then please put a story summary at the beginning of this field, followed by the caption for the first image.

Please Note: It is absolutely essential that you remove your name and any other identifying information, including the name of your agency or publication, from this field.

Headline: The title of the image or the picture essay
Keywords: Your email address
City: The city in which the image was made
State: The state in which the image was made
Country: The country in which the image was made
Date: The date when the image was made (In Photo Mechanic, you can select “Capture Time” from the pulldown menu on the right hand side of this field and the program will use the date that the image was made.)
Photographer: Your name
Title: Your title
Source: The publication or organization for which the image was made. If not on assignment specify “Independent”
Copyright: The image’s copyright holder

Please NOTE: Unique file naming is no longer required, but multiple picture entries need to be named in sequential order.

Photographer of the Year Portfolio (PFO)

1. Portfolio should show the breadth and versatility of an entrant’s work and should demonstrate skill in a variety of categories, including politics. We will ask the judges to select the best “body of work.”

2. Portfolio must contain a minimum of 22 pictures and a maximum of 45 pictures. You must have at least one picture story and a maximum of three picture stories. A portfolio must contain at least three entries from the political categories: Presidential, On Capitol Hill, Insiders Washington, or Picture Story/Politics (which counts as a single entry). A black slide is required to separate picture stories as well as single entries.

3. Name the individual pictures in the order you want them to be projected.

4. Black Slides and a Contact Sheet are also required. See instructions below.

Political Portfolio (PPP)

1. The Political Portfolio must be comprised solely of images from exactly one Picture Story/Politics and single pictures entered in the political categories (Presidential, On Capitol Hill, Insiders Washington). Single images from any Picture Story/Politics entries other than the one story entered in its entirety are also eligible as part of the political portfolio. Again, to be clear: ONE picture story PLUS single images entered in the political categories. Single images entered in non-political categories are not eligible to be included in the Political Portfolio. There is a maximum of 20 pictures total in the Political Portfolio.

2. Name the individual pictures in the order you want them to be projected.

3. Black Slides and a Contact Sheet are also required. See instructions below.

Political Photo of the Year

Judges will select one single image as Political News Photo of the Year from the top winners in each individual political category (Presidential, On Capitol Hill, and Insider’s Washington) and individual images from the Picture Story/Politics and Political Portfolio top winners.

Black Slides And Contact Sheets

A black slide is required to separate picture stories as well as single entries in portfolios. You may use title slides instead; for example, you might use a title slide with the word “SINGLES” followed by all your single pictures, then have a title slide with the words “PICTURE STORY #1” followed by that pictures story, etc. DO NOT put the title of the picture story on the slide. (These slides will not count against your total number of images in the portfolio.) A contact sheet is required for picture stories and portfolio entries. To create a digital contact sheet first prepare the individual images and make sure the files are correctly renamed and in their proper order, and collected into their folder. In Photoshop, go to FILE > AUTOMATE > CONTACT SHEET II... to open the contact sheet dialog box. Designate the folder using the “Choose...” button. Set the document dimensions and thumbnail columns/rows as shown in the example below, and press “OK.” Photoshop will generate the contact sheet (or multiple sheets in the case of portfolio entries), which you should then flatten (go to LAYER > FLATTEN IMAGE) and save into the folder along with the image files, numbering it as if it were the 13th and/ or final image in the story.

The maximum number of images you are allowed to submit in the categories has been adjusted to accommodate for Black Slide and Contact Sheets. Disregarding Black Slides and Contact Sheets by submitting more photographs than the category allows will result in disqualification.