WAUPS Competition Rules

  1. An aim of WAUPS is to encourage an understanding and preservation of the marine environment, therefore marine life should never be stressed or endangered for the sake of a photograph.
  2. WAUPS has adopted the Conservation Rules established by EPIC[1] . Any entrant suspected of exhibiting the following behaviour may be disqualified at the discretion of the competition organiser and/or WAUPS Committee:
    • Diver(s) visibly damaging the environment (e.g.: dangling or dragging gear, kicking up sand)
    • Animals with signs of stress (e.g.: puffed puffers, inking octopus)
    • Animals moved to an unnatural environment or risky location
    • Animals being fed food from divers e.g. no feeding fish spray cheese or feeding boiled eggs to Humphead Wrasse etc
    • Marine life being touched (e.g.: coral polyps, handling sea snakes)
    • Diver(s) exhibiting poor buoyancy control; and
    • All subjects must be alive and in their natural environment. No captive animals will be considered (including subjects taken in an aquarium), and no entrapment of any kind is permissible.
  3. The entrant must be a financial and/or life member of WAUPS.
  4. All images are to be taken underwater and over-under images are allowed. Portraiture images taken underwater in a pool are acceptable.
  5. The file name must be in the following format:

First Name Last Name_Competition Name_ Image Name.jpg
eg, Bill Smith_Pixels_Bluefish.jpg

  1. The decision of the competition organiser and/or WAUPS Committee to disqualify a photo or a photographer is final and undisputable.
  2. Where a theme is set for a competition, the entrant must meet the definition provided by the WAUPS Committee. Should any dispute arise as to the eligibility of any entry, the competition organiser (or in his/her absence members of the WAUPS Committee) will be the final arbiter.
  3. Entries having only minor variations from those entered previously by the same author will not be accepted.
  4. All elements of an image shall be photographic in origin, and created by the entrant.
  5. All photographs and post-processing must be the work of the entrant, and therefore the owner of the copyright.
  6. Copyright remains with the entrant, but the entrant agrees that WAUPS may have limited license to use any entered image for the purpose of promoting the club either on line or print. All images used will have the photographer’s name added by WAUPS before being published. You can choose not to have your image used on WAUPS social media.
  7. All images entered into a competition may be taken anywhere in the world, unless specific rules for an individual competition specify otherwise.
  8. Do not include a watermark or other identifying details as all entries to WAUPS competitions should be anonymous.
  9. Where WAUPS runs competitions or has categories within competitions for novice members, the following definition of Novice will apply:
    • A Novice WAUPS Member is a member that has not previously won a major WAUPS competition including Image of the Year, Day Dive or Shoot-out Overall Winner, Novice or Open Portfolio, PIXELS overall winner or won/placed in a major underwater photography competition.
  10. Additional rules for specific competitions are detailed in the following Annexes to these rules:
    Annex A – Pixels
    Annex B – Portfolio Open and Novice
  11. All competition entries shall meet the following requirements:
    • Image file size shall be less than 1.5MB
    • Image resolution shall be 72ppi
    • Colour space shall be sRGB
    • Image size shall be:
      • No WIDER than 1920 pixels; and
      • No HIGHER than 1080 pixels

    Further details on image sizing for WAUPS competitions are available at:

    Annex C – Image Sizes for Competitions

    Sizing requirements for portfolio competitions are detailed in Annex B.

    1. Competition time limits are:
      • Pixels – images entered must have been taken within the previous 3 years from the closing date of the competition.
      • Image of the Year – image must have been taken within the previous 12 months from the closing date of the competition.
      • Portfolio Open and Novice – images entered must be taken within the previous 7 years from the closing date of the competition.
      • Other competitions – the WAUPS Committee will identify the timeframe for image capture for other competitions.
    2. Each competition will close on the date as advertised in the WAUPS Enews.
    3. Image submission will be via an online form which automatically adds your image to the WAUPS Google drive.  Late entries will not be accepted, and entries can only be submitted via the form, not via email. Submission details including the link to the form will be communicated in the WAUPS Enews.
    4. Image files shall contain full EXIF data so that the date of capture can be confirmed, and to help guard against artificially generated images.
    5. All entries will be checked to ensure they have been taken within the time limit set by the specific competition.  Images taken outside this period or where the capture date cannot be determined because the image EXIF data has not been included will be rejected.
    6. Winners will be announced at the regular WAUPS meeting, being the fourth Tuesday of the month unless stated otherwise.  All competition entries will be uploaded to the WAUPS website (your name will be added to the jpeg image).  Winners will also be posted on the WAUPS Facebook page.  Competition images may also be used to promote the club or the competition.  If you do not wish for your image to be used in any of these ways, please let us know. 
    7. Artificially generated images are not permitted. Any member deliberately cheating by entering artificially generated images will be banned from all future WAUPS competitions.

    [1] EPIC (Environmental Protection Through Incentives and Commerce) established by the Center for Environment, Economy, and Society at Columbia University.