expert judged
Amber Bird

Christmas cover star!

In association with Amateur Photographer

Open Rating Results
Brief

The holiday season is almost upon us, which means it’s time for Stir-up Sunday, sentimental TV adverts, and THIS year, the Amateur Photographer Christmas cover contest, which is being hosted by Photocrowd. Here is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have your work featured on the front cover of the world's no1 weekly photography magazine for 2 weeks over Christmas!

The theme is wide open for interpretation: naturally, we're happy to see shots of baubles, trees and lights, but we also want pictures that show the creative potential of the season in general, so feel free to submit winter landscapes, indoor portraits, frosty flora and fauna and so on.

Please click on the 'Brief in detail' tab for tips on how to shoot the perfect photo for the front cover of a magazine...

A front cover placement on Amateur Photographer's 2016 Christmas Special, £200 in cash and Permajet prints are up for grabs!

The brief in detail

Tips for cover success

Shoot portrait-format pictures: While it’s not unheard of for AP to use a section of a landscape-format image, your chances are vastly improved by sticking to the upright orientation.

Make eye contact: If you’re submitting a portrait, ensure good eye contact, with the subject looking directly into the lens. Make sure the eyes are pin-sharp.

Provide plenty of options: Try various angles and subject placements, with the main focal point to the left, the right and centre, to give the art editor lots of options as to where to put the cover lines.

Don’t crop in too tightly: Leave lots of space for the magazine ‘furniture’ - the masthead, cover lines, bubbles and graphic devices. Busy images with lots of detail are generally unsuitable as they make superimposed text tricky to read.

Prize details

A front cover placement on Amateur Photographer's 2016 Christmas Special, £200 in cash and Permajet prints are up for grabs!

The expert's winner (as judged by the AP team) will see their picture grace the cover of the AP Christmas Special (17-24 December). They will also receive a top-quality A3 print of the finished design (complete with masthead, cover lines and so on), courtesy of PermaJet and a CASH PRIZE of £100 (GBP)!

The crowd's winner will receive £100 GBP, and an A3 print of their image. If the standard of entries is deemed high enough, the winner(s), and a selection of commended entries, will appear inside a future issue of Amateur Photographer.

How it works

Every photo submitted will be available for the crowd to rate once the submissions period has ended. You can see all the images uploaded to a contest, but will need to rate them to see how they’re ranked once the rating period begins.

Some contests on Photocrowd also have a judge. After the submission period closes the judge chooses their favourite images and writes some image reviews. The crowd and judge results will be announced on the same day.

Entries closed
20 November 2016

Rating
20 November 2016 to 25 November 2016

Winners announced
25 November 2016

For a more detailed explanation of how rating works, see our FAQs

See open contests