Yes, APOY 2023 is open to photographers based anywhere in the world, but please note that prizes are only able to be given to photographers based in the USA, UK or EU.

Any photographers based elsewhere are eligible to enter, and if they have winning images then they will receive the same exposure as all other winning images, but due to unavoidable logistical issues prizes will not be given, and no other compensation will be given in lieu of the advertised prizes.

The 10 rounds are open to ‘amateur’ photographers of all ages and nationalities. ‘Amateur’ in this context means photography is your hobby, and not your primary source of income.

Photographers aged between 13 and 21 on 13th November 2023 are welcome to enter the ‘Young Amateur Photographer of the Year’ category in each round, which is free to enter.

Any entrant under 18 on the date when they enter must gain the permission of a parent or guardian to enter the competition. People under the age of 13 are not permitted to register on the Photocrowd platform.

The opening date of Round 1 is 8th February, 2023.

The closing date for entries in Round 10 is 13th November 2023.

The overall winners of Amateur Photographer of the Year 2023 will be announced in a future issue of Amateur Photographer magazine, followed by an announcement on Photocrowd.

The results and shortlists for each round will be announced throughout the year.

For the main APOY 2023 award, you can enter up to 5 images in each of the 10 rounds. 1 free entry per round can be obtained via a unique code published in Amateur Photographer magazine during the period in which that round is open. Without the code, you’ll be able to enter a maximum of 4 images per round.

For the Young APOY 2023 award, eligible photographers can enter up to 4 free images per round.

A leaderboard of photographers for both APOY 2023 and Young APOY 2023 is running throughout the competition, and will be updated after the results of each round are announced. It will be accessible from the main awards portal on Photocrowd.

Any images given a Top 10 place or shortlisted by the judges will be given points, and your highest-placed entry in each round will count towards your overall leaderboard ranking. The photographers who finish top of the leaderboards at the end of all ten rounds will win the titles of ‘Amateur Photographer of the Year 2023’ and ‘Young Amateur Photographer of the Year 2023’ respectively.

Points are allocated in each round as follows:

1st – 100 points
2nd – 90 points
3rd – 80 points
4th – 70 points
5th – 60 points
6th – 50 points
7th – 45 points
8th – 40 points
9th – 35 points
10th – 30 points
Shortlisted – 10 points

Over the ten rounds you can accumulate points for your UK camera club. Each of your members’ best-placed images in each round of the main APOY contest (not Young APOY) will count towards your club’s score, with no limit on how many of your members can enter - they’ll all count. After all ten rounds are complete, the club with the most points will win a voucher for £1000 to spend at MPB. Your club might choose to spend it on gear for use by its members, or even run its own in-house competition with the prize going to the most successful photographer. This year there is also a Rotolight NEO 3 light for the winning camera club.

You'll have the option to tell us your UK camera club when you fill out our simple agreement form.

The cost is based on the number of images you want to enter. Entries are bought in advance and can then be used at any time before midnight (UTC+1) on 13th November 2023. The following entry bundles are available for the main APOY 2023 competition, and entries can be used across any of the 10 rounds:

1 image – £8

4 images - £20 (£5 per image)

12 images - £36 (£3 per image)

40 images - £80 (£2 per image) – this image bundle will reduce in size and cost as the rounds progress, to reflect the maximum number of images that can still be submitted at the time of purchase

A discount on the price of entry bundles of 10%, 20% or 30% is available for Photocrowd Challenger, Pro or Master subscribers, respectively. Find out more about Photocrowd subscriptions here.

Multiple bundles can be purchased (eg. 3 x 1 image bundles = 3 total entries) but the maximum number of paid entries that can be made across all 10 main categories is 40 (4 images per category).

A voucher for one free entry per round in the main APOY 2023 competition is printed in Amateur Photographer magazine, which costs £3.99 from most good newsagents and supermarkets (£5.49 for the premium editions). Amateur Photographer is also available in digital format, for your iPad or mobile device, in iTunes, Kindle, Google Play and Zinio, for £2.49. Also available on Readly.

The Young Amateur Photographer of the Year award is free to enter.

No. The same image can only be entered into one category. And by ‘image’, we mean the same original file – so a manipulated/altered version of the same file can’t be entered in a different category.

Each entry to a category counts as one entry, for the purposes of payment.

Please note, once the submissions period for a round has closed, entries cannot be withdrawn/swapped, and refunds will not be available for images that are ruled out for consideration due to repeated use.

Yes. Photographers aged between 13 and 21 who have entered Young APOY 2023 can also enter the main APOY competition (standard charges apply). You are also welcome to enter the same images into both Young APOY and APOY.

Each photographer can enter up to 5 images into each of the 10 rounds (4 purchased images + 1 free entry via code in Amateur Photographer magazine), using one Photocrowd account. More than one image bundle can be purchased, but there is a maximum of 40 images that can be entered by each photographer across the competition.

Photographers who are eligible for Young APOY 2023 are also permitted to enter the main competition, but must use the same Photocrowd account (standard charges apply).

No, all images uploaded to APOY must have been shot by the photographer uploading them, and be their copyright. This extends to all the elements within an image, if the image is a composite of any kind.

There is no rule regarding how recently an image must have been taken.

If the round in which the image has been entered is still open, then at any time you can remove a submission and enter a different one in its place. Once the deadline for entries has passed in each round, and judging is underway, images cannot be removed or swapped out for other images.

Yes, there’s a simple signup process to register on Photocrowd, which will then give you full access to the Amateur Photographer of the Year 2023 awards.

Yes, images can be taken on any device capable of producing a digital image of sufficient size for entry. For full guidelines on minimum image requirements see the ‘How should I prepare my images for submission?’ FAQ, below.

No. The APOY 2023 Awards is an international competition and you may enter photographs taken anywhere in the world.

Please note however that prizes for APOY2023 are only able to be give to photographers based in the USA, UK or EU.

Maybe. Any image that has finished in the top 10 of any round in a previous year of APOY, is not eligible for entry in APOY 2023, but images that have been previously entered without finishing in the top 10 of any round can be re-submitted this year.

Yes, you are allowed to enter photos that have won other photo awards previously.

File type
Images should be saved as jpegs at the highest quality available, with a colour profile attached. Either the RGB or sRGB colour profiles are recommended. Digital scans from film are also eligible providing they meet these technical guidelines.

Image size and resizing
Whilst no image sizes will be rejected at upload, winning images will be required to be printed, and so must be of sufficient quality to allow this. It is therefore advised that images measure a minimum of 2,500 pixels on the shortest side after any cropping. Where images submitted are smaller than this, it will be assumed that this is the largest image size available to the photographer, and may affect that image’s chances of winning. The submission of larger file sizes is encouraged if available.

There are Photoshop and other image software tutorials online that show you how to best resize an image.

Image Manipulation
There are no restrictions regarding the manipulation of images using software or other techniques in these awards, provided that all imagery is the exclusive work of the submitting photographer and does not include any element that is the copyright of another. That includes not using any image elements such as skies that are available in some image editing software.

Image sharpening, noise reduction and colour saturation
Excessive sharpening, noise reduction and colour saturation techniques should be avoided. We appreciate that entrants will attempt to prepare their entries to optimise appearance and appeal on screen, and this may include these techniques. Excessive use of any or all of them can result in an entry that will be unsuitable for printed media and therefore become invalid as a result.

Image descriptions
Please include a description about your work during the upload process. This is a great way to tell a story or other interesting facts about your image. The panel will be able to read this while judging to give them insight into how you came about the shot.

Metadata
We would advise all entrants to add copyright information in the metadata of all submissions.

The Amateur Photographer of the Year 2023 competition is hosted on Photocrowd.com, and Photocrowd’s Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy apply.

In addition please note the following in relation to these awards:

The promoter is Kelsey Media Ltd. which has its registered offices located at Kelsey Media, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL, and is a company registered in England and Wales under company number 05822990.

The competition is global and open to people of all nationalities, however prizes can only be given to photographers based in the USA, UK or EU.

Any entrant under 18 on the date at which they enter the competition must gain the permission of a parent or guardian. Entrants under the age of 13 at the closing date of the competition (13th November 2023) are not permitted to enter any of the rounds.

The Young Amateur Photographer of the Year 2023 contest is only open to persons aged 13-21 on the date of closure of the competition on 13th November 2023. Entrants aged 13-21 are also eligible to enter the main categories of the competition (standard entry charges will apply).

It is the responsibility of each entrant (and the entrant's parent or guardian) to ensure that they have read and will abide by these rules and Photocrowd’s terms and conditions. By submitting an entry, each entrant (and the entrant's parent or guardian) agrees to these rules, that their entry complies with these rules, and that they will be liable to the Promoter and their licensees in respect of any damages or losses incurred as a breach of the rules.

Employees or agents of Kelsey Media Ltd. and Photocrowd, their families or other persons connected with this promotion (excluding the sponsors) are not eligible to enter.

Proof of eligibility must be provided upon request. Use of a false name or other false details will result in disqualification.

All entries must be submitted via the Photocrowd online platform. No entries will be accepted by email or post.

No AI generated imagery is permitted to be entered into the awards.

The Promoter reserves the right to request from the entrant a copy of the original camera file and a screengrab of their editing software showing other images from the same shoot, and to eliminate entries where such a request is ignored or where it is suspected that the rules have been infringed.

Full guidelines on permissible image sizes and types, and what image manipulation and retouching is allowed are provided in the FAQs section, above.

The Promoter and Photocrowd reserve the right, in their sole discretion, to disqualify or remove any entry that does not comply with the rules or the spirit of the awards, at any stage of the awards.

Please refer to the prizes section on this website for details of prizes.

Entrants based outside of the USA, UK or EU will not be eligible to receive any prizes, and no other compensation will be given in lieu of the advertised prizes should an entrant based outside of these territories win a prized category or the overall title in the awards.

Once the entry period has closed for each round, the panel of judges will convene to determine their prizewinners.

For each round in both APOY 2023 and Young APOY 2023, a shortlist will be announced at the end of the judging period, followed by the announcement of each round's final results.

The grand prize winners will be unveiled after the final round’s winners are announced.

Please refer to our judges page for more information on the judging panel. The judges’ decisions are final and binding in all matters and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the decisions.

All imagery MUST be the exclusive work of the submitting photographer and may not include any element that is the copyright of another. The Copyright for each image entered will remain with the submitting photographer. By entering the Competition and submitting your photograph(s), you hereby grant the Promoter, its sponsors and their hosting partner Photocrowd a non-exclusive, irrevocable license to use your photograph(s) for any purpose connected with the Competition, including (but not limited to), promoting the Competition within printed and online media, the inclusion within printed and digital versions of any Competition book, the inclusion within printed and digital versions of any Competition calendar or other merchandise, display at exhibitions, use in press, promotional and marketing materials, social media networks and for the promotion of any future photographic competition in both print and online media.

You agree to participate in related publicity and to the use of Your name and likeness for the purposes of advertising, promotion and publicity without additional compensation.

Any personal information, including without limitation, your name, age, address (including postcode) and/or email address will be used by Kelsey Media Ltd. in accordance with its privacy notice.

The promoter is excluded from liability for any loss, damage or injury which might occur to any of the winners arising from their acceptance of the prizes. Entrants indemnify the Promoter for all liabilities, including legal costs, in relation to any action or complaint taken by any third party against the Promoter in relation to the entrant’s photograph(s).

The promoter and Photocrowd reserve the right to cancel this Competition, in which case any entry fees paid will be refunded.

The promoter and Photocrowd reserve the right to amend these Terms and Conditions. These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by English law. When a photograph is submitted and the entry date has passed, the entry cannot be changed or withdrawn. No refunds will be given. Entry to the Awards shall be deemed full and unconditional acceptance of the terms & conditions.