The contest started Jan. 1 and ends July 21. All entries must be submitted by 10AM.

Photos taken between Jan. 1 and the submission deadline are eligible. The photos must be shot off Lauderdale-By-The-Sea’s 2.4 miles of coastline. The southernmost building in Town is the Fountainhead Condo, 3900 N. Ocean Drive, which is about a half-mile south of Commercial Boulevard. Our northernmost building is the Maulani Condo, 1398 S. Ocean Blvd., which is about 2-miles north of Commercial. For an offshore reference point, Anglin’s Pier in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea is located at Commercial Boulevard. Our downtown area does not have any buildings taller than three stories, which makes it easy to distinguish for someone on a boat offshore looking west.

We pledge to run this contest ethically and with integrity.

All images must be uploaded by photographers to the photo contest web site.

Photos must be taken underwater, except for the beach diving category.

The contest is open to all amateur underwater photographers.

Photos can be entered in more than one category, but can only win in a single category.

Each individual photographer can only win one prize.

Photo contest staff and judges are not allowed to enter the contest.

Marine life should never be stressed or endangered for the sake of the photo.

Entries suspected of exhibiting the following behavior will be disqualified:

– Divers visibly damaging the environment (gear dragging or kicking up sand).

– Marine creatures with signs of stress (puffed puffer fish, inking octopus, etc.)

– Marine creatures moved to an unnatural environment or risky location.

– Marine creatures being fed (especially with artificial food from divers).

– Marine life being touched (coral polyps for example)

– Divers exhibiting poor buoyancy control.

Any photos taken as a result of harassment to marine life that could be harmful to the subject may be disqualified by the judges.

This is a photography contest, not a Photoshop contest. Photoshop (or similar imaging software) has become a necessary tool for processing images, but it is not a substitute for good photography. We are providing these guidelines on what modification is acceptable and what is not.

ALLOWED

Limited global changes including color temperature and balance, brightness, contrast, sharpening, saturation and tone.

Rotation, flip and flop.

Limited removal of backscatter only. No removal of divers, fish, etc.

Cropping is allowed, but not more than 30 percent. Keep in mind judges often frown on significant cropping.

NOT ALLOWED

Cutting and pasting sections of images from another part of an image or from another image.

No cloning objects or composite images. For example, moving fish, a reef or any other elements of a photo, adding a glow to simulate a flashlight, or adding a scuba diver or animal silhouette in the background.

Excessive blurring.

Double exposures.

All marine life subjects must be alive and in their natural environment. No pool or aquarium shots.

All photos must be taken in the ocean off the Town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea.

You must be in the water at the time when taking the photo (no pole cam shots).

ETC.

Entrants, by submitting images, grant permission to the Town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea to use entries for the promotion of diving in the Town.

All rights remain with the photographer.

The Town is not interested in obtaining any legal rights for the photo or video, selling the photos or producing a book.

The contest will be judged shortly after the deadline.

Winners will be announced and prizes will be awarded on Friday, July 28 from 6 to 7PM in Jarvis Hall, 4501 N. Ocean Drive,Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Fla. Jarvis Hall is adjacent to Town Hall.

The judge’s decisions are final.

Please forward any questions to Rich Barnhart

FILE SPECIFICATIONS

PHOTOS

JPEG images only. At least 2500 pixels on the widest side. 6MB size limit.

Photogs may be asked to provide the original JPEG or RAW file from the camera

VIDEOS

Video formats accepted include AVI, MOV, WMV, MP4 and MPEG. No size limit.

Videos must be uploaded to Youtube or Vimeo. A public link to the video must be submitted for judges to view.

Participants may be required to provide the original video file via Dropbox or DVD at a later date. We will let you know.

JUDGING

Judges will be instructed to use their common sense when choosing winners for a category.

Judges reserve the right to switch an entry to another category.