Nature photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict observations from all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archeology, in such a fashion that a well informed person will be able to identify the subject material and to certify as to its honest presentation. The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining high technical quality. Human elements shall not be present, except where those human elements enhance the nature story. The presence of scientific bands, scientific tags, or radio collars on wild animals is permissible. Photographs of artificially produced hybrid plants or animals, mounted specimens, or obviously set arrangements, are ineligible, as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement. No techniques that add to, relocate, replace, or remove pictorial elements except by cropping are permitted. Techniques that enhance the presentation of the photograph without changing the nature story or the pictorial content are permitted. All adjustments must appear natural.

Informative Note: Human elements are not limited to people in the image. Artifacts made by humans, such as roads, fences, signs, and buildings (or parts of buildings), even mowing patterns, are also considered human elements. Jesses and thongs on legs of raptors and other birds are also considered human elements, not scientific banding and are therefore included in this prohibition. Sensor dust on digital captures and rounded corners of scanned images are not considered pictorial elements.

Authentic wildlife is defined as one or more organisms living free and unrestrained in a natural or adopted habitat. Therefore, landscapes, photographs of zoo animals, game farm animals or any living subject taken under controlled conditions are not eligible for submitting in the Wildlife section.

Informative Note: Wildlife subjects are not limited to birds and mammals. Insects, reptiles, amphibians, sea creatures and botany are also eligible wildlife subjects as long as they are not captive or controlled subjects. The main subject must be one or more living or deceased zoological or botanical organism.

Entry Fees
                                                                World Wide
       1 section                                           $6 US Total
       2 sections                                         $8 US Total

PayPal is available for payment on-line. Please note that you do not need to have a PayPal account to pay using PayPal, just a valid debit or credit card (Master Card, Visa, Discover Card, American Express). Please do not combine payments for the Nature sections with payments for other sections in other Divisions and/or for other people on the same transaction.

Entrants may pay in US Dollars by cash or check . All checks must be made payable to “PSA” and must be drawn on a US bank. Entrants are requested to notify the Nature Projected Image Chairman if they intend to pay by cash or check. IRC's are not an acceptable form of payment.

Any entry without paid entry fees at the time of judging will not be judged.

The maker’s name and/or the image title shall not be in the image area or in any other area visible to the judges of any digital files, slides or prints. This includes copyrights.

An image (or a nearly identical in-camera duplicate) previously accepted in any PSA International Nature Division section, regardless of media, is not eligible for entry in any Nature Division projected image or print section of the 2011 PSA International.

Informative Note: PSA Recognized Exhibitions are not "THE" PSA International Exhibition. Images accepted in PSA Recognized Exhibitions but not in a past Nature section of the PSA International Exhibition may be submitted in the Nature Division sections of the 2011 PSA International.

The same image may not be submitted in more than one Nature Division Section of the 2011 PSA International regardless of the media. This means images submitted in either Nature Projected Image Section may not be submitted in the other Nature Projected Image section or in either of the Nature Print sections. This does not prevent the same images from being submitted in EID, CPID, Photo Travel or Photojournalism sections provided they meet the requirements of those sections. Please note: Different images with the same title or the same image with different titles will be considered the same image.

Entries must originate as photographs (image-captures of object via light sensitivity) made by the entrant on photographic emulsion or acquired digitally. By virtue of submitting an entry, the entrant certifies the work as his/her own and permits the sponsors to reproduce all or part of the entered material free of charge for publication and/or display in media related to the exhibition. This will include the Exhibition (audio-visual program) of the accepted images to be shown at the 2011 PSA Conference and may include use in the PSA Journal or low resolution posting on a web site. Entrants not giving this permission will not be eligible for awards. The exhibition assumes no liability of any misuse of copyright. All final work must be on photographic film, digital file, on photographic print material or digital print material.

I hereby give PSA permission to use my submitted images in PSA Educational Programs produced on CD's, DVD's or in Downloadable form, using ProShow Gold or equivalent software that does not allow program users access to individual images, for use by PSA Members, Clubs, Chapters and Councils wherever they may be. I am of Legal Age, and own all rights to these images, including copyright, or my parent or guardian gives permission on my behalf if I am not of Legal Age.

Informative Note: This License Agreement is over and above the permissions granted in the Original Image Statement above. The Judges will not be informed of the status of the License Agreement. Not accepting this License Agreement in no way affects whether the images submitted are accepted or whether, if accepted, the images are eligible for awards.

All acceptances are eligible for Nature Division Star Ratings for members of the Photographic Society of America subject to the requirements of the Nature Division. An on-line 8½"x11" PDF Nature Division Exhibition Catalog listing acceptances in all four Nature Division sections of the 2011 PSA International Exhibition is included with your entry fee. A link will be included on the Exhibition Web Site www.psaexhibition.com so you can email the Catalog to yourself and save as an electronic file and/or print out. The Catalog will be formatted for printing on both standard 8½"x11" paper and standard A4 paper. This is the same Catalog that will be provided to the Nature Division Star Ratings Director and includes color reproductions of the medal winning images. Printed hard copies of the Catalogs will not be mailed the the entrants

Open Section
   PSA Awards
       1-Gold Medal; 1-Silver Medal; 1-Bronze Medal and 6-Honorable Mention Ribbons
   Nature Division Awards
       Diversity Award (selected from high scoring entrants with 3 or more acceptances that
       show diversity in subject category); Botany Award

Wildlife Section
   PSA Awards
       1-Gold Medal; 1-Silver Medal; 1-Bronze Medal and 6 Honorable Mention Ribbons
   Nature Division Awards
       Diversity Award (selected from high scoring entrants with 3 or more acceptances that
       show diversity in subject category); Mammal Award; Ornithology Award; Insect Award;
       Wildflower Award

Additional PSA Silver Medals, Bronze Medals and Honorable Mention Ribbons will be awarded depending on the number of entries received.

If the judges feel there is no image worthy of one of the Nature Division Awards, that award will not be presented.

Each Image must have a unique title. Once an image has been accepted in any PSA Recognized Exhibition, regardless of section or Division, that same image, or a like “in camera” or a “reproduction” duplicate of that image may not be retitled if used in any other PSA Recognized Exhibition.

Titles will be read aloud during judging. Descriptive titles are recommended. Cute titles and incorrectly identified subjects may hurt your score.

Please limit titles to 35 characters including spaces and punctuation. The Entry Form software will clip any excess characters resulting in an incomplete title for inclusion in the Catalog. This will cause problems when applying for Star Ratings.

Borders are allowed for nature images but are not recommended. If you do use a border, we recommend you limit it to a thin stroke that separates the image area from the black projection background. Wide borders and decorative borders that draw attention from the nature story are discouraged and could hurt your scores.

Use sRGB color space for your .jpg files to provide the best image quality under the projection conditions used for judging the exhibition and producing the exhibition show. Do not use CMYK color space. CMYK images will not project correctly during judging.

Black & White images are allowed in Nature. Black & White images must be grayscale with no colors. Infrared images are not allowed in this Nature Exhibition.

You do not have to follow any naming convention for your .jpg files when you enter. The on-line entry form software will properly rename your files to meet the needs of our exhibition software.

We recommend saving your .jpg images in a special folder on your computer using the image title as the file name. That will make it easier to pick the correct image when using the Entry Form browser to attach your images.

Accepted Images, including award winners, will be on display at www.psaexhibition.com. Selected images* and all award winners will also be shown twice at the 2011 PSA International Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado between September 19, 2011 and September 24, 2011.

*Time constraints may prevent showing all Nature Projected Image acceptances at the Conference. All award winners will be shown. Accepted images not included in the show will still get full credit towards Nature Division Star Ratings and Who's Who listing and will be in the Nature Division PDF On-Line catalog.

The entries are processed periodically and the status reported on the Exhibition Web Site. The status report heading indicates the time/date of the last status list update and the next scheduled status list update. Please be patient. Do not expect an immediate update.

If any problems are noted on the status list, please contact the Nature Projected Image Chairman by going to the Nature Projected Image menu on the Exhibition Web Site and clicking on Send Email to Section Chairman to resolve.

PayPal confirmation for on-line payments will come directly from PayPal using the sender address service@paypal.com and will be addressed to you using your name as entered on the PayPal page.

After you submit your electronic entry, you will receive an email confirming your name, address, email, etc. plus the image titles you typed in. Please review the information you entered. If you made any errors, especially any typos in the Image Titles, please contact the Nature Projected Image Chairman by going to the Nature Projected Image Menu on the Exhibition Web Site and clicking on Send Email to Section Chairman to resolve. If you entered digital images, check the thumbnails on your confirmation as well to be sure you attached the correct image for each title. Whether you pushed the wrong key or not, the information as you entered it on the entry form, including names, titles, city and countries, will be the ones listed in the Catalog if the images are accepted.

All digital images must be submitted On-Line using the Nature Division Digital Entry Form. After you have carefully read these “Information and Conditions of Entry”, and after double checking to make sure your image dimensions are no larger than 1400 pixels wide and 1050 pixels high and the image file sizes are no larger than 850K, go back to the main menu and click on the line labeled Nature Digital Image Entry Forms, fill out the data entry form, attach your image files and submit them. Remember to select the subject category for each image. Digital entries on CD via postal mail will not be accepted without prior express permission of the Nature Projected Image Chairman and then only in accordance with any special instructions provided by the Chairman.

If you have trouble submitting your digital images on-line please contact the Nature Projected Image Chairman by going to the Nature Projected Image Menu on the Exhibition Web Site and clicking on Send Email to Section Chairman to resolve or contact the Exhibition Webmaster by clicking Send Email to Webmaster to resolve.