12 Feb Why is there now a $25 Critique Fee?
The purpose of the NAPCP Image Competitions is two-fold:
1) To recognize and highlight the creative excellence of our members
2) To encourage improvement of standards through evaluation and independent critique of members’ work
Twice a year, NAPCP hosts an International Image Competition where our team spends a considerable amount of time ensuring entries are correctly sized, submitted, labeled and catalogued; entered into the NAPCP database; prepared for scoring and critique; and evaluated to ensure they follow all Competition rules. Once the images are scored, they are tallied, re-checked for accuracy, relayed over to our participants and award-winning Image Gallery, then prepared for Press across all media channels nation-wide.
After hosting five consecutive competitions, we noticed the time it took for our Judges to carefully review all of the entries, score and critique submissions was staggering. As the number of entries increased, it became apparent that the entry and judging process had to change as well.
As a result, a Critique Fee of $25 will apply for any member requesting professional feedback on submitted photos. This allows our judges to be compensated for the significant number of hours they spend ensuring that each photo is thoroughly examined, given thoughtful consideration and meaningful feedback.
NAPCP continually strives to improve the Competition, while offering value to our members. As a reminder, NAPCP membership includes two (2) free Image Competition credits per competition, so we encourage all of our members to enter. If feedback is desired, the $25 Critique Fee applies for each submission.
“Although judging a competition is a wonderful learning experience, it is also a very time-consuming one. The additional task of providing thoughtful feedback for every image adds to the length of the process. In order to offer a critique to help the participant grow, a great deal of thought must go into each image — and members tell us that receiving the critique is invaluable to helping them understand their scores. I think it is wonderful that NAPCP has found a way to be able to continue offering this opportunity
to its members.”
– Dana Pugh, 2010 NAPCP Image Competition Judge
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