Will We See Your Photos In Our 2020 Edition?

There's nothing more satisfying than seeing your photos published alongside the world's best. And the International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards book is a real book - printed on paper and bound between hard covers, but of course, you can also see the wonderful flip-book presentations here on the website. Being published is a mark of success!

This is our seventh year of the International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards and with the current global pandemic, we're really interested to see what photographers enter. Your entries must have been captured after 1 January 2019 (so, within the last 20-odd months), but will the recent lock-down periods mean we'll see more post-production? Who knows!

The main aim of our Award is to be one of the Top 101 landscape photographs of the year. This gives you a place in our exclusive book which is published online and can be purchased as a 'real' hard-cover paper publication as well (it's proudly printed by Momento Pro).

There is US$10,000 in cash prizes for the top three photographs and top three photographers (requiring a portfolio of at least four entries), plus a printed copy of the book from Momento Pro. And there are five special subject prizes winning a print from Created For Life!

So, what's the process? Your job is to impress our five judges, including last year's winner Oleg Ershov. And entry is easy - just size your file to 4000-5000 pixels on the longest side, save it as a JPEG and upload it. The entry fee remains unchanged at US$25 per image, with every fifth entry free. 

When the competition closes, our judges will use calibrated computer monitors to judge each photograph, giving it a score out of 100. Judges can open each and every entry and view it pixel for pixel on their monitor if required - and this is invariably done before they give their higher scores. Technique and craft are just as important as creativity for the top awards.

Once the first round of judging is completed, we have a score for each entry out of 500, expressed as percentage. The top 115 odd photos are selected and checked to ensure they comply with the rules (not taken before 1 January 2019, for example) and that there are not two or more photographs that are very similar (we are looking for variety). There is also a limit on the number of photographs a single entrant can have in the Top 101 - no more than four, just to share the experience around. In the past, we've found that selecting the top 115 to 120 allows us to end up with the top 101, taking into account these adjustments.

We then move into the next round of judging, as outlined in our rules. The judges are engaged a second time to determine the photographer of the year (1st, 2nd, 3rd), the photograph of the year (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and five special subject awards. This can take two or even three rounds of scoring and comment before the judges come up with their final result.

Once we have the results, we'll contact all the top prize winners, but we won't be telling them if they won the big prize or just one of the special prizes. We need a little background information about the winners for the book. If you don't hear from us before the winners are announced, it doesn't mean you're not in the Top 101, it just means you didn't win one of the prizes.

At this stage, we have then everything we need and so it's into production. Our art director is given the photographs and the text and she weaves her magic to produce the book. We aim to have all this ready so we can announce the winners on 15 November 2020.

So, that's the road map! We hope you enjoy getting your entries ready for our Awards and the best of luck to each and every one of you!

Peter Eastway and David Evans

International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards