Welcome to the 2024 PEC Photo Contest!

What makes this contest special is seeing all of the beautiful and interesting photos come from Virginia’s Piedmont – the place many of us call home. Read below for more contest details and past winners.

Submit your photos!

2024 Terms and Conditions

The Piedmont Environmental Council’s 2024 photo contest is open to everyone except employees and board members of The Piedmont Environmental Council and their immediate families.

Each of the finalists will receive a free PEC membership and have their work featured in upcoming PEC publications. The winners of the “Beautiful Landscapes,” “Native Plants and Fungi” and “Wonderful Wildlife” categories will receive a $75 gift certificate to a nearby Buy Fresh Buy Local restaurant! The winner of the “Youth” category will receive a $75 gift certificate to either a Buy Fresh Buy Local restaurant or to Amazon.

Photo Guidelines

Location

PEC connects people to the landscapes, communities, and heritage of Virginia’s Piedmont. As part of that mission, PEC is looking for images that enable people to experience this wonderful place in new and exciting ways. Photos must be taken within PEC’s nine-county region — Albemarle (and Charlottesville), Clarke, Culpeper, Fauquier, Greene, Loudoun, Madison, Orange, and Rappahannock.

Number of Allowed Submissions

Adults: You may enter up to 5 photos in each category (max of 15 photos)
Submit each individual photo to only one category. (For example, an image of a butterfly with a scenic landscape in the background should be submitted either ONLY to Beautiful Landscapes or ONLY to Wonderful Wildlife).
Youth 17 years of age and younger: you may enter 5 photos in the Youth Category (max of 5 photos)

Image Size

Photographs should be between 1MB and 10MBs at 72 DPI or more. You may submit smaller-sized images, but images with a low resolution are less likely to be considered as finalists.

No Watermarked Images Please

Credit will always be provided.

Violations

Photos must be taken within PEC’s nine-county region — Albemarle (and Charlottesville), Clarke, Culpeper, Fauquier, Greene, Loudoun, Madison, Orange, and Rappahannock.
Images must be the original art of the entrant, and the original artwork may be displayed in public and entered into the PEC Photo Contest.
All images must be obtained legally. The photographer is responsible for obtaining the permission of any individuals depicted in images who are the subject the photo and/or identifiable (or permission from their parent/guardian if they are under 18).

Violators will be eliminated from the competition.

How to Enter

To enter the contest, fill out and submit this Google form. You’ll be asked to log in using a Google account. You’ll need to create an account if you don’t already have one.

Once logged in, work your way through the form. You’ll start by entering some basic information about yourself. Then, there is a separate submission page for each contest category.

You can submit up to five images per category, and you can submit to all three categories (or just the Youth category if you’re 17 years of age or younger).
This means that if you are 18 or older, you can submit as few as one photo or as many as 15 photos total.
Example: If you only want to submit a wildlife photo, just skip past the Beautiful Landscapes section and go straight to the Native Plants and Fungi section.

Please be sure to write a short caption for each photo you submit.

Include a title, the county the photo was taken in, any more specific information about the location, and a short description of what the photo depicts.
Example caption: “Backroad Lillies. Lovely summer flowers along backroad near Old Rag, Madison County.“

Once you’ve uploaded your photos and written captions, be sure to click through to the last page of the form and click submit to ensure that your entry is recorded.

Participants 17 years of age or younger and her/his parent or guardian MUST complete the Youth Agreement form for their submissions to be considered for judging.

Eligibility and Judging

Adults (18 years or older) are eligible to submit 5 images each to the three categories (Beautiful Landscapes, Native Plants and Fungi, and Wonderful Wildlife). Participants 17 years of age and younger may enter 5 photos in the Youth category. Participants 17 years of age and younger must have a parent’s or guardian’s permission to enter the PEC Photo Contest. Parents or guardians will need to fill out the Youth Agreement form for participating minors.

Contest: PEC staff, with the help of guest judges, will select finalists in each category. Photos will be judged based on content, contrast, composition, and originality. The ultimate winners and runners-up in each category will be determined by a public online vote. Pictures with a low resolution are less likely to be considered as finalists.

Deadline

The deadline for submitting photos will be September 30, 2024. Finalists will be determined in October and a public voting period will commence soon thereafter. PEC reserves the right to adjust the deadline(s) as the result of causes beyond its immediate control.

Here are the 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015 PEC Photo Contest winners and finalists.

Your Rights

You will retain all rights to any photograph you submit – including ownership if applicable. By submitting images to the Beautiful Landscape, Native Plants and Fungi, and Wonderful Waters categories in the PEC Photo Contest, you attest that you are 18 years of age or older. By submitting images to the Youth category, you attest that you are 17 years of age or younger.

You also grant PEC a nonexclusive right, in perpetuity, to:

Publish the images for PEC’s purposes in any format, including on PEC’s website and in PEC’s publications or presentations, such as newsletters, emails, brochures, grant proposals, displays, and mailings.
Use, in connection with the Photo Contest, your name, city/county, and state in promotions and other publications.

As conditions of this permission, PEC shall credit all photographs with their full name whenever their photograph is used.

Questions

Questions and inquiries about the contest can be emailed to [email protected].

PEC’s Annual Photo Contest