National Pictures of The Year 2016 – Rule Change

 

After careful consideration, the News Photographers Association of Canada (NPAC) executive has decided to temporarily repeal the mandatory requirement for a photo story in the Photojournalist of the Year (PJOY) contest entry.

NPAC continually works to reflect the contemporary state of the industry. It was with this in mind that changes to this year’s National Pictures of the Year (NPOY) competition were made. We increased the maximum number of images from 12 to 18 in the PJOY entry and made it mandatory to include a picture story/essay. In the same spirit, we divided the Picture Story category into two categories, one for news and one for feature stories, and modernized the requirements for the Student Photographer of the Year category.

NPAC champions top calibre photojournalists who excel in a broad range of work. This level of award, the top photojournalist in Canada, should display strong visual work in a variety of subjects as well as the ability to cover an event, story or subject that produces a series of strong images in that year. This could be a portrait series, coverage from a news event or a documentary story.

However after posting the new rules and submission guidelines, concerns were heard that members were not given enough notice of the changes to the PJOY. The NPAC executive relies on and values members’ input and has decided to make the photo story/essay component optional for the 2016 contest.

The amended changes to the 2016 Photojournalist of the Year entries are as follows: Portfolio may include UP TO 18 images. One of those 18 submissions is encouraged to be a Picture Story but it is not a requirement.

Beginning next year, the 2017 NPOY Photojournalist of the Year entries will require one mandatory picture story to be included. Please feel free to email president@npac.ca or advertising@npac.ca with any comments or questions you may have.

Thank you.

The NPAC Executive

Amber Bracken, President
Ben Nelms, Vice-President
Jason Payne, Treasurer
Gio Ciampini, Secretary
Alison Ledgerwood, Executive Director