Mobile Photography Challenge

Welcome to our NEW Mobile Photography Competition!

Images shot and edited on any mobile phone or tablet only; Online Only; Judged and Voted for by Members.

If it’s true what Henri Cartier-Bresson says, that our first 10,000 photos will be our worst, then mobile photography has given people an historic opportunity to quickly get past 10,001. Our new Mobile Phone Competition is a showcase for Members to put away the DSLR and traditional post-processing techniques and show what they can achieve in this new and exciting world of mobile photography.

Check out the Results Page for the individual months voting results and overall league table.

Previous Seasons Results
MPC Season 2019-20

Checkout the Homepage for the latest News Articles with details to view this months entries and cast your vote.

Once you have reviewed this month’s entries you can cast your vote. Remember, you have 3 votes, you can only vote once so tick your three votes before clicking the Red  “VOTE” button on the voting form below (Note: authors can vote for their own entry).

Dropbox Entry Links

Season 2019/20 Submission Links
Mobile Photography Challenge – March 2020
Mobile Photography Challenge – April 2020
Mobile Photography Challenge – May 2020
Mobile Photography Challenge – June 2020

FAQ – Voting

Published entries will be anonymous. We want you to vote for the image, not the author. Once you have reviewed that months entries you can vote for your favourite three.

A link will be published to a form where you can register your votes for your favourite three images for that month.

Each Club Member has three votes per qualifying month. The voting form will prohibit multiple voting sessions, so please vote for your top three images at the same time.

The aim is to get away from the more formal club competition scoring. We want to encourage even the most novice members by removing as much intimidation as possible. At the end of the closing date for each month, the results will be published here on the club website.

Points are awarded as follows: 1st place – 25 points; 2nd -18; 3rd – 15; 4th -12; 5th – 10; 6th – 8; 7th – 6; 8th – 4; 9th – 2; 10th – 1.

Entries receiving the same number of votes will both receive the appropriate number of points.

The winner will be the Member with the largest aggregate score over the season. If Members are tied on points, positions are decided on results countback. Wins are compared, and the Member with most wins is classified ahead. If wins are equal, second places are looked at, and so on.

Final results will be published on the club website with the winner and runners-up announced at the annual prize-giving evening.

Why a Mobile Device Competition

Mobile photography, smartphone photography, iPhoneography or whatever you want to call it, it’s clear that taking great pictures with a phone has become a thing now. It is now so established that major international competitions exist solely for the mobile medium and even pros are creating works of art and commercial images using their smartphones. That’s the extreme end, of course, but on the other, we have Instagram and Facebook photos that look exceptional.

When the history of mobile photography is written three dates will appear significant in the chapter on post-digital: June 11th 1997 when the first image was taken by a cameraphone, the launch of the iPhone and the launch of Instagram.

Mobile photography is the art of photography using a smartphone or mobile device. Defined using the philosophy of ‘the best camera is the one that’s always with you’, this relatively new form of photography has firmly established itself as the visual vanguard of the 21st century, being discreet, intimate and always accessible to capture a moment.

If you own a smartphone made in the last couple of years, chances are it has a pretty damn good camera on it, too. This new club competition is all about exploring this new area of photography, learning along the way and taking better pictures with that smartphone.

In addition, we want to show existing, new and potential members you don’t need hundreds or thousands of pounds of camera gear to take great looking and competition quality photos.

With all that in mind, this is a fun competition, all members are eligible and encouraged to enter. You can enter an image captured and edited on a mobile device from 1st January 2018 onwards.

So please join in and have a go. Put the Canon’s, Nikon’s, Photoshop and Lightroom to one side and show what you can achieve with your phone and some free apps.

FAQ – Eligibility and Entries

Entry is available to all Club Members.

Each month has a separate Dropbox link. Simply upload your entry for that month to the appropriate link for Dropbox. Links for each month’s entries will be published here and elsewhere on the Club website and/or programme.

Yes Please! if you can. As we get going, this might be a challenge to rename your images. However, if you are able, please rename your images with a TITLE IN CAPITALS just as you would for normal club competitions.

For example DEVON SUNSET.jpg

If you can’t, don’t worry, upload your image as is, but send an email to lbpcpics@gmail.com  with your title and we will add it for you.

It would be helpful if you make the subject line of your email something like Mobile Photo Comp [month] – Title e.g. Mobile Photo Comp September – Title

As we get started on this journey there are a number of technical issues to figure out, both for the authors and organisers alike. So, for now, we want to keep this as simple as possible. Once you have created your masterpiece on your mobile device, just upload it to Dropbox. Your images will be sized to the new PAGB standard of 1600 pixels x 1200 pixels. Where appropriate, black bars will be added to make the overall canvas size 1600 x 1200 pixels. All images will be converted to sRGB and saved as jpegs (with minimal compression so that file size does not exceed 2MB).

Images captured on any mobile phone or tablet including iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets, Windows Phones, and the iPod touch are eligible for entry (EXIF Required to confirm). Entries that do not contain EXIF will be disqualified.

Your image must have been taken on or after the 1st January of the calendar year at the start of the current season, e.g. for season 2019-20, your image must have been taken on or after 1st Jan 2019. (EXIF Required to confirm). Entries that do not contain EXIF will be disqualified.

Yes! Absolutely. Treat this as you would a Club League Competition. You may use any post-processing application you would normally use. However, we would encourage you to explore and experiment using mobile apps for your post-processing to widen your knowledge and skills.  Examples of mobile editing apps that work on both iPhone and Android phones are:

  • Snapseed (free)
  • Photoshop Express (free)
  • Lightroom CC for mobile (free)

Yes, but! Although we don’t prohibit the use of desktop editing software, please try to stay within the spirit of the competition which is to show what can be done without an expensive DSLR and expensive software.

We want to showcase great images. We hope and expect to see all genres and styles submitted. All styles welcome!

No! Every image is treated equally.

No! You are limited to one entry per monthly submission period.

The closing date for submissions will be approximately the 2nd week of the month. Check the information published each month on the website homepage.

Entries will be published of voting in the send half of the month. Check the information published each month on the website homepage.

All images received by the closing date will be published on the Clubs website for viewing and voting by Club Members. If your image is not included, please contact the organisers via the email address lbpcpics@gmail.com

Yes! You may submit your images from any device.