Nature Definition

At AVCC, in all our competitions we follow the PSA's Nature Definition, excerpted from the PSA web-site immediatley below.

For use in PSA-recognized exhibitions and PSA competitions:

All images used in PSA Nature Division competitions and PSA-recognized Exhibitions must meet the PSA Nature Definition of Nature Photography as follows: 

There is one hard and fast rule, whose spirit must be observed at all times: The welfare of the subject is more important than the photograph. This means that practices such as baiting of subjects with a living creature and removal of birds from nests, for the purpose of obtaining a photograph, are highly unethical, and such photographs are not allowed in Nature competitions. Judges are warned not to reward them. The PSA policy on aerial photography does not permit animals or birds in their natural habitat to be photographed from a drone.

• Nature Photography is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archeology, in such a fashion that a well-informed person will be able to identify the subject material and certify its honest presentation.

• The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining high technical quality.

• Human elements must not be present, except where those human elements are integral parts of the nature story such as nature subjects, like barn owls or storks, adapted to an environment modified by humans, or where those human elements are in situations depicting natural forces, like hurricanes or tidal waves.

• Scientific bands, scientific tags or radio collars on wild animals are permissible.

• Photographs of human created hybrid plants, cultivated plants, feral animals, domestic animals, or mounted specimens are ineligible, as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement.

• No techniques that add, relocate, replace, or remove pictorial elements except by cropping are permitted.

• Techniques that enhance the presentation of the photograph without changing the nature story or the pictorial content, or without altering the content of the original scene, are permitted including HDR, focus stacking and dodging/burning.

• Techniques that remove elements added by the camera, such as dust spots, digital noise, and film scratches, are allowed.

• Stitched images are not permitted

• Color images can be converted to greyscale monochrome.

• Infrared images, either direct-captures or derivations, are not allowed.

• Images entered in Nature sections meeting the Nature Photography Definition above can have landscapes, geologic formations, weather phenomena, and extant organisms as the primary subject matter. This includes images taken with subjects in controlled conditions, such as zoos, game farms, botanical gardens, aquariums and any enclosure where the subjects are totally dependent on man for food.

To see examples of the nature definition, go to www.psa-photo.org, click on "Nature" in the "Divisions" pull-down.. Scroll down to "Nature Division Information" and click on "Definition of Nature". At "Guide for Nature Division Judges" and click "pdf".

A good way to remember the rules is: "NO HAND OF MAN" is permitted in a nature image. 

The Table below summarizes the adjustments one is permitted to make to a nature image.