APRIL 2026 - PAIRS/COUPLES

Explore the concept of connection, capturing subjects that embody partnership, duality, or meaningful interaction.

MAY 2026 - MINIMALISM

Taking compositions to their essential elements, employing simplicity, negative space, and refined visual structure to create images of quiet impact. 

JUNE 2026 - STRUCTURES

Capture the physical, architectural, natural, or abstract frameworks that shape our environments.

SEPTEMBER 2026 - HIGH KEY, LOW KEY & CHIAROSCURO

High-Key and Low-Key photography make use of lighting and contrast (or lack thereof) to create a specific mood.

While Low-Key photography plays with deep shadows and selective highlights, High-Key photography is characterized by bright, nearly shadow-free atmospheres, with both techniques used to form a strong visual contrast.

Chiaroscuro takes Low-Key photography to dramatic extremes, utilising very high-contrasts to create deep shadows and bright highlights.

OCTOBER 2026 - TRANSFORMATION

Explore moments of change - whether gradual or sudden, natural or human‑made, visible or symbolic.  Capture physical transitions, emotional evolution, seasonal shifts, urban development, or any process in which one state gives way to another.

NOVEMBER 2026 - OPEN (PRINTS ONLY)

Does NOT include Natural History.  This section covers any subject matter, treated in any manner, this includes composite images and photoshop tricks. Also included in the Open category are Still Life and Table Top images,  Experimental work (for example fruit plunging) and Light Painting.

This competition will be prints only so you will need to be ready early.  Speak to Simon, Steve or Chris about organising prints and mounting.

FEBRUARY 2027 - ANNUAL 2026/27

The clubs big, end of season competition.  Six sections across both colour and mono, plus the Calder Cup... 13 competitions in all.  The competition is split across two weeks, with the first week covering the Colour sections + Calder Cup, and the second week covering the Mono sections.

Natural History (Colour & Mono):

This can include wildlife, wild flora and fauna, rock formations, waterfalls etc.  It can include Zoo shots but nor obviously in a zoo - eg: bars.  It cannot include pets, cultivated flowers or livestock.

Photojournalism (Colour & Mono):

An image that tells a story, real life events, something like you’d see in a newspaper or magazine.  Street photography is another example.

Pictorial (Colour & Mono):

Tonality, natural lighting, composition, these work well in a pictorial image. For example a landscape.

Portrait (Colour & Mono):

A portrait of a SINGLE subject. Portrait photography aims to capture the identity, personality, and essence of a subject with composition, lighting, and posing.

Creative (Colour & Mono):

Unlike traditional photography that aims for realistic reproduction, creative photography intentionally uses photographic techniques, props, and post-processing to transform "ordinary" photographs into something imaginative or thought-provoking. 

Examples of creative techniques… composites, textures, ICM, multiple exposures, and any other creative photographic and editing techniques.  Use of AI must stay within normal club competition rules.

Open (Colour & Mono):

Basically an image that doesn’t fit into any of the above categories.

Calder Cup:

Landscape, street photography etc, but it image must be taken within the boundaries of Burnley Borough and depict something located in the Burnley Borough (ie not Pendle Hill taken from Burnley as the subject would be in Pendle).