Team Locals’ Monthly Photography Competition: January

Throughout this year, we’re running a photography competition every month, gifting local photographers prizes from Portsmouth and Southsea businesses as a way of saying thank-you for the passion they have in capturing the beauty of our city.

We’ll start each month by picking a theme to inspire photographers to get out and shoot, and close every month by selecting a winning picture.

The four of us in the Team Locals office — Charley, Jeeves, Lauren, and Lulu — will judge entries against a number of metrics, including aesthetics (breathtaking visual beauty), storytelling (context of and meaning behind photos), technicalities (photographic methods, e.g. long exposure), and the unique portrayal of each month’s theme.

Photographers have complete creative freedom on how pictures are taken: DSLR, film, pinhole, smartphone, compact, Polaroid/Instax scans etc. are all permitted.

Competition Prizes

We don’t just want to celebrate local photographers — we also want to celebrate local businesses. So we’re curating Portsmouth- and Southsea-centric prize bundles each month, starting with the following in January:

• A locally-designed sea-themed tee from Love Southsea
• A green juice cleanse programme from natural organic vegan store Wild Thyme on Palmerston Road

• A yoga class pass for two at Portsmouth Yoga in Albert Road
• Two tickets for a film of your choice at No. 6 Cinema throughout February
• £10.00 to spend at Greens Café beside Canoe Lake
• Two breakfasts at Southsea Beach Café

The theme for January 2017

The turn of a new year is also the turn of a new leaf for many people, so we’ve chosen ‘Fresh Starts’ for January’s competition theme. Again, you have complete creative freedom. You can be as literal or as abstract as you wish with your portrayal of the theme.

Competition rules and submitting photos

There are only three rules for our monthly photography competitions:

• Photos must be new, taken within each month, not submitted from archives — this makes it fairer and more fun for all participants!
• Photos must be taken in Portsmouth and Southsea — whether you’re down on Southsea Beach or up on Portsdown Hill, just as long as it’s in the PO postcode
• Photos must be submitted at a nice resolution, preferably — 1080px along the shortest edge is a good baseline, as anything below that may sacrifice photographic quality

There are two ways to submit photos:

• Directly: you can email your photos to info@teamlocals.co.uk, or message them to us on social media if you don’t mind the risks of photos being compressed in transit
• Indirectly: you can tag us in your photos on Instagram and Twitter — our handle on both is @teamlocals

We can’t give prizes to everyone unfortunately, but we plan to give every participant the attention and endorsement they deserve with end-of-month gallery posts on this site and across social media, promoting the photographers’ portfolios.

And that’s it! Team Locals’ first monthly photography competition is officially underway. Happy snapping!