Categories & Rules

Groups & Categories

Two groups, four categories

The 6th WMPA has a Theme Group and an Open Group, each with two categories. Each category is entered, judged and awarded separately.

Group	Category
Group 1 · Theme: "Home"	Single Photo
	Photo Series (4–6 images)
Group 2 · Open	Nature & Landscape
	Art & Creativity

Group 1 · Theme: "Home"

Home is more than a place where we live: it holds our memories, emotions, and sense of belonging, serving as a spiritual anchor wherever life may take us.

Home is where we live. It is also memory, emotion and belonging, the spiritual harbor of a life on the move. Use your photographs to tell the bonds between people and family, land, nature and culture, and to express your memories of home, how you protect and love it, and what you hope for it.

Show the land that raised you, the mountains and rivers your heart longs for, or a familiar corner of your city. Photograph family, friends and pets, and the nature, culture and daily scenes that carry human warmth. Entries may be straight documentary, or may express your idea of "home" creatively through concept, viewpoint, light and technique.

• Single Photo: one photograph per entry.
• Photo Series: a group of 4–6 photographs on the same subject, entered as one work. Up to three series per entrant.
• Shooting location: entrants must state where each photo was taken. To protect privacy, give only the city, state or province, and country; no street address is needed. Locations will be a featured part of this year's awards.
• Allowed capture methods: the phone's built-in camera and camera apps, including long exposure and intentional camera movement (ICM).

Post-processing allowed: standard adjustments to exposure, contrast, white balance, color and sharpness; cropping and horizon correction; dust-spot removal and noise reduction; AI-assisted noise reduction, masking and subject selection; multiple exposures and focus stacking that comply with these rules.

Not allowed: changing the composition or substance of the original scene; using generative fill, generative expand or any other generative AI tool to create or alter image content; submitting work created wholly or partly by AI.

Group 2 · Open

Single photographs on any subject other than the "Home" theme. Photo series are not accepted in this group.

I. Nature & Landscape. Natural elements such as animals, plants or natural phenomena, or works with the landscape as the main subject. Allowed: standard adjustments to exposure, contrast, white balance, color and sharpness; cropping and horizon correction; dust-spot removal and noise reduction. Not allowed: changing the composition or substance of the original scene; adding, replacing, moving or removing compositional elements; using generative AI tools to create or alter substantive content; submitting work created wholly or partly by AI.

II. Art & Creativity. Any subject. We encourage every kind of photographic, creative and artistic technique to express your ideas, emotions and imagination. Post-processing and re-creation are unrestricted, including abstract and conceptual images and visual art. Work created wholly or partly by AI is not accepted.

Entry Requirements

Before you submit

• All entries must be original work taken by the entrant with a mobile phone, tablet or iPad.
• Each entry must have a title; a brief description is encouraged.
• Color and black-and-white works are both accepted.
• No watermarks, signatures or borders.
• Keep the original files and complete photo information. The organizers may request originals for verification.
• There is no restriction on when a photo was taken.
• JPEG format, with the long side at least 1,024 pixels and a file size of no more than 10 MB.
• Works that won any award in a previous Washington Mobile Photography Awards are not accepted.
• Entries will not be returned. By entering, participants authorize the Awards and the organizing committee to use their works free of charge for positive promotion and display.
• Members of the organizing committee and the jury may not enter.
• Portraits already used, or intended, for commercial purposes are not accepted. If a work includes an identifiable person, the entrant must obtain the subject's permission in advance and ensure the work does not infringe anyone's privacy or portrait rights. Entrants bear sole legal responsibility for their entries.
• Entries submitted through commercial photography agencies are not accepted.
• Photographers under 18 must have a parent or adult guardian submit on their behalf.
• Works promoting violence, or containing pornographic, vulgar or otherwise inappropriate content, are prohibited, as are works whose main purpose is commercial advertising or product promotion.
• Use of AI: no visual element generated wholly or partly by generative AI may be submitted. Basic AI-assisted editing tools such as de-noise, masking, subject selection and tone adjustment are allowed.