General Rules & Regulations for all categories
1. The 2024 Voice of the Ocean Competition is open to entrants of all skill levels. Employees of Asian Geographic Magazines Pte Ltd (including field editors, contest judges and employees of its subsidiaries, partners and affiliates), their immediate family members (parents, spouse, children, siblings and their respective spouses) and persons living in the same households of such individuals (whether or not related) are not eligible to enter or win a prize.
2. Winners of the 2024 Voice of the Ocean Competition will be displayed at the ADEX 2024 show. The results will be published in Asian Diver as well as on uw360.asia.
3. Photographers retain all copyrights to their images. Asian Geographic Magazines Pte Ltd and all titles under its name retain the right to publish the contest entries to congratulate the winners and to promote future events and will not be required to pay any additional consideration or seek any additional approval in connection with such use in any media now or hereafter known, without restriction, including commercially using it to the fullest extent possible.
4. By entering the 2024 Voice of the Ocean Competition, entrant represents, acknowledges and warrants that the submitted photograph is an original work created solely by the entrant, that the photograph does not infringe on the copyrights, trademarks, moral rights, rights of privacy/publicity or intellectual property rights of any person or entity, and that no other party has any right, title, claim or interest in the photograph.
5. Marine life should never be stressed or endangered for the sake of a photo/video. Entries suspected of exhibiting the following behaviour will be disqualified:
a. Divers visibly damaging the environment (e.g. gear dragging or kicking up sand)
b. Animals with signs of stress (e.g. puffed puffers, inking octopus)
c. Animals moved to an unnatural environment or risky location
d. Animals being fed (especially with artificial food from divers)
e. Marine life being touched (e.g. coral polyps, seahorse tails)
f. Divers exhibiting poor buoyancy control
6. Images/videos/art works that have won or placed in photo contests announced before 28 February 2024 may not be submitted. A winning image/video/art work is defined as any image/video/piece of art that has placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in any contest that has resulted in prizes worth USD100 or more.
7. Images that have been published before and videos that have been produced for broadcast television may not be submitted.
8. Photoshop manipulation is LIMITED TO:
a. Tonal corrections and colour corrections (no dodging/burning allowed)
b. Moderate sharpening and saturation (but blurring of backgrounds is not allowed)
c. Removing or repairing dirt and lint from scanned negatives; or noise and faulty pixel and damage from digital images
d. Cropping, but only 10% of the original image. (Contestants will be bound by the honour system.) Submissions which have obviously been heavily cropped will be disqualified
9. All images need to have been taken underwater. Split shots are allowed.
10. Entries may have been taken from any camera: film (as scanned slides) or digital.
11. Model release is the responsibility of the copyright holder.
12. Staff and judges are not responsible for loss or any damage to photo/video submissions.
13. Video stills cannot be submitted as photo entries.
14. Judges’ decision will be final.
15. By participating in the 2024 Voice of the Ocean Competition, you accept the contest rules.
Additional rules for the video category
– All videos must be LIMITED TO 5 minutes long, not including titles or credits where underwater footage is not used. Absolute length including titles and credits may not exceed 5 minutes.
– Please remove all credits and watermarks from the video, this is to reduce bias during our live judging!
– A minimum of 50% of the footage must have been taken underwater.
– Videos should not show deliberate harassment of the marine creatures (please see Rule #5), unless this harassment is the ecological point of the video.
– Please ensure that you have all rights to any media that is used in your video(s) (music, visual footage, personal, copyright, or any other legal rights)
– Multiple videographers and editors are allowed, but only the submitter will be awarded the prize.
Additional rules for the art category
– This category includes all other forms of marine life related art works, not including photography and videography.
– We do not expect the original art works from the participants. All entries can be submitted as highres photos of the original art works to be pre-judged.
– Participant may send us the original art work. Asian Geographic Magazine P/L (organizers of VOC 2024) will not take responsibility for any damage or lost of the art work and will NOT cover the costs of shipping from/to Singapore. Any additional costs incurred such insurance and taxes of submitted items will be borne by the participants.
Additional rules for the VLOG category
– ALL VLOG entries MUST BE related to the OCEAN
– All VLOG entries MUST BE A MINIMUM of 5 seconds to A MAXIMUM of 30 seconds in duration.
– VLOG entries MUST BE taken by Actions Cameras, Smartphones and Mobile Video-Capturing devices ONLY.
– All VLOG entries MUST BE in the original format with NO additional effects or manipulation.
– All VLOG entries MUST BE taken in one continuous shot AND in an unbroken sequence.
– VLOG edits are ONLY ALLOWED for the shortening of video duration AND/OR exportation of video file to that of a readable format.
– VLOG entries should not show deliberate harassment of the marine creatures (please see Rule #5), unless this harassment is the ecological point of the video.
– Please ensure that you have all rights to any media that is used in your video(s) (music, visual footage, personal, copyright, or any other legal rights)
– Original raw video formats might be required for video verifications