I.  Eligibility

A.) Contestants must be 18 years old or older and U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents (green card).
B.) Forest Preserve District of Will County (FPDWC) employees and Board members and their immediate family members are not eligible to participate in the contest.  Immediate family includes only spouses, parents, and children.
C.) Professional photographers who receive all or a major part of their income from photography are not eligible to participate in the contest.
D.) The FPDWC reserves the right to verify, in its sole judgment, winner eligibility.
E.) Rules are subject to change without notice but will be posted at ReconnectWithNature.org.

II.  Contest Entry / Photograph Submission

A.) Contestants must submit their entries via the on-line upload tool at ReconnectWithNature.org.  No prints will be accepted.
B.) Each contestant is limited to five (5) contest entries.   
C.) Submitted photographs must be taken within a Will County forest preserve.
D.) Minor digital enhancements for cropping, red-eye removal, filters, and corrective functions are permitted, but images that have been judged to be altered in any significant manner will be disqualified.  Contestants are not permitted to place borders, frames, or backgrounds around their images or to place watermarks, dates, signatures, or copyright images onto photos.
E.) If a submitted photograph contains a recognizable person, the contestant must have permission to distribute the photograph from the subject or, in the case of a minor, the subject's parent or guardian, and must provide written permission to the Forest Preserve District upon request.
F.) Photographs must be appropriate for posting on a public government Web site. Obscene, provocative or otherwise questionable content will not be considered.  The FPDWC retains sole discretion as to what constitutes inappropriate content.
G.) Contest entries must be uploaded via the on-line upload tool at ReconnectWithNature.org by 11:59 p.m. Central Standard Time on February 15, 2010.

III.  Photo Format

A.) Digital photographs may be submitted in .jpg or .gif formats.
B.) Photographs must be color.
C.) Photographs may be either in vertical or horizontal format.

IV.  Judging

A.) Judges base their decisions on the following qualities: focus, lighting, composition, impact, creativity, and storytelling.
B.) Photos received are reviewed by a panel of FPDWC staff for basic qualification, and are then judged by a panel of FPDWC staff and independent professional photographer(s).
C.) The decisions of the judges are final.

V.  Use of the Photos

A.) In the event that ownership of any photograph submitted to the FPDWC is contested in any manner, the FPDWC reserves the right to disqualify the photograph from the contest.
B.) Entries that fail to comply with the Contest Rules will be disqualified.
C.) Upon submission of a photograph for contest entry, the contestant grants the FPDWC non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license rights to use, reproduce, distribute, and publish submitted photograph on its Web site or in publications, brochures, newsletters, and for other marketing and promotional uses.  The FPDWC recognizes that the photographer owns the image and the copyright to the photograph.  Upon submission of a photograph for contest entry, the contestant also grants the FPDWC the right to use the contestant's name, city, and state of residence in promotions and other publications.

VI.  Prizes

A.) The first-place winner of the contest will receive a digital camcorder and choice of Forest Preserve District of Will County 2009/2010 in-county picnic or dog park permit (Approximate Retail Value U.S. $325.00). 
B.) The second-place winner of the contest will receive a picnic set and choice of Forest Preserve District of Will County 2009/2010 in-county picnic or dog park permit (Approximate Retail Value U.S. $175.00). 
C.) The third-place winner of the contest will receive a set of “Protect Our Earth” glasses (Approximate Retail Value U.S. $50.00). 
D.) The prizes are nontransferable, and no cash alternative is available.

VII.  Legal Conditions

A.) By entering, participant warrants that his or her entry materials are original, do not infringe on any third party’s rights, and that participant has obtained any necessary permissions from any third party if a third party or third party’s property appears in the photograph.  The FPDWC reserves the right to disqualify any entry if it finds in its sole discretion that any of the foregoing warranties are not true.  Decisions of the FPDWC shall be final and binding.
B.) By entering, participants release and hold harmless the FPDWC, its affiliated organizations, and each of their directors, officers, employees, attorneys, agents, and representatives from any and all liability for any injuries, loss, claim, action, demand, or damage of any kind arising from or related to the FPDWC, any prize won, any use of the entry materials by the FPDWC, the warranties participants make, any misuse or malfunction of any prize awarded, participation in any FPDWC-related activity, access to and use of the FPDWC’s Web site, the downloading or uploading and/or printing of material from said site, or participation in the contest.
C.) Any attempt by an entrant or other individual to deliberately damage any Web site or undermine the legitimate operation of the FPDWC is a violation of criminal and civil laws, and should such an attempt be made, the FPDWC reserves the right to seek damages to the fullest extent permitted by law.
D.) The FPDWC is not responsible for any incorrect or inaccurate information, whether caused by Web site users or by any equipment or programming associated with or utilized by the FPDWC, or by any technical or human error that may occur in the processing of submissions to the FPDWC, including but not limited to any misprints or typographical errors.  The FPDWC assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, or alteration of, photographs.  The FPDWC is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer equipment, servers, providers, computer on-line systems, software, or failure of e-mail on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Web site, including injury or damage to participant’s or to any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participating or uploading images or information in the contest.
E.) All federal, state, and local taxes, fees, and surcharges on prize packages are the sole responsibility of the winners. 
F.) If, for any reason, the FPDWC is not capable of completing the contest as planned, including, but not limited to, by reason of infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other causes beyond the control of the FPDWC that corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the contest, the FPDWC reserves the right at its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the contest.
G.) The Forest Preserve District of Will County is not responsible for lost, damaged, late, or misdirected photographs, or for uploading connections, garbled transmissions, unauthorized intervention, or technical malfunctions.

VIII.  Contact

A.) Questions and inquiries regarding contest rules or technical matters, including problems uploading photos, can be e-mailed to comments@fpdwc.org.


Return to the Entry Form.