2026 Preserve the Moment contest rules

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 (Forest Preserve) employees, volunteers, 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 Forest Preserve reserves the right to verify, in its sole judgment, winner eligibility.
E.) Rules are subject to change without notice but will be posted on this page. 

II. Contest Entry/Photograph Submission

A.) Contestants must submit their entries via the online upload tool at ReconnectWithNature.org. No prints will be accepted.
B.) Contest entries for each month must be uploaded by 11:59 p.m. Central Standard Time on the last day of the month.
C.) Each contestant is limited to five (5) contest entries per month.  
D.) Submitted photographs must be taken within a Will County Forest Preserve or District trail during the contest period (February 1 through December 31, 2026) and the preserve or trail must be listed on the "location" field of the submission form to be a valid submission. Simply listing the town where it was taken is not valid.
E.) 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.
F.) 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 upon request.
G.) Photographs must be appropriate for posting on a public government website. Obscene, provocative, or otherwise questionable content will not be considered. The Forest Preserve retains sole discretion as to what constitutes inappropriate content.

III.  Photo Format

A.) Digital photographs must be submitted in .jpg format.
B.) Photographs may be either in vertical or horizontal format.
C.) Photos must be 10 MB or less.

IV.  Judging

A.) Each month from February through December 2026, a panel of judges will select the top photo among those submitted during that time period. Judges base their decisions on the following qualities: focus, lighting, composition, impact, creativity, and storytelling, with an eye also toward submissions with native species. The decisions of the judges are final.
B.) Each monthly winner will then go head-to-head in a public vote on the Forest Preserve’s Facebook page to determine first-, second- and third-place winners for the overall contest.
C.) A participant may only be selected as a monthly winner a maximum of three times during each contest year.
D.) In the event of a tie for any place in the online voting for the overall contest winners, the prize money will be divided among the places that tie (e.g., a tie for second would be broken by dividing the prize money for second and third in half and awarding it equally to both winners).

V.  Use of the Photos

A.) In the event that ownership of any photograph submitted to the Forest Preserve is contested in any manner, the Forest Preserve reserves the right at its discretion to disqualify the photograph from the contest.
B.) Entries that fail to comply with the Contest Rules will be disqualified without notice.
C.) No watermarked photos will be accepted. Submitted photos should not include watermarks of any kind to ensure fair, anonymous judging and to prevent visual distraction.
D.) No AI-generated or AI-enhanced images are allowed in this contest. All entries must be original photographs taken by the entrant, with minimal post-processing that does not involve generative AI tools (e.g., AI image creation, AI scene replacement, or similar technologies). Our team will do its best to identify and disqualify AI-generated submissions. However, due to the evolving nature of AI and its increasing realism, some AI images may slip through undetected. By entering the contest, you acknowledge and accept this possibility. Our decisions on suspected AI images are final and made at our sole discretion.
E.) Upon submission of a photograph for contest entry, the contestant grants both the Forest Preserve and The Nature Foundation of Will County non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license rights to use, reproduce, distribute, and publish submitted photograph on its website or in publications, brochures, calendars and newsletters and for other marketing and promotional uses, as well as distribute it to the media. The Forest Preserve 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 Forest Preserve 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 will receive a MasterCard gift card ($500 value).
B.) The second-place winner will receive a MasterCard gift card ($250 value).
C.) The third-place winner will receive a MasterCard gift card ($150 value).
D.) Monthly finalists will receive a MasterCard gift card ($75 value).
E.) At the conclusion of the contest, three random drawings also will be held for all contest participants. The three winners will each receive a MasterCard gift card ($75 value). Only those participants who have not won a prize in the 2026 contest will be eligible for the drawing.
F.) The prizes are nontransferable, and no cash alternative is available.

VII.  Legal Conditions

A.) By entering the contest, participants warrant that their entry materials are original and do not infringe on any third party's rights, and that they have obtained any necessary permissions from any third party if a third party or third party's property appears in the photograph. The Forest Preserve 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 Forest Preserve shall be final and binding.
B.) By entering, participants release and hold harmless the Forest Preserve, its affiliated organizations, and each of its 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 Forest Preserve, any prize won, any use of the entry materials by the Forest Preserve, the warranties participants make, any misuse or malfunction of any prize awarded, participation in any Forest Preserve-related activity, access to and use of the Forest Preserve's website, 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 website or undermine the legitimate operation of the Forest Preserve is a violation of criminal and civil laws, and should such an attempt be made, the Forest Preserve reserves the right to seek damages to the fullest extent permitted by law.
D.) The Forest Preserve is not responsible for any incorrect or inaccurate information, whether caused by website users or by any equipment or programming associated with or utilized by the Forest Preserve, or by any technical or human error that may occur in the processing of submissions to the Forest Preserve, including but not limited to any misprints or typographical errors. The Forest Preserve 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 Forest Preserve is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer equipment, servers, providers, computer online systems, software, or failure of email on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any website, including injury or damage to participants 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 Forest Preserve 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 Forest Preserve that corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the contest, the Forest Preserve reserves the right at its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the contest.
G.) The Forest Preserve 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 emailed to [email protected].