• Deadline for Submissions: September 30, 2025
  • Maximum of 5 Entries per WPMC member
  • Submit high resolution JPEG files
  • Rename images before submitting, using name and subject, e.g., “Joe Smith morel.jpg”
  • Email entries to Sara Klingensmith at [email protected].
  • Indicate in your email the desired category for each photo.

You must be a member of the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club in good standing to enter.  Club dues must be up to date.  Photos submitted by non-members will not be considered.

Use and copyright: WPMC may use your photographs on the website, newsletter and Mushroom Catalog and when we do, they will always be accompanied by your name as photographer (mentioned on the same page or caption of the image). WPMC will not allow the use of your photographs on other websites, although realistically we cannot prevent this. We will not sell or provide the images to others without your permission and the images remain the property and under the copyright of you the photographer and are used under license by the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club.

Entry Divisions

Pictorial: This division is for single photos that illustrate the beauty and variety of fungi in form and color. The objective is a photo suitable for display or illustration in a fine book. Judging criteria include consideration of both technical (focus, depth of field, exposure, lighting, color, absence of distracting elements) and artistic (composition, color, background, lighting) aspects.

Documentary: For single photographs especially suited as illustrations in a field guide or monograph, or for use in a lecture. Emphasis is placed on portrayal of key morphological characteristics such that the usefulness of the image as an identification aid is maximized. Subjects may be shot in the field, laboratory or studio and the photographer has complete freedom to process, manipulate, or orient the specimen in any desired manner to achieve the goal. Close-ups of single features and photomicrographs are acceptable. Judging criteria will be the same as in the Pictorial category but they will be of secondary importance to the overall mycological utility of the photo. Accurate identification of the subject will be a consideration.

Judge’s Option: For photos which do not fit into the Pictorial or Documentary divisions. Examples include fungi in an interesting situation, fungi with animals, people enjoying fungi.

Mushroom Selfies (New!): Entries must be single, self-taken (“selfie”) cell phone photos of you with at least one mushroom. You may also include other willing people, your pets, and other animals that happen to cross the background in the photo. You may use selfie sticks, but no other person may take the photo for you.

Subject material: Organisms from the Myxomycota (slime molds), the classes Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes of the Eumycota (“true fungi”), and Lichens are eligible.  For Judge’s Option, nearly anything goes, so long as the theme relates to fungi, and fungi are a key element of the photograph.

 

Last years winners can be found here.