About : Ethical Practices

PSA Ethical Practices

A person participating in activities of the Photographic Society of America (PSA) or activities recognized by PSA shall act in accordance with all PSA policies, both as written and as obviously intended, without reservation. All participants shall be honest in performing and reporting services to the Society. Participants shall be ethical in making and presenting photographic images. Participants not in compliance with this ethics statement will be subject to sanctions by PSA, including loss of PSA membership and/or awards and honors if a PSA Member.

Ethics Review Board

Ethics Review Board Chair ✉ Stuart Lynn, HonPSA, QPSA·

The Ethics Review Board (ERB) was created by the PSA Board of Directors in 2005 to encourage compliance with PSA's Ethics Statement and Policy and other adopted guidelines for exhibitions, competitions, and Society activities. The ERB is comprised of five PSA members, each experienced in the activities for which the ethics guidelines were developed, each serving a five-year term, the last year as Chair of the ERB. One new ERB member is added each year as the Chair departs. The positions are filled by PSA Presidential appointment, confirmed by the Board of Directors.

The work of the Ethics Review Board is to review and investigate matters that are referred to the ERB. The ERB Members obtain and review documentation related to potential violations of the PSA Ethics Policy and make recommendations to the Directors regarding alleged violations by PSA members of PSA ethics guidelines for exhibitions, competitions, and Society activities.

Compliance with ethics standards policy in force at the time of the alleged violation is first attempted by communication with the alleged violator requesting information and corrective action. This is followed by other appropriate measures by those in charge of exhibitions, competitions, and Society activities. If those measures are not successful and there is repeated violation, then the matter is referred to the ERB. The ERB may recommend no action be taken or that appropriate sanctions be imposed to encourage future compliance with the ethics policy.

If upon submission of a matter by the ERB to the Directors, the directors find there has been a breach of the ethics policy, sanctions may follow. These sanctions may include, but are not limited to: reprimand and warning; loss of a related opportunity, position, privilege, or recognition for a stated period; notification to appropriate awards and recognition committees; notification to appropriate Division officers; and other actions deemed appropriate.

PSA Ethics Coordinator ✉ Barbara Kuebler, APSA, MPSA·

The PSA Ethics Coordinator is the focal point for receiving complaints about an individual exhibition entrant’s potential serious violation of the PSA Statement of Ethics and/or of PSA Exhibition Standards (links on left).

Complaints regarding the management of exhibitions should be forwarded to the Exhibition Grievances Coordinator 

Any person having such a complaint for the PSA Ethics Coordinator should contact the PSAEC by email. 

When contacting the PSAEC please include the following information to the extent known and as appropriate:

• Entrant's Name 
• Entrant's Country
• Entrant's Email address
• Nature of the violation
• Exhibition where the violation(s) occurred
• Date(s) violation(s) occurred
• Image(s) in question?
• Other relevant information

Photographic Society of America (PSA) Ethics Policy Statement

Read PSA's new policy on the Legal and Ethical use of Aerial Photography, including Drone Photography

1. a. Images submitted to competitions shall originate as photographs by the entrant on photographic emulsion or acquired digitally. By virtue of submitting an entry the photographer certifies the work, including the original capture, as his/her own, including any adjustments or editing of digital image captures."
   
   b. Each Image must have a unique title. Once an image has been accepted in a PSA-recognized exhibition, that same image, or a like “in camera” or “reproduction” duplicate of that image:
   i.   May not be re-entered in any section of the same Division in that exhibition regardless of media, format, or title.
   ii.  May not be re-titled for entry in any other PSA-recognized exhibition.
   iii. Monochrome images and Color images from the same capture shall be considered the same images, with the same title.
   
   c.  Images submitted in internal competitions, contests, workshops, study-groups and the like shall strictly follow these standards, both written and as obviously intended, without reservation.
   
   
2. Information included in honors and awards proposals shall be exact and true.
   
   
3. Material submitted for possible publication in the PSA Journal and/or the PSA Website shall be solely the work of the author(s)*. Only PSA members may submit such material. Quotations from other material or gathered orally shall be carefully cited with credits given for all illustrations used, and permission use copyrighted material must be obtained by the author and included with the material submitted.
• Informative Note: In this context, work of the maker means that the work does not include any material copyrighted by others or commercial clip art elements, including borders, graphics or photographs. Use of filters, such as those in Photoshop or third party plug-ins such as those by NIK or TOPAZ to create or modify such elements are allowed and is not considered a violation of this ethics statement.

  The opening paragraph of the Ethics statement is also contained in the Exhibition Standards as the final section.

Ethics Statement & Standards Policy Revised April 2014