In this tutorial you will be guided step by step in registering on this site and uploading your photos

Anyone wishing to submit photos for Lens op de Mens 2025 must first register. If you are already registered at the previous edition in 2023, you can simply log in with your 2023 username and password. Best to check your account details and update if necessary.
Registrations from editions before 2023 are no longer valid as we have started a new upload module in the competition software for edition 2023.

A file name is preferably composed by: Last name of the photographer_first name_serial number

Example: Johnsson_John_1

The file name of the photos should consist of a maximum of 32 characters and should not contain any special characters with accents, commas, umlauts, dots, tildes, etc. and therefore no non-Latin characters. Only aA-zZ and 0-9.

All selected photos will be printed on a square outer format of 60 x 60 cm with a white background. The photos themselves are printed 50 cm wide or high on their longest side. This can therefore be square or rectangular in height or width, depending on the shooting position of the photo. So the ideal resolution of a photo is 5906 pixels on its longest side for a 50 cm print at 300 dpi. This is the regulatory resolution.
In practice, we can accept photos of at least 4000 pixels on the longest side. This allows us to guarantee sufficient print quality and allows the jury to view details of the photos without too much loss of quality.

The total number of pixels in a file must not exceed 100 Megapixels (100 MP, 100 million pixels) otherwise it will not be accepted by the system. The number of pixels that make up a picture can be calculated by multiplying the pixels of the longest side by the pixels of the shortest side. If this is more than 100,000,000 pixels (100 MP) then the photo will not be accepted by the upload software. Some contemporary professional medium-format cameras (Hasselblad X2D 100C, Fujifilm GFX 100S, etc.) have a sensor resolution of more than 100 MP, but even in post-production the number of pixels of an image can be pushed up to over 100,000,000. This could be one of the reasons why problems occur when uploading your photos.

One photographer can submit up to 10 pictures.

The photographer pays 20 euros per photo submitted to share in the costs. Payment is made on-line via STRIPE after uploading your pictures.
The payment system only accepts credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, etc.).
Once the payment is complete, Stripe will send you a payment confirmation by e-mail. This is also confirmation that your photo upload was successful.

The payment system only accepts credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, etc.).
Those who do not have a credit card can exceptionally pay by transferring 20 euros per submitted photo to the account
BE20 7360 7262 3156 of LODM asbl with the following message: First name + Name + number of photos
Please notify us by sending an email to info@fotofestivalpelt.be.
Your entry will then be manually validated by the jury president. If an outstanding balance is still shown on the website afterwards, just ignore it, unless of course you added extra photos after the first payment.

Lens op de Mens npo benefits from the special VAT exemption scheme for small businesses. The charged € 20 per photo is therefore free of VAT.

Professional photographers who want an invoice can request this by e-mail at the secretariat, providing their company name, address and VAT number info@fotofestivalpelt.be

As long as your photo upload is not successful, you cannot make a payment. If your payment is successful, you will be sent a confirmation of this. So this is also proof that your submission has succeeded.

The pictures can have all possible aspect ratios.

Photographs that contain texts that have not been added by the photographer and are an essential part of the original recording are of course allowed. We do not allow any text added afterwards such as names or logos of the photographer to ensure the anonymity of the images when judging. We also do not allow digitally added borders around the photos as we strive for a uniform layout for all photos on display.

‘Photos’ generated entirely using AI-Artificial Intelligence (Chat GPT, DALL.E by Open AI, Midjourney and the like) will not be allowed into the contest.

Submitted pictures can form a series, but this is not mandatory.

All photos will be judged individually and not as a series. Therefore, it is possible that one or more photos from a series may not be selected by the judges.
We try to consider photos that clearly form a series when putting together the exhibition.
The curator of the exhibition decides which photographs will hang where. The curator may have a different vision than the photographers and may sometimes integrate photos that belong together for the photographer in different places in the exhibition. Usually the connection between the photos is then not really clear and they stand out better separately between photos that are put together in terms of subject, color, theme, etc. by the curator.​

The main theme of Lens op de Mens (Focus on Man) is, of course, ‘human beings’. The sub-theme for edition 2023 is ‘humour’.

In a world that does not seem to be emerging from a crisis, we want to sound optimistic from Pelt. Therefore, we challenge photographers to submit humour photos to bring smiles to our visitors.
Humour is not a compulsory theme. It is a separate category within Lens op de Mens. However, humour photos must respond to the theme ‘man’. There must be a human element in the humour photos submitted.

There is no need to insert the word ‘humour’ in the file name of your photo. We count on the humour factor of these photos to speak for itself.

A special ‘humour award’ will be presented for the most humorous photo.

A photo festival in Overpelt can give Pelt an identity far outside the town borders. Photography is a low-entry form of art which a lot of people practice. An image can be moving, touching. On top of that current (affordable) printing techniques allow for an outdoor exhibition. In France we saw an event that has been taking place for many years and that has put the village on the international map.

​The cultural centre of Palethe has already had experience with photography exhibitions thanks to the photography circuit and in-house photographers. A large scale photo festival like this, is the next logical step.

The aim of the festival is to have at least 500 photos in the streets of Pelt: on walls, in public parks and on pillars along a route of approximately 2km. There are also some indoor locations such as CC Palethe, Pelle Melle, etc. Photos of 60 by 60 cm will be printed on aluminium Dibond panels.

The theme of the exhibition is ‘Lens op de Mens – Spotlight on people’. It shows how Pelt cares about its people. 

Keen amateur and professional photographers can enter this festival. An international jury will grade the photos and select the ones that will be printed and shown in the streets. You can also win an award although they are symbolic rather than financial.

Anyone who is interested is welcome to visit. For children, there will be photo challenges.

Photos can be collected after the festival at the cultural centre of Palethe. Exact dates to be communicated here after the festival ended. Photos that are not collected will become property of the organization. There is no guarantee for the condition of the photos.

In the e-mail you received earlier about which of your photos were selected, you will find the A(mateur) number or P(rofessional) number of your photos.
Via the lists below you can find out at which POI – Point of Interest your photos are exhibited. The location of the POIs is indicated on the map.

Locations amateur photographers
Locations professional photographers

There are sponsors and partners. We cooperate with two national associations of professional photographers. Also Breedbeeld and Lensculture support our initiative. The region of Flanders  is supporting the festival, but we are always looking for new sponsors. In 2020 we entered into a partnership with the Royal Photographic Society (RPS).

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