Poland's undiscovered beauties

With the summer just around the corner, the Polish edition of National Geographic is encouraging both the professional and amateur photographers to grab their cameras and cell phones start taking pictures. For the past two years more than 110,000 pictures in the Nature, People, Culture, Extreme and My Adventure with National Geographic categories were submitted to a professional jury headed by Tomasz Tomaszewski. For the first time this year the participants can also submit pictures taken by cell phone in the Fotoplay category, with subcategories Capture the Moment and Fotoblog.

"We are looking for quality, not quantity and we are happy we've been getting what we were expecting - incredible pictures with no trace of Photoshop," National Geographic Polska's editor-in-chief Martyna Wojciechowska says. She adds that the difference between professional and the amateur photographers is very hard to discern. "It is significant that the winners of the past two editions are amateurs who got the chance to enter the professional league [through] us," she says. The unofficial theme of this year's contest will be "The Undiscovered Beauties of Poland." "Our country is unique and we would like to see that in the pictures," Tomasz Tomaszewski says.

Each participant can send in up to five photos for each category by August 31. The winners, who will receive prizes from Nikon, HP and SAS, will be announced on September 24. The success of the competition won National Geographic Polska the "Best New Product Launch Campaign" award in 2006. Currently 16 National Geographic editions worldwide organize such photo competitions.