Welcome to PSSA – Guidelines for Members

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In the letter from Karen Fischer, our Membership Secretary, your region and regional director were confirmed.  If you would like to contact your regional director because you might have questions, you will find his or her contact details on this page here on the PSSA website.  It also gives you some insight into the entire management structure of PSSA.

The Member Zone is an area for members only on the PSSA website and it grants you access to the PSSA database where all your details are stored. 

To access the Member Zone, find it on one of the several green buttons at the top of the home page of this website.  You can also just click here to access the Member Zone.  Once you have logged in, you can change your details such as your address (which must always be a street address) or email address and club details, if and when necessary.  If you are unable to make changes there for some reason, Karen can be requested to make those member changes for you.

You will need your member number, the M-number, to register in the Member Zone.

Photovault is entirely separate from the PSSA database. It is a platform where you can register and upload your photos for salons (photo competitions), for honours applications and if your club works through Photovault, also for club nights.

You also need your M-number to register on Photovault before any images can be uploaded.   

If your details are not updated in the Member Zone or Photovault, you will most likely miss out on any communication from PSSA to members.

PSSA members and non-PSSA members can participate in Salons (photo competitions).  Salons are presented by clubs for anyone to participate in.  You pay a small fee to participate. 

Every salon has a brochure on which you will find the conditions and closing date of the salon.  Brochures are published on the website.  The name of the salon is often the name of the club presenting the salon.  Each salon has a Salon Director.    After a salon has been judged, the results are published on the website too.  

You will find two or three salons to participate in every month.  
The salon year runs from 1 July every year, ending June of the next year.  Click here for the Salon Calendar ending June 2025.  

You enter your images on Photovault and because you are a member, you will find that members pay less for salon entries than non-PSSA members.

Good luck if and when you decide to participate! You will need salon acceptances eventually to progress up the club ranking if you are interested.  Salon acceptances are listed on the Impala Trophy log.  You will find the Impala Trophy results after each salon here.

Apart from Salons where you can submit your images to be judged, there are several other competitions you can participate in.  Competitions can be divided into Monthly, Annual and International Competitions.  You can read all about them here on the website.

One of the monthly competitions where you can submit an image each month is the Website Competition.  The only prerequisite is that you must be a PSSA member and your image must not have been a finalist or winner in the same month’s senior or junior club competition.  Read more here.

Salons and competitions offer you various platforms to enter your images in.  Often images that do well in one competition, do not so well in other competitions, there are never any guarantees.  If an image does well in all competitions, then you know you have a winner!

Honours are awards made to members in recognition of a high standard of photographic ability and/or service to PSSA and to photography in general.   You also need to be a member to apply and submit a panel of images to be judged by a panel of judges.

Honours can be a LPSSA, APSSA or FPSSA, etc.

LPSSA (Licentiateship) requires 10 of your best images
APSSA (Associateship) requires 15 of your best images
FPSSA (Fellowship) requires 25 of your best images, and so forth.  

Panels can be submitted (on Photovault) twice per annum in January and July.  Read more about it here on the website.

Member Honours Listing shows all member honours and can be found here under the Honours tab.

As a member, you can also be awarded with Diamond ratings DPSSA & EPSSA.

Diamond Ratings are for achievements in:

•  South African National and South African International Salons
•  All other International Salons

Read more about it here on the website.

As a member, you will receive the PSSA newsletter, the e-News, from our Public Relations Officer, Evelyn Gibson.  

If your email address is correct in the Member Zone (which means on the PSSA database), you will receive this newsletter directly in your inbox towards the end of every month (excluding the end of January).  It keeps you up to date on the matters ongoing in PSSA and also on the winners of the Senior & Junior monthly competitions among the clubs, as well as the Website competition winners.  

It is, therefore, important to keep PSSA up to date on any changes to your email address.  As a backstop, the e-News is also available on the website on the home page.  You will find it on one of the green buttons at the top of the page.

You also have access to PSSA’s online magazine, the e-Image which is made available three or four times per annum.  You will become aware of its availability in the monthly newsletter, the e-News.  

On the home page among the green buttons at the top, you can click on the e-Image magazine which you will not only find good photographic reading, but also excellent referencing material.  You can read it online on any device, but the magazine can also be downloaded if you want to read it offline.

If you have photography-related articles you deem fit for publication in the e-Image, feel free to contact our editor, Jill Sneesby.

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