IN FOCUS Contest Rules

IN FOCUS Vol. 01 is organised by DiaboloFocus (the “organiser”, “we”, “us”):

Questions about these rules go to that address.

IN FOCUS is a photo contest for the diabolo community. Vol. 01 asks for one thing: the peak — the second a trick works, in a single photograph.

Entry is free. There is nothing to buy, and buying something does not improve your chances. This is a skill contest (Preisausschreiben, § 661 BGB): photos are judged on their merit by a jury, not drawn at random.

All times are Central European Summer Time (Berlin). Late entries are not judged.

You need a free DiaboloFocus account to enter. That is what ties an entry to you: it lets you change your photos before the deadline, and it is how one person, one entry is enforced rather than merely asked for.

Fill in the entry form on diabolofocus.com/in-focus and upload your photo. You will need to give an email address, the name of the diabolist, the name of the photographer, and your country, and to tick the three confirmation boxes. You will get a confirmation email. If it does not arrive within an hour, check your spam folder and then write to us — an entry we cannot see is an entry that cannot win.

You can change your photos at any time until entries close, from your entry on the contest page. Each photo is separate: one you add goes into review and appears in the gallery once we have looked at it, one you remove is deleted along with the likes it had, and the ones you keep are untouched.

The form is the only way to enter. Photos sent by email, by DM, or tagged on Instagram are not entries.

Up to 3 photos per person, submitted as one entry. Each photo competes on its own and is judged separately — but a person can hold only one place in the results and only one slot in the Top 10, so your strongest photo is the one that carries you.

Edit it the way you would edit any photograph: crop, straighten, exposure, contrast, colour, dodge and burn, spot removal, and compositing or collage done by hand in an editor like Photoshop. That is all allowed and it is part of the craft.

What is not allowed is AI: no AI-generated images, no generative fill, no AI sky replacement, no AI-added or AI-removed objects or people. If you built it yourself, by hand, in an editor, it is fine. If a model generated it for you, it is not. We may ask any entrant for the original file(s) to check, and an entry we cannot verify does not get judged.

To keep this simple and fair, one entry has one owner: the person who submits it. That person is the one we email, the one we credit first, and the one who receives the prize. If you are entering a photo you did not take yourself, you are confirming that the photographer knows, agrees, and is fine with you receiving the prize. How the two of you share it is between you — we pay or credit once, to one person, and we do not split prizes or mediate between entrants.

Both names are always published with the photo.

Two decisions are made, by two different deciders:

The jury judges on how well the photo answers the theme, on the strength of the image itself, and on the moment it caught. Not on trick difficulty, not on follower count. The Community Pick is decided by public vote among the Top 10 and is not judged on any criterion — it is simply the entry with the most votes, counting the site ballot and the Instagram comments together. Gallery likes are not votes and are not counted.

One tie-break, stated in advance: where the jury rates two photos equally, the one taken during the contest period wins. The brief is meant to be shot for, and the EXIF capture date is what settles it.

The jury’s assessment is final and is not open to review (§ 661 (2) BGB). This does not affect your statutory rights.

Any photo in the gallery can be liked by anyone with a DiaboloFocus account, as many photos as you like, once each — separately for each photo, including two photos by the same person — and you can take a like back. Likes are public applause. They decide no prize and are not counted towards the Community Pick — an entry shown early would otherwise collect weeks of likes an entry shown late could never match.

Once the Top 10 is published, anyone with a DiaboloFocus account can vote for one photo. One vote per person. An account is required because that is the only way one vote per person means anything. Vote-buying, bots, duplicate accounts and coordinated vote drives will get a photo removed from the vote — we will look at the pattern, not just the number.

The Top 10 is also posted on @diabolofocus, numbered 1 to 10. Commenting a photo’s number on that post counts as a vote for it, and those votes are added to the votes cast on the site. One comment per Instagram account counts — the first one; later comments and edits are ignored. We cannot match an Instagram account to a DiaboloFocus account, so somebody who votes on the site and comments on the post is counted in both. If the comments on a photo show a coordinated pattern, that photo’s comment votes may be discounted or the photo removed from the vote under section 11.

The Community Pick is a separate prize. A photo can win both a jury place and the Community Pick.

Store credit is issued as DiaboloFocus loyalty points, expiring 12 months from issue, usable across our range, not exchangeable for cash and not transferable. Prizes are personal to the winner. There is no cash alternative except the one named for 1st place. Shipping of the diabolo is at the winner’s cost, as are any customs duties or import taxes outside the EU.

Any tax on a prize is the winner’s responsibility under the law of their own country.

Winners are announced on diabolofocus.com and on DiaboloFocus social media (Instagram, Facebook, X and others), and are contacted by email at the address given on the form.

If a winner does not reply within 14 days, we may not be able to award the prize. Prizes are sent within 30 days of a winner confirming their details.

You keep the copyright in your photo. Always. What you give us is a licence to publish it in connection with IN FOCUS, and a set of confirmations that the photo is yours to enter. This is set out in full in the Rights and Publication Licence, which forms part of these rules. Read it — it is short, and it says exactly what we can and cannot do with your work.

We collect what the form asks for: your email address, the names of the diabolist and the photographer, your country, your Instagram handle if you give one, and your photos.

Entries are processed on our website diabolofocus.com. Prize payouts may involve a bank or payment provider. We do not sell your data and we do not pass it to anyone else.

We keep entry data for as long as the contest archive is online. If you are not a finalist and you ask us to delete your photo and your entry, we will, and we will confirm it. Winners’ entries stay in the archive as a record of the result. Accounting records tied to a prize payout are kept for the periods German tax law requires.

You have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict and port your data, and to object, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what was lawful before. You can complain to a supervisory authority. Write to info@diabolofocus.com, and see our Privacy Policy for the rest.

We may remove an entry, without notice, if it breaks these rules, if it is not the entrant’s to submit, if it is AI-generated or AI-manipulated as described in section 6, if the vote around it is manipulated, or if it is hateful, harassing, or shows something that would put someone at real risk. If a disqualification happens after a prize is awarded, we can ask for the prize back.

If something outside our control makes it impossible to run the contest as described — technical failure, legal problem, or not enough entries to make a Top 10 meaningful — we may change the dates, adjust the prizes to something of equal value, or cancel. We will say so on this page and email everyone who entered. We will not do it to avoid paying a prize that has been won.

This contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram, Meta or X. Any information you give is given to DiaboloFocus, not to Instagram. You release Instagram, Meta and X from any claim connected to this contest.

German law applies. If you are a consumer, this does not remove the protection of any mandatory law of the country you live in. If you are a consumer resident in the EU, you can also use the European Commission’s online dispute resolution platform. We are not obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board, and we do not.

If any part of these rules turns out to be invalid, the rest stays in force.