The Desert Camera Club normally holds competitions at about half the regular Meetings during the Club year. The competition year begins in December. Competitions are normally held in December, then in Januar, March, May, and October of the following year. Changes to this schedule are posted on the website.

Although images entered are scored and awards are made, the primary purpose of these competitions is as a learning experience for club members to improve their photographic skills. A key corollary purpose of competitions is to stimulate members to take more photographs, this being a fundamental prerequisite to photographic improvement, and to learn through judges' comments how their work might be improved.

For all images entered into competition, the original image must be made by the entrant on photographic emulsion or acquired digitally. All images must be original and may not incorporate elements produced by anyone else. In particular, images are not acceptable in DCC competitions that are for all intents and purposes photographs or direct manipulations of images* that are the work of others where there has been no substantive value added by the entrant.

Subject to divisional restrictions (in particular, 'reality-based' competitions such as Nature, Photo Travel, and Photojournalism), images may be altered by the maker, and artwork or computer graphics created by the entrant may be incorporated, if the photographic content predominates. Images may not be constructed entirely within a computer.

This definition does not disallow entry of photographs of sculptures, for example, where there are issues of lighting, angle, surrounding etc; or, say, of people viewing an exhibition of paintings at a gallery.

*Such as photographs, paintings, or newspaper clippings.