As photographers we are passionate about our craft and vision of the world around us. That makes us vulnerable as our passion has great influence on our business decisions. It will be one of the struggles you will have if you pursue your passion as a vocation. It is hard to step back, take your heart out of it, and make decisions completely from a business perspective.
In this new digital era, photo contest have sprung up everywhere. It can be very tempting to jump in and enter. Many of these contest play upon your passion and use that to their benefit. The big question is – how do you know which one to enter? I receive emails about this frequently so I want to share some thoughts on this subject.
There are two questions to ask;
1. What is my goal or expectation by submitting to this contest? In other words “What does it do for me?”
2. What does this do for the person or organization that is running the competition?
To answer the first question, you must be completely honest with yourself. If you are an amateur and want to participate for fun because it would be exciting to win, then just about any contest is ok to enter. However, if you have any expectations of how winning will add to your credibility as a photographer and help advance your career, then you need to do some research.
There are only a handful of credible contest that are prestigious and that draw the attention of editors, stock agents, and other industry influencers. These are generally inexpensive and offer exposure to your work in a major publication or exhibit. Examples of theses are; the BBC Wildlife photographer of the Year, Natures best, and Travel Photographer of the Year. If you look through the winners of past contest, you will notice many names of top professionals.
To answer the second question take some time to view the contest I mentioned above with live links to their sites. You will notice; the judges are some of the top professionals in the industry, it is NOT a popularity contest, there is not a payment per image entered, and you are not asked to go onto your social media sites to get votes for your image or galleries. This is usually a marketing ploy to bring more people to sign up and pay for the contest or to promote their organization. I did a post on a known publication that runs such a contest where I felt they crossed the line of integrity. You can read more about it here.
Before entering a contest, make sure it honestly matches your expectations.
again, thanks a million for sharing your talents with us
Thank you Phyllis, I enjoy sharing what give me so much joy!
I find entering photo contests a total waste of time and energy. Usually, the winners are so far ahead of my expertise (which I deem to be far above average) that I don’t have a chance in hell. Also, the prizes are usually not commensurate with the effort. I once won a $100 photo software program, and never used it. I also won a cover of a travel company- nice for the ego, but nothing more. In the old days, I would get my works back with bent corners, and tape all over, and even scratched. Of course, even the entry fees are daunting. Knowing the editors have thousands of images to review, I am not expecting more than a brief glance and rejection. The damage to my entires was also a problem. Not so, with digital entries. For now, I am happy to just burna DVD slide show for my own friends and those from my travels for memories.
I’m glad I have found your blog!
I think if you start out trying to “win” photo contests on a big level you will be entering for the wrong reasons. I have entered a few large competitions that I knew going in I would not win, but it was just for the fun of it as you said in your article. I have also entered local magazine competitions without any expectations. Again, just for the fun of it. Those I have actually done quite well with and have had several images printed in the local magazine hosting the competition. It’s great fun for me to hear what the judges think…. and for me, that is the real prize. 🙂
Patty
It is great that you have had good experiences and you are entering for the right reasons. I just wanted to bring to light the questionable ethics that some of the credible publication are using to make money with sneaky marketing ploys and it really has nothing to do with the quality of ones work.