It is important to choose your photo contest. If you search on the internet you will see that there are many photo competitions and that the first rule is to choose them well for avoiding some pitfalls.
Moreover, it is for this reason that All About Photo offers you a list of selected contests, national and international competitions to facilitate this choice.
Now that you have chosen your contest, Let's see how to put all the chances on your side with some tips and tricks to successfully win a photo contest. Do not dream either, we will not give you the keys to be certain to be the winner of the next contest, but tips and tricks to prepare well and thus put maximum chances on your side.
Read the rules and make sure you respect the theme of the photo contest
This seems obvious but as most photo contests have a specific theme, the first thing you need to do is to get it right and respect it. It would be a shame to make an off-topic with a technically perfect photo, but in this case an off-topic image can be fatal.
Very often the winning images of a photo contest are those that are made especially for the competition in question. So if you do not have in your library the ideal photo to illustrate the theme, then I advise you to start from scratch and work on an idea to make the photo that seems best suited to you.
And even if you have something to illustrate the theme from your stock, I recommend you to make a new picture, simply because if you realize that the picture you already have is better than your new work you can always send the previous one. The opposite is not possible if you have not done it, so put all the chances on your side!
The theme of the contest will certainly give you ideas that you would not have had before. To win a photo contest, you must think on how to stand out, you need to attract the attention of the jury with something different but also sometimes a photo that is too original may not please some jurors. The good choice is to find an in-between, it's also by looking at what has already been done that you will find inspiration.
One of the surest ways to stand out from the competition is also by paying attention to your composition. If you are not sure of yourself ask for a second opinion. Show your work to your closed ones before sending it. Also make sure that you get a perfect sharpness. Once again it seems obvious but I see so many pictures that are blurry in each contests. Make sure your image is sharp!
Know your jurors
Jurors are humans and have specific tastes. The better you know what they like, the easier it will be for you to send images you know they might like. It is not true of all jurors especially if they are regular jurors. They see so many different images that they tend to chooses images that are different, that they have never seen before even if it is not their style. In other words know your jurors and the competition. Avoid sending an image that you have seen over and over again on the internet.
Send the photo at the right time.
Now that your photo is ready, you have to send it.
If the contest includes a vote of the public (often it is more your popularity than the quality of your photo that will be evaluated), the best thing in this case is to post it as soon as possible, so you will have more time to collect the votes.
Quality is the key
In many competitions, you send your files digitally, very often a maximum resolution is stipulated , I invite you to send your photo with the maximum authorized resolution and to be attentive to the compression of your file, you will thus transmit to the members of the jury a photo with the best definition possible.
For contests where you have to send a print, I advise you to use a quality service and thus avoid low-end printers that may give a bad color or even eliminate details of your photos.
That's it, now get your work out there! Sending your work to photo contests helps you compare yourself to others and develop your creativity. I encourage you to participate in photo competitions, it is a very good exercise to develop your skills. Winning is not an end in itself, even if it is the ultimate goal, but it pushes you to work on a specific theme and to get better. Even the best photographers lose. Think of it as an opportunity to better yourself, to be more creative and never forget to have fun!
But if you are the winner or if your work is selected for the second round or even better a finalist, you get exposure and your name out. It is the best way to gain recognition from your peers and to get a chance to be noticed by curators, gallerists, agents and of course clients!
Publisher : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City
2024 | 184 pages
In South Louisiana, where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, water―and the history of controlling it―is omnipresent. Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana glimpses the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry―past, present, and future. The book sustains our physical, mental, and emotional connections to these landscapes through a collection of photographs by Virginia Hanusik. Framing the architecture and infrastructure of South Louisiana with both distance and intimacy, introspection and expansiveness, this work engages new memories, microhistories, anecdotes, and insights from scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working in the region. Unfolding alongside and in dialogue with Hanusik’s photographs, these reflections soberly and hopefully populate images of South Louisiana’s built and natural environments, opening up multiple pathways that defy singularity and complicate the disaster-oriented imagery often associated with the region and its people. In staging these meditations on water, life, and land loss, this book invites readers to join both Hanusik and the contributors in reading multiplicity into South Louisiana’s water-ruled landscapes.
With texts from Richie Blink, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Jessica Dandridge, Rebecca Elliott, Michael Esealuka, T. Mayheart Dardar, Billy Fleming, Andy Horowitz, Arthur Johnson, Louis Michot, Nini Nguyen, Kate Orff, Jessi Parfait, Amy Stelly, Jonathan Tate, Aaron Turner, and John Verdin.
Twana’s Box' can be described in many ways: a journey through a photographer’s rare archive, documenting the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974–1992; a son’s quest to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; a young man’s way to piece together the fragments of a scattered family in a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, starts to understand his own identity in times of war. 'Twana’s Box' is not only the photo book that holds a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique insight into a time and place in a region that has since completely transformed. Rawsht has spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography – the first independent Iraqi photo agency – before immigrating to Europe. ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, hb, Kurdish/Arabic/English
Taken across Europe and Africa, Akinbiyi’s images of everyday city life muse on the sociopolitical labyrinths of urban society
Whether in Bamako, Berlin, London, Lagos or Durban, British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi (born 1946) creates black-and-white street scenes that function as visual metaphors, ruminating on cultural change, social exclusion and colonialism’s effect on urban planning.
A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer
This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.
