How To Deal With Photo Contests

Photography contests are attractive to photographers of all kinds, but especially newcomers to the discipline. It doesn’t matter what niche or style of photography we practice, there will always be a contest designed for us. The reasons for participating in them can be diverse — from friends hinting that we should participate, to wanting the interesting awards the contest can offer. Unfortunately, not everyone has a positive experience with contests, which is why we must take our time and analyze the different options available.

How to Analyze a Contest

The first step when deciding whether we should participate in a photography contest is to know the type of photographs the contest is looking for. We cannot participate with conceptual photography in a photojournalism contest, or with portraits in a landscape contest. There are competitions with open themes, but we must learn to evaluate them with a certain objectivity, since the contests have acquired a bad reputation due to the poor practices of the institutions that run them. Usually, companies unrelated to photography launch contests for the ultimate purpose of acquiring a vast inventory of images they can use in business activities, without paying for their use.

To effectively discern the type of contest that suits us, it is worth taking time to study the Information provided by the…