I have to admit, I have a complicated relationship with photo contests.
A good one can put your work in front of people who might never otherwise see it. A bad one takes your entry fee, sends you a PDF certificate, and moves on to the next photographer.
I've won some and lost many. But there was a time in my career when contests played an important role simply because they gave me another reason to get the work out into the world.
There was also an unexpected benefit.
A lot of the contests I entered had deadlines toward the end of the year, which meant contest season became a kind of forced annual edit. I would go back through months of photographs, make selects, reconsider pictures I had overlooked and try to decide what was actually strongest.
The preparation could be a blessing and a curse. It took time. A lot of time. But by the end of it, the year's work was usually better organized and I had a much clearer sense of what I had accomplished.
More importantly, I could see where I was going.
Had the work improved? Where was I repeating myself? What wasn't working? What surprised me? What had changed in the way I was seeing?
And maybe the most useful question of all: what had I learned that could help make the work better in the coming year?
So are contests worth it?
In my experience, yes, if you choose carefully and enter for the right reasons.
Here's how I think about it.
The upside
The best thing a contest may give you is a deadline. Nothing forces a ruthless edit quite like having to choose ten pictures, or one, by Friday at noon.
- It makes you edit. You look back at your work and decide what is truly your best. That exercise alone can be worth the price of admission, and often admission is free.
- Your work gets seen. The better contests can lead to exhibitions, books, online features and press. Judges may include editors, curators and photographers you would genuinely like to have looking at your pictures.
- It can open doors. A win or shortlist in a respected competition can strengthen a bio and sometimes lead to new opportunities, assignments, exhibitions or introductions.
- There are real prizes. Cash, equipment and grants can help fund the next chapter of a personal project.
- You learn. Looking closely at the finalists and winners, and asking yourself why certain photographs rise to the top, can be an education in itself.
The downside
Contests are not for everyone, and they come with real costs.
- The odds are long. Major contests can attract tens of thousands of entries. Many excellent photographs will never win anything.
- Fees add up. Twenty-five dollars an image may sound reasonable until you enter six images in five different contests.
- Judging is subjective. A different jury on a different day might choose a completely different winner. Rejection says very little about the lasting value of your work.
- It can bend your vision. Start making pictures based on what you imagine judges want and you can quickly end up making someone else's photographs. Authenticity matters more than polish.
- It takes time. A serious entry may require hours of editing, sequencing, captioning and file preparation. That is time you are not out making pictures.
One way to take some of the pressure off is to think of a contest as a lottery ticket where stronger work may improve the odds but guarantees nothing.
Enter. Then forget about it and get back out with the camera.
What to watch for
Some contests exist to celebrate photography. Others seem designed primarily to collect entry fees.
It usually isn't difficult to tell the difference once you know where to look.
Read the rights clause first. A legitimate contest generally asks for a limited license allowing it to reproduce selected photographs in connection with the competition, exhibition, book, website or publicity.
Be very cautious about any contest that claims ownership of your photographs or asks for sweeping rights to use all entries, not just selected work, indefinitely and for unrelated commercial purposes.
Your photographs should not become somebody else's free image library simply because you entered a contest.
Warning signs of a cash grab:
- Dozens of categories, each requiring another fee, combined with an enormous list of winners and honorable mentions
- Deadlines that are repeatedly extended
- Competitions that seem to relaunch several times each year
- Judges who are unnamed or whose credentials are difficult to verify
- Entry fees that seem disproportionate to the prizes or opportunities
- A "prize" that turns into another invoice: pay for the book, pay for the trophy, pay to attend the exhibition, pay for wall space
- Little evidence of past exhibitions, publications, winners or institutional support
Signs of the real thing:
- A respected museum, publication, foundation, photography organization or established company stands behind it
- The jury is clearly identified
- Past winners and shortlisted photographers are easy to find
- Rules covering editing, staging and AI are clear
- Documentary or nature contests have procedures for verifying files when necessary
- Entry is free or reasonably priced, sometimes with waivers for students, younger photographers or entrants from lower-income countries
A fee by itself is not a red flag. Running a serious competition costs money.
The question is what you are actually paying for.
Which contests are right for you?
Start by asking what you want from the experience.
Exposure? Funding for a project? Recognition? A publication credit? A deadline that forces you to finish something?
Different competitions offer different things, and very few offer all of them.
- Match the contest to your work. Look at several years of finalists and winners. Can you imagine your photographs belonging in that conversation? If not, your entry fee may simply be a donation.
- Know which door you're knocking on. Some competitions are intended for working photojournalists. Others have open, amateur, professional, student or youth categories. Enter where your work fits.
- Single image or series? If you have one photograph that stands completely on its own, look for single-image categories. If you've gone an inch wide and a mile deep on a personal project, series and portfolio competitions may give the work room to breathe.
- Consider going niche. Wildlife, travel, portraiture, landscape, astronomy, underwater photography and many other specialties have their own competitions. The audience may be smaller, but it is often more directly connected to the kind of work you do.
- Set a budget. Decide what you are willing to spend over the course of a year and stick to it. Start with the free competitions. Some highly respected opportunities cost nothing to enter.
- Pick a few. Three or four carefully chosen and thoughtfully prepared entries are generally more useful than twenty rushed ones. Less can be more.
How to prepare
Here's how I approach it when a deadline is on the calendar.
- Read the rules. Twice. Check eligibility dates, file specifications, editing restrictions, publication rules and whether previously awarded photographs are allowed. Strong work gets disqualified every year because somebody missed a detail.
- Edit ruthlessly. Try to identify the photographs that genuinely rise above the rest rather than finding reasons to keep everything in.
- Get a second opinion. We are often too close to our own photographs. The image we love because of what it took to make may not be the strongest photograph. Ask someone whose eye you trust.
- Sequence a series carefully. Start strong. Finish strong. Avoid repetition. One weak photograph can pull down the entire set, so if you are unsure about an image, leaving it out is often the better choice.
- Write accurate captions. Who, what, where and when. For documentary and nature photography especially, accuracy matters.
- Keep your original files. Serious competitions may ask finalists to provide RAW files or other source material for verification.
- Don't wait until the final hour. Upload systems have a remarkable ability to become temperamental when thousands of photographers are using them at once.
- Keep records. Track which photograph or series you entered, where you entered it and when. This becomes especially important when competitions have restrictions on previously submitted or previously awarded work.
The bottom line
Win, and enjoy it.
Then get back to work.
Lose, and you are in very good company. Expect rejection and keep the faith.
For me, the lasting value of entering contests was often less about whether I won and more about what the process forced me to do: look closely at my own work, make decisions, finish projects and understand a little better where I was going.
A tighter edit. A clearer sense of your strongest photographs. A reason to finally finish the project you've been circling.
No jury can take that part away.
Below is my list of photography contests I think are worth considering. Many are free. Others charge an entry fee, but offer enough credibility, visibility or opportunity to deserve a closer look.
Pick one.
Mark the deadline.
Try.