How to win photography competitions
May 23rd, 2007
I was recently asked to be one of the judges in a photography contest run by Crestock. (more about the competition in one of my previous posts). It’s a pretty high-profile affair: The prizes are very good, and there’s a lot of judges on the panel, including some esteemed bloggers, experienced writers, and successful stock photographers.
When it comes to this competition, it works like this: As one of the judges, I choose the 10 photographs I like best. For round 1, that meant choosing 10 out of 491 photographs. In other words, for every 50 photos, I can only choose one. Words can’t describe quite how difficult that is: A lot of talent and creativity goes into competition entries, and a lot can be said about.
I won’t lie to you - while I am a moderately successful blogger (hey, you’re reading my blog right now, aren’t you?), a soon-to-be-published author (my book goes on sale in about a month and a half) and a washed-up freelance / stock photographer who decided that I could only do photography as a hobby, because doing it for the money was soul-destroying - I have never actually judged a competition before. While the guys at Crestock were quite helpful in offering guidelines and ideas as to what I should be looking for, it got me a-thinking: What can you, as a photographer, do to maximise your chances in the battle of shutter times and lighting, against the rest of the pack? Read the rest of the article »
I got an e-mail from Crestock a while back, asking me if I wanted to be one of the judges for a photography competition. My response was something along the lines of ‘yah, sure, I’ll give it a whirl’, and then, I promptly forgot about it. 
here