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Winning Photography Competitions
Each year, Practicaps Images and David Rich Photography sponsor a photography competition in support of the Senior Mental Health Nurses Committee (SMHNC) in South Western Sydney. The competition is open to all nurses and to anyone working in Mental Health. This year it will also accept entries from people living with mental health problems, and their relatives and carers. The contest attracts entries from across the State and is part of the SMHNC Mental Health Week awareness programme. In recent years we have given away many hundreds of dollars worth of prizes and staged a series of exhibitions around Sydney. For an idea of the pictures exhibited last year, go to http://davidrichphotography.org and click the link on the opening page. Sadly, many excellent photos never make past the first couple of rounds of judging, simply because they fail to address the criteria, This is a shame, as many potential winners go away disappointed, and some are put off when a winning photo is published which they think is not as good as their entry: they may be right about that, but the best horse in the world is never going to be a winner at a cat show! So here are my "open secrets" to winning this year’s competition. I am sure they are just as useful to anyone entering any legitimate photography contest, and I hope they encourage you to enter one soon, and help you win a prize. Rule 1: Read the rules! There is no point putting lots of effort into shooting an entry if it doesn't meet the criteria. If the rules say 1 entry per person, or per month, do not try to slip an extra one in “unnoticed”. If a print size of a file type and size are specified, give the judges what they have asked for. Rule 2: Rules are not a straightjacket. The judges will be looking for an original approach within the criteria. Just because it’s a landscape contest, don’t just shoot horizontal format pictures of the countryside ~ they will see hundreds of those, and even if yours is excellent, you are still going to be lost in the crowd. If in doubt, contact the organisers before you submit. Rule 3. Scour you existing photos. Unless the rules require something shot, say this month, you may already have a winner waiting to be admired. Rule 4. Don’t just enter competitions that appeal to you. You may have a passion for some subjects, but you are more likely to come up with an original idea if you move away from your familiar themes…and you may learn something that will make you a better photographer. Rule 5. Shoot for the contest. Yes, go through your existing work (Rule 3) but then take more pictures specifically for the competition. Use the pictures you already have for ideas to leapfrog you into a new round of photography. Start working on ideas as far in advance as possible and submit on time…late and even last-minute entries are the bane of organisers who need to organize judging rounds and meetings, set up galleries, vet photos for display, negotiate numbers with displayers and cater a launch and prizegiving. Rule 6. Make your pictures stand out for the right reasons. Only submit your best work; no badly exposed or poorly focused pictures; no crooked horizons or washed out skies. Only submit pictures that are technically of a high standard, because that’s what the competition is doing. Colour, shape, and placement in the frame are important, and humour in a picture is always a big plus. Because of the nature of the Mental Health Week competition, we specify that no client should be identifiable in the submission and for all other people who can be identified, we require a signed release. If you do not have a release, contact the organisers for a suitable one. Make sure you know where you stand with ownership of the pictures. Think hard before entering any competition which expects you to grant copyright or exclusive rights to you pictures (some make that a requirement of entry – even if you win nothing, they own your pictures!) As photographers, we maintain that copyright© should always remain with the photographer and we avoid competitions where you may lose copyright of your images. We will be calling for entries into this year’s competition in about a month. If you are eligible (a nurse, mental health professional, carer or consumer) why not enter? |
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This intel was contributed by David Rich
David Rich
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May, 2012
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