It’s hard to scroll through the various social medias these days without encountering a photographer who can’t wait to tell us, with a perfectly balanced combination of breathless excitement and faux humility, that they have been nominated for, or have won, An Award.
“I am deeply humbled to brag about winning the award for best nature photograph taken in August 2023 on a DSLR with between 24 and 36 megapixels and a zoom lens with a zoom ratio of more than 3 but less than 8 from the local newspaper, which has a circulation second only to the New York Times, well almost, I mean everyone I know reads it”. That kind of stuff. (This then leads to them setting up their first Workshop or Seminar, or, if you’re really lucky, One-to-One Class, with an Award-Winning Photographer!)
Maybe it’s just me, but the various aspects of photography are satisfying enough in and of themselves. And recently, these “awards” are set up with so many categories that basically almost everyone who enters wins something. It’s like if the IOC decided to add five new medals (how about, I don’t know, copper, tin, plastic, recycled trash, and paper) so that nobody feels left out.
Added to this is the fact that, with the various generative AI programs out there (Midjourney, and so on), it’s getting harder and harder to tell what was taken with a camera and what was created with a prompt, which renders these “awards” of even less importance, something I thought wasn’t possible anyway.
So I guess I’m looking for counterarguments here: what possible purpose do these “awards” serve other than a) letting the people / organisation giving them out insinuate how magnanimous they are, and b) giving insecure and needy photographers a chance to announce to the world that they are now an Award Winning Photographer?
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Most people make art to be appreciated by others. Photo contests are a way for their art to find an audience, and to possibly get appreciation for their work. There may be a lot of categories, but if there was a painting competition there would similarly be lots of categories based on the medium used, age and experience of contestants, subject of the art, etc.
National Geographic for their picture of the year 2022 chose 49 photos out of +2.2 million submissions.
eh
i think u have a point there
i submitted a photo to a contest for a chance to be in a calendar for my hometown. I ‘won’ the right have my photo be used for … July.
nobody paid me
i submitted what i thought were better photos the following year. none were picked.
eh, am finished with contests.
I really can’t stand capitalism, but the only award I’ve ever bothered with is if someone cares enough about my work to pay me to have it in their house.
It is very hard to scroll through social media these days without encountering a photographer who can’t wait to tell us with faux humility that they are “above” awards and doing any work to gain recognition (without acknowledging that is often a tool professional photographers use to promote their business)
I don’t particularly like the game of those type of awards, so I don’t take part, no need to judge those that do.
> And recently, these “awards” are set up with so many categories that basically almost everyone who enters wins something.
That’s not the case.
An award can be great advertising and publicity, so I don’t begrudge people using one to promote themselves. People trying to make money from nature/landscape/travel photography kind of need to market themselves all the time, and an award from a widely-known company could kick someone’s career up to a new level. Or, at least, they hope that it will.
Awards can hone your attention to detail and craft. Those with live judging by panels of experienced judges are best for this and result in the best feedback. Unfortunately that style of awards is the most expensive to run so there aren’t many left.
Those awards are also very difficult to win a category or title in.
I’ve won well over 200 significant awards. That is awards from competitions I see as reputable and worthwhile - which is only a small portion of awards in general. I don’t really post about these much nor share many successes. However when I’m working on a creative project and I want to get partners on board to make the project happen, that reputation can become useful in opening doors and showing those involved that I’m both serious about what I’m doing and have the capabilities to pull it off - even if it’s a kind of photography I’m not otherwise known for.
As for ai and competitions, any worthwhile competition is doing a raw file check of anyone that has won anything of worth so that should be a non-starter.
In terms of what I find to be reputable, a very select group of national and international level competitions that usually get thousands of entries. They have very clear rules, experienced judges, and preferably discussion based winner selection (scoring by itself is a flawed way of choosing a winner, debate delivers much better results). There is usually also significant winnings for these competitions which shows that the competition or sponsors are backing it as significant.
A few that I like off the top of my head; Australian Photographic Prize NZIPP Iris Awards Natural Landscape Photography Awards Aus Nat Geo Photographer of the Year Moran Prize
There are quite a few others but those are the main ones I keep an eye out for with my own work. I make a living out of landscapes but if I were still shooting portraits I’d have a few more competitions in there that specialise in that. Other competitions I like but judge regularly so can’t enter.
I think camera club level competitions are good for people to socialise locally and get some kudos in their group but they don’t carry a substantial weight imo. And there are many competitions where you enter to be in a book or the competitions are just not that well regarded.
Any advice for finding awards and competitions?
Well, as an award winning photographer, I think you’re right.
Big Award is trying to make it’s $$$
Look at any of the creative arts, it’s all the same.
If you go looking for competitions and awards, that’s all you’re going to find. In reality though, most of us aren’t going to come across that many competitions.
Just like how people gossip about a “style” being too prevalent; the customers may never know that more than one photographer shoots/edits that way.
They also serve as advertising for the company handing out the award. In the perfect scenario (for them), handing out awards confers some sort of subject authority.