How to win a photo competition?
The shooting is done, the editing too. Your photo project is complete and now you want to share your vision with the world. Entering a photo competition is a great chance to gain exposure for your work — but what do you need to consider to actually win a photo contest?
In this blog post Kottie Gaydos, from The Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography (DCCP), gives advice on how to make your photo submission stand out.
The staunchest rules are often the best ones to break. Ask any photographic artist which part of their practice they spend the most time on and they will reply, without a moment’s hesitation, editing. A good image is only as strong as those around it. If you are working on a documentary series, the strength of the narrative sequence carries the success of the whole project. If it’s a series of portraits or studio studies, then a more nuanced thread of conceptual and aesthetic connections will occupy your critical eye. When preparing a submission to a juried photography competition, my advice to photographic artists is to forget everything you know about your project. Forget all the rules of compiling a traditional portfolio. A juried competition is its own kind of beast with its own set of rules.
In most cases, jurors have a couple hundred submissions to look through in the span of one or two weeks (often during weekend and evening hours). It can be challenging to maintain an engaged eye throughout the entire selection process, but there are always those images; conceptually and aesthetically engaging imagery will always speak for itself.
As an artist, it can be challenging to detach oneself from the intimate perspective of the maker. I’ve been there, reluctant to sacrifice a favorite image for the sake of the whole. In an application with a limit of only five or ten images, there often isn’t room for a full series, or even a segment of a whole. Rather, it’s best to think about the included images in terms of showcasing your signature works. Pick the best, most striking image to be the first the juror will see. Follow it with strong, related, works, and always have the final image in your application be one of equal strength to the first. It can be challenging to dismantle a highly edited portfolio in this way, but the strongest applications are the ones with images that linger in the juror’s mind. The secret here is to think about your submitted portfolio as a teaser for the project and the rest of your work. Capture and hold the juror’s attention with the most engaging of your images.
To tie it all together, be sure to use the allotted space for additional information if it is provided. The inclusion of even the slightest additional information, if thoughtful, tells the juror how considered your work is, and might provide that last little boost to the juror’s understanding of your work.
Kottie Gaydos is the Curator and Editor in Chief of Special Publications at the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography (DCCP).
The DCCP is a non-profit, 501 c3, organization that brings together a community of people interested in photography and lens-based media. Its mission is to foster the appreciation and understanding of photography by promoting contemporary lens-based artists. DCCP works to encourage creative discourse and a visual understanding of the still and moving frame by offering online and pop-up exhibitions, print publications, and portfolio reviews. DCCP seeks to broaden its outreach among Detroit’s diverse communities through exhibitions and programming in collaboration with local institutions.
Picter is a better way to manage photography submissions. Find open calls for entries from leading photography organizations at www.picter.com.
