How to enter (and hopefully WIN) a Photo Contest
The folks at Yankee have asked me to blog about photo contests. They asked me to do this because of the great amount of tact I use when critiquing images posted on the New England Photography–Yankee Magazine Facebook site. In the spirit of tactful, supportive feedback, let me offer some constructive suggestions for entering photo contests.
There is a difference between a photo sharing site and a contest. Photo sharing sites allow you to post pictures for others to view and review. This is a fun way to show your images to family, friends, or strangers. The comments are almost always positive, so it’s uplifting to share. Or you could post on websites aimed at people with similar interests, like the New England Photography–Yankee Magazine Facebook page. Search the web for photo sharing sites and have fun!
Why should you submit photos to a contest? To WIN!!! Seriously! If you don’t expect to win, why would you enter a contest? There’s no feedback, no critique, and there’s only one first place prize. Decide if your picture could be the prizewinner.
First, you need to evaluate the photo critically. Strip off the emotional attachment you feel for it. It doesn’t matter that you climbed the highest mountain and got frostbite to get it. It doesn’t matter that the puppy in the picture dragged children from a burning building. The judges don’t see that backstory. All they see is the picture. All they see are the hundreds of pictures they must eliminate before they can find the winner.
Here are the criteria I would use to evaluate a picture before entering a contest:
RELEVANCE: Does it conform to the contest rules and is it relevant to the subject? If the subject is winter, don’t send yellow leaves. If the rules say New England, don’t send your Bermuda winter cruise. If the deadline is February, Christmas is probably old news. Don’t send a picture of something that just happened to be in winter. Send a picture that shouts, THIS IS WINTER IN NEW ENGLAND!
TECHNICAL: Is the picture technically excellent? Is the exposure right — black blacks, white whites, and a good range of tones between them (unless it’s foggy or snowing)? Is the subject in focus? Is the horizon straight? Is the picture composed well? Can you fix it in photo-editing software? If not, try again with a different image.
IMPACT: This may be the most important point. Will it knock them out? White-on-white snow on tree branches? They’ll see a million — what makes yours stand out? A snowman? If he isn’t wearing a kilt and doing a jig, what makes him stand out? Does your picture have bright, attractive colors (especially red)? Does it have an unusual subject? Does it really have impact? When I talked with a Yankee editor, she said something that impressed me: They want a surprise. Submit only your best, most surprising, Wow-Wow-WOW shots!
PRIZEWINNER: Does it have a chance of winning? Compare your photo with the other entries. Better yet, compare it with the ones that have been most viewed or most e-mailed or selected as finalists. Can yours compete with them? IS IT THE BEST? Then submit it with pride!
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Good tips.
Great article Susan!!!!
Good stuff…..succinct and clearly stated……funny too…and all good advice….thanks for the tips!
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How can I get my photos to be the correct # of pixels. Every time I try to submit a photo I get a warning that it has too many. Help.
Barbara, you can either take smaller pictures by adjusting your camera settings or resize them with photo-editing software on the computer (Photoshop and Picassa are two) or upload a picture to the internet and resize it there.
I Googled “Resize photos” and found a few websites that do this. I tried http://www.shrinkpictures.com and the process was easy. Just upload your picture, choose one of the dimensions (I would try 75% and see how that works), click the resize button, and it will tell you the old and new sizes of your photo. The Yankee size limit is 10MB or 10,000K. Then save the picture back to your computer and upload it to Yankee. You may need to experiment a bit to get the right size. There are other sites that resize, too.
Sorry, 10MB is 1,000k. Brain-freeze!
Sue…you’re getting confused…1024kb = 1 MB..yankee can take a 10MB file, which is pretty big. You were right the first time…
10 MB = 10,240 KB for the mathematically challenged on Buth’s post =D, great article Sue
Hi. I submitted two photos to the contest and am trying to get any inclination to how they will do. Do the judges accept every submission sent? Or are we all the finalists because they already weeded out others? Entering contests is new to me. Your advice was great and I used it to determine which photos to send. Thanks
Good advice Sue, especially for someone who is new to the photo scene like myself. I noticed my photo was a photo of the week and has been the most viewed for quite a while now. I seriously think there are some phenomenal photographers on this site, and I was curious myself on how the judges choose what makes a great photo. I’ve seen some on here that I think I don’t have a chance against, and some of my photos I think are great, that are just lagging behind. Besides the obvious (rule of thirds, etc) do you veterans have any advice for us newbies?