Very good response, Eric. If I may add the following:
When beginning (and afterwards as well) enter photo contests to learn, more than anything. If you win, great, but fight for valid feedback on your photos. This is one of the benefits of access to a great camera/photo club that has periodic print competitions/evaluations. While it can take a lot of guts for some to finally submit a photo, and the results may not be as you wish, you'll have a good explanation of what is good about your photo and what can be improved in it, if the judge is properly trained. In my experience, groups associated with PPA and or PSA are the best at these competitions.
As far as the judge Eric mentions in the above paragraph, they would never be a judge in any competition I had any say in until they demonstrated better than they did in the example. A good judge can properly evaluate and score images based upon a set of standards which should include all subject matter, even those they don't engage photographically. Some judges limit their judging to events where the subjects are limited in scope, such as portraits or landscapes, and that is considered an acceptable standard. To judge an image accepted in a competition differently because of its subject matter is inexcusable.
PPA/PSA or other formal judging is important. Some contests are judged by people that don't know what a good photograph is. A long-ago mentor told me that judging contests was the hardest and most stressful thing they did as a prfessional photographer. You want your images judged upon a set of standards and not someone's whim and emotion.I was committee chair for NANPA's Showcase competition, and I judge a lot of images. I also have completed PPA's three day judges training program and judged for PPA.
In addition to looking at past winners, you can look online for photo competitions with live online judging. Usually these opportunities occur at large conventions, such as a state, national or international association's annual event. You can see the photos and hear comments from the judges as the photos are evaluated. That can reveal quite a lot about what good judges look for in a photograph, and also what makes a contest winner.To get a good idea of what it takes, take a look at past winners. Look not only at what they photographed, but the direction of the light, the subject matter, and the context so you can recognize what the special sauce is that made the image a finalist or a winner.
Finally, you don't enter competitions just to win. It's a good way to have someone else evaluate your work and provide feedback. You might consider portfolio reviews to get feedback on your images. Just keep in mind that individual judges will have different perspectives, expertise, and hot buttons. I remember seeing the results of one competition and two of the three judges gave an image a perfect score, while the third judge gave it a score that was just average. Her comment - it's just a landscape (she was an editor at a wildlife publication). The image would have won the competition if she had scored it Very Good - not even Excellent. I saw a large print of the image a few months later selling in a well known gallery for $30,000.
When beginning (and afterwards as well) enter photo contests to learn, more than anything. If you win, great, but fight for valid feedback on your photos. This is one of the benefits of access to a great camera/photo club that has periodic print competitions/evaluations. While it can take a lot of guts for some to finally submit a photo, and the results may not be as you wish, you'll have a good explanation of what is good about your photo and what can be improved in it, if the judge is properly trained. In my experience, groups associated with PPA and or PSA are the best at these competitions.
As far as the judge Eric mentions in the above paragraph, they would never be a judge in any competition I had any say in until they demonstrated better than they did in the example. A good judge can properly evaluate and score images based upon a set of standards which should include all subject matter, even those they don't engage photographically. Some judges limit their judging to events where the subjects are limited in scope, such as portraits or landscapes, and that is considered an acceptable standard. To judge an image accepted in a competition differently because of its subject matter is inexcusable.
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