Photography Competitions – waste of time or unique chance?

When you start diving more intensively into photography, you will come to know a lot of photography competitions all around the world. Very quickly you feel tempted to participate, send in your pictures and wait impatiently for the outcome – only to find that most of the time you will receive a negative answer.

Why is that so?

My experience is that many competitions have a very special focus and style. Many are rather for professional photographers, or they have a very special focus on a certain topic which means they expect extraordinary or unconventional work to make a difference. Sometimes they are meant to be for young photographers to help them begin their career which is fair enough. Or you can find those very basic competitions where people send in pictures from their last holiday at the sea-side or some well-known sights in Paris or elsewhere without any artistic ambition.

Never trade creativity for success in a competition

The risk of participating in all those competitions is that most of the time your pictures are rejected. This can be quite frustrating and will not take you anywhere forward. Often, you do not know the reason and very often it is NOT because your pictures were bad. Sometimes, they just did not fit the intention or style of the competition. The even bigger risk is that you might be tempted to try to “please” the jury and take pictures you think they might like. This is a very dangerous approach because you risk losing sight of what photography means to you: a way of expressing your feelings, thoughts and to indulge in topics that are dear to you. You take pictures because you feel a need to deal with a certain subject, this is the main driving force which keeps you get up at 6 o’clock in the morning for a good photograph or makes you talk to somebody you have never met before in order to win him/her for your project. This is the essence of creativity and your intrinsic motivation. Never ever trade this for success in a photography competition !

Having said this, there are of course some arguments to participate in selected competitions. First, look for competitions that deal with a specific topic which is close to you and where you already have a body of work. Choose the competition according to your photographic preferences – not vice versa. Thus, you will not be tempted to make pictures for a competition, but rather look into your archives to find a body of work that fits the competition.

Second, rather present a series than single pictures. To be successful with a single photograph is much more difficult, because it should be a really outstanding and extraordinary shot.

For example, for travel photography it could be a landscape, a portrait, an action – you never know. I happened to be nominated for the Czech photography traveller's price in 2025 with this portrait of a Ugandan tracker, but it was rather by chance. The other finalists submitted completely different pictures – so, you never know what the jury is looking for. Going through the winners of the previous years can help a little bit to get a feeling for the competition you have in mind.

With a coherent series, however, you treat a subject from different angels and this increases the chances of conveying your message to the spectator. E.g. for the Czech National Photography Competition 2025 I submitted five pictures from my series Tugline, telling the story of a sled ride with huskies in Sweden, which was accepted to the exhibition in Olomouc in May/June. So, even if you do not win a prize, being exhibited, meeting other photographers at the vernissage etc. is inspiring and to me the best reward for my efforts.

And most authors who whose work was exhibited there had submitted a body of work, not just one single picture.

Use the competition to take your work forward

If you do not succeed in competition and if there is no reaction, photographers often feel a bit lost, how to go about it, whether to try again, what to change. Third, try to get some feedback. Some competitions like Lens Culture offer feedback for little extra money. I have chosen this option a few times and I found it very valuable since it helps you to see your work from another (professional) person’s point of view and it gives you hints and (hopefully) encouragement how to continue with your work.

Last, but not least: carefully read the rules! In serious competitions, the rights of the author of a photograph will always stay with you. Study the format which is asked for (usually there is a minimum and maximum required size of dissolution measured in pixels resp. dpi). If prints are asked for, make sure to send them well packed and protected.

In a nutshell: do participate in selected competitions, but do not waste too much time on them and stick to your own ideas.

Wishing you lots of success,

Petra