Throughout our final year of university, we have been encouraged to enter as many competitions as we can. There have been ones that have been suggested to us to enter but also ones that I have found and entered myself just to get the experience of entering competitions and writing statements about my work. I feel as though this is a really vital part of my transition into my future careers in photography as it is not only to get my name out there but also my style of work. 

Why enter?

• Exposure : key figures in the industry looking at and reviewing your work (I entered a competition)
• Money : most prizes are in the forms of grants (have to write a proposal for a grant)
• Profile : raise your profile. Longlist, shortlist and winning
• Professional practic
• Communicate and define your ideas. Most awards will demand a 200-500 word description and 5 - 20 image portfolio.

Competitions to Consider :

• Taylor Wessing : photographic portrait prize
• Rebecca Vassie memorial award
• Third national Jerwood/Photoworks Awards
• South west graduate, photo prize

Think about :

• Read the small print
• Most competitions require you to pay with no guarantee of success
• Find competitions that link to big industries
• Image right grabs: some competitions require you to sign over some or all of your rights for their own PR and marketing… careful on losing out.
• Ensure you’re aware of potential commitments : exhibitions, books, interviews, time
• Look for silent partners or organisations who may profit from your work ; parent companies/sponsors
• Who else has entered and won the competitions you’re entering
• Check you’re eligible
• Edit your series, be concise, stand out, be professional, be noticed
• When editing for competitions : ask someone you trust for help; you are too close to your pictures
• Show someone who you don’t know your photographs already
• Can your work be shown within a certain amount of photos? 5 images?
• Use work prints to physically move your work around, pin them to a wall to work out your strongest sequence
• Always have a contingency budget (incase something goes wrong or your need to cover costs)

Writing proposals :

• Introduction to your project. Background information, who cares?
• Why do you want to do it? What is it that you want to say? Why do you care so much?
• How are you going to do it? What research have you done? What groundwork already exists? (the more research the better with this one, stay within the word count)
• Budget (if applicable) not free money. Use a table if needed to help illustrate
• Why have you applied? What would the grant/award mean to you? Why do you want to work with the organisations? 

With these in mind, I entered several competitions throughout third year that I saw to take the opportunity for. 

LensCulture:

The first competition that I entered was Lens Culture’s portrait awards competition which was open to everyone, all over the world. You could either enter a series of images of one single image, but I personally entered one, which I chose to do for free. I thought that this was a really good option because the people who only wanted to enter a single image didn’t have to pay anything but would equally have their portrait seen by top people within the industry including:

• Karen McQuaid Senior Curator, The Photographers’ Gallery, UK
• Anne Farrar Director of Photography, National Geographic Traveler, United States
• Manila Camarini Photo Editor, D La Repubblica, Italy
• Richard Renaldi Portrait Photographer United States
• Lucy Conticello Director of Photography, M Magazine, Le Monde France
• Deborah Klochko Executive Director and Chief Curator, Museum of Photographic Arts United States
• Jennifer Murray Executive Director, Filter Photo United States
• Jim Casper Editor-in-Chief, Lens Culture The Netherlands

Even though the photograph that I entered didn’t get picked, I am still really happy that I entered it because it has enabled me to gain experiences and be confident enough for people to see work that I have done outside of University. LensCulture announced ‘39 talented photographers as the winners, jurors’ picks and finalists of the LensCulture Portrait Awards. These remarkable photographers come from 20 countries on five continents, and their work reflects a wide range of contemporary portraiture being made around the world today. For this award, we wanted to discover and celebrate innovative approaches to portraiture alongside stunning traditional work.’

Palm Photography Prize:

The second competition that I entered was suggested to us to look into as it is known for being a good competition and way of getting your photography heard. ‘Palm Studios is a London-based publisher focusing on photography. It’s outputs are curated and edited by Lola Paprocka, a photographer, curator and publisher based in London. Her inspirations come primarily from Brutalist architecture, nature and portraiture. These themes frequently present themselves throughout her body of work. Lola has exhibited globally in various group shows and photography festivals. Palm showcases photographers and artists through creative projects, online features, exhibitions, events and book launches’ (https://palmstudios.co.uk/about/palm-studios-2/). The most recent competition ‘Palm Photo Prize’ is an annually occurrence and is judged by different people within the industry each year. This year, the judging panel comprised of:

• Karen McQuaid – Senior Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery
• Sarah Allen – Assistant Curator at Tate Modern
• David Campany – writer, curator, artist and teacher
• Jessica Lopez – Photo editor at Polaroid Originals

This photograph didn’t get chosen, but I am really happy that I can say that I made myself enter the competition as it has given me the opportunity to get my work out there and seen by many. 

Source:

‘Source is a quarterly photography magazine, available in print and as a digital edition, published in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We publish emerging photographic work and engage with the latest in contemporary photography through news, thoughtful features and reviews of the latest exhibitions and books from Ireland and the UK. Our website brings together an archive of writing and pictures from the magazine alongside current features. Source is distributed throughout the UK, Ireland and internationally and is the longest running photographic review in the UK since the closure of Creative Camera magazine in 2001, and is comparable to other international photography titles such as Aperture in the US, Camera Austria, and Katalog in Denmark. (http://www.source.ie/main/about.html). ‘Source is interested in seeing new previously unpublished projects for publication and has an open and ongoing submissions policy. We publish a variety of work but we would encourage you to see what kind of material we publish by looking at the material available within our online archive. Graduate Photography Online is Source’s annual showcase for Photographers graduating from University and Art College based photography courses. Since the project’s introduction in 2007 the majority of partcipating courses have been drawn from Colleges and Universities based in the UK and Ireland - though we have had courses from the USA and even Dubai take part. Since 2008, every year we also commission a number of prominent figures from the world of photography to select their favourite sets of work from all the material submitted. Each participating Photographer submits eight images selected from their graduate work, accompanied by a paragraph of text outlining the intent of the work and their contact details.’

Overall, entering these competitions has allowed me to express myself more as a photographer and get my work seen by industry professionals and people to a high standard. I am hoping that this will give me the confidence to carry on entering my work into competitions and galleries in the near future.