12 Common Photo Contest Mistakes

Thanks to everyone who voted for this to be the next topic for premium newsletter subscribers. I couldn’t agree more with this sentiment below:

I’ve judged dozens of contests over the years (with and without entry fees), and I can’t help but notice the mistakes many photographers make in the submission process. While going through The Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards entries, which just wrapped up last month, I started making a list of some of the most common ones. Here are a dozen.

1. Submitting a series that looks like it was shot over a single day.

If you’re going to submit a series like this, it should be unique, timely, and something no one else has access to or has done before. A fairly generic fashion series will not cut it, even if it is your best work. If it’s evident that the project was shot in one day, then it needs to have a strong narrative for it to be compelling to judges.

2. Writing short statements about your work or no statements at all. 

When I see photographers do this, it makes me think they don’t care about the contest and also, most importantly, about their work. It feels disrespectful. Judges are taking the time to view your work and we want to see that you’re passionate about the project that you’ve submitted, and that you’ve thought about it deeply. If you don’t care, why should we?

Also, by withholding information, we don’t know what we’re looking at, and unless it’s highly captivating, then it will be passed by.

3. Spelling and grammatical errors.

Apparently, this is a controversial stance, with many people saying that grammatical errors are not a big deal. While I agree that simple mistakes shouldn’t hold you back if you have dyslexia or if English is not your first language, I feel that in 2024, with AI*, there is no excuse for spelling or grammatical errors in your copy. Bios, artist statements, grant applications, commercial photography treatments, etc., should be professional and polished. 

Now, having said this, I’m not an elitist or the grammar police. I’m not going to discount your entry because you misspelled a word or left something out, but might email you and tell you to correct something if it’s really bad or I’ll just ignore it. However, people do notice.

*I use Grammarly for this newsletter and all of my correspondence.

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