Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail

Photography competitions are fickle things. There is an element of luck in any competition and you could have the most amazing image and still not get placed. While controlling what the judges feel and see in your images is something you can’t control, there are aspects of entering a photography competition you can control.

Sand, Wind and Time - Commended award in Scottish Landscape Photography of the Year. — **Sand, Wind and Time -** Commended award in Scottish Landscape Photography of the Year.

Last week I found out that my image “Sand, Wind and Time” was given a commended award in the Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. This spurred me on to finish selecting my final entries for Landscape Photographer of the Year. I was discussing this with my good friend Chris Sale and he reminded me of the tips on photo competitions that I had shared with him over the years and so he suggested I make a video about them all. Well, that’s just what I did. So here are the 5 things I do when I enter a photographic competition:

As you will have noticed in the video, most of the things I do are fairly logical and process-based, but they are still critical in being successful in a competition. The old saying, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” is very true here.

Before I go I must thank Andi Campbell for sharing his tips for entering photography competitions. Winning Wex Photographer of the Year is far from easy so I know you will be most impressed with his work when you visit his website.

Just a short blog post from me this week, but I hope enjoyed it and you picked up a couple of tips. Are you entering a photography competition this year? Are you planning on entering LPOTY? Do you have any tips of your own? Let me know in the comments below.