5 Things To Do When Entering Photographic Competitions
Do you think you could be the next Landscape Photographer of the Year? Are you thinking about entering any photography competition? In this video, I share with you 5 things that you should do when you enter any photographic competition. I've also got a few tips from Wex Photographer of the Year, Andi Campbell!
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.
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.
My Year So Far...
In this blog post I'm taking a brief look back at my first half of the year as a landscape photographer.
Holidays!
In this blog post, I'm going to take a brief look back at my first half of the year as a landscape photographer. I would normally do this type of blog post at the end of the year but as I'm on holiday at the moment I haven't been doing much photography so I don't have any photographic adventures to tell you about. By the time you read this though I'll be back in the UK and weather permitting I'm back out shooting the landscape. Normal service should be resumed next week!
The Good
It's been a good year for me so far as a landscape photographer. I've been working hard and I'm out shooting more than I've been in any other year. The effort has paid off and my work is getting viewed by a much wider audience now. This is thanks to successes such as:
South West Coast Path 2018 Calendar Competition - though I didn't win the overall competition it was still great to get placed and you will be able to see my image of Start Point as the January 2018 photograph. You can pick up a copy from the SWCP Shop.
YouTube Channel - though I started my landscape photography channel last year, it is the first half of this year that I've have seen a significant growth in subscribers and video views. My video of my adventure in Glencoe gave me a great boost, and my video on printing, and my 5 Minute Photo Adventure series have helped the channel to keep growing.
Outdoor Photography Magazine - I've had a few images published in Outdoor Photography magazine this year. This has included images in their monthly competition and in their Locations Guide section where I had to author the text as well as provide the images.
Improve Photography - I also started writing articles for improvephotography.com this year. I've written about a wide range of topics so be sure to head on over there and read my articles such as this one on printing at home.
The Not So Good
I'm going to keep this bit short. I don't like to dwell on the negatives too much. Unfortunately, it was another year of not making the shortlist in Landscape Photographer of the Year. Despite the lack of success I still value competitions like this as they help inspire and drive my photography. You can read why in this blog post I wrote last year: The Pain and Joy of Photography Competitions.
My Favourite 3 Images
Finally, I'd like to share my favourite 3 images of the year so far. This is a tough choice as I have a decent pool of images to pick from thanks to numerous trips out with the camera.
Porth Nanven
Glencoe
Trevose Head
So there you have it. It's actually been a positive exercise writing this blog post. With the lack of success in LPOTY putting a bit of a damper on my photography, looking back at my photographs and other success I feel recharged and ready for the remainder of the year. Autumn is just around the corner and I've got a couple of photography adventures in the planning stage so there is plenty to look forward to!
Have you had a good year with your photography so far? Do you have any big plans for the remainder of the year? Let me know in the comments below.
My Favourite 5 Images from 2016
As tradition often dictates I'm going to look back and show you my 5 favourite images that I took in 2016.
It's Been a Busy Year
Aside from starting this blog, 2016 has been a very busy year for my landscape photography. I have been out with my camera more this year than any other. In 2015 I went out 34 times to shoot landscapes but in 2016 I went out 46 times. Given that I have to fit my landscape photography in between work and family life I'd say that's not a bad effort. Of course that doesn't include the 20 gigs and music festivals I also shot in 2016. Yes, it's been a busy year.
I've been suitably motivated and inspired this year to get out and practice with my camera. Though I haven't been successful in two of the major landscape photography completions this year, it's still be a successful year for me.
So in a somewhat predictable manner I am going to show you my 5 favourite images I took in 2016. Yes I want to share my images with you but the process of selecting the images makes me look back at my catalogue so I can hopefully see an improvement over the previous year.
The Cobb
I won't easily forget this image. It was taken on a very cold morning in Lyme Regis. I had just about given up and was heading in for coffee and bacon rolls when the sun, which had been up for a little while, started to reflect beautifully off the side of The Cobb. For a magic few moments the light was perfect and I shot several frames, this one being my favourite.
The Cobb - Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35 f/4 at 22 mm, f/13, 0.6 seconds, ISO 100, Lee Filters ND Grad
Trevose Head
My first visit to Trevose Head happened back in March and it was one of those shoots where everything seems to go well. I was feeling creative and the conditions were perfect for the type of image I wanted to capture. I knew it had been a good day when I got home because I had so many keepers to pick from.
The image below though never originally made the cut and I only recently discovered it while looking for a competition entry. Despite the how much I loved the other three images from that shoot I think this is now my favourite and definately a favourite from 2016.
Trevose Head - Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35 f/4 at 19 mm, f/11, 8 seconds, ISO 100, Lee Filters Little Stopper, ND Grad.
Venford Falls
As I mentioned in my video My 5 Favourite Landscape Photography Locations in Devon, Venford Falls is one of my favourite locations. Hidden, but not difficult to get to, the twin falls are a bit of a magical location. I had been to the falls a couple times before but it wasn't until I visited in spring of 2016 that I got a shot that I was really happy with.
Though I had tried this composition before it was the lush green spring colour that lifted the image to make it an instant favourite.
Venford Falls - Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 VR at 24 mm, f/16, 10 seconds, ISO 100, Lee Filters Polariser.
The Daymark Tower
Though I had tried to photograph the Daymark Tower a couple of times before, I was probably doing so at the wrong time of year. The tower is surrounded by a farmers field so for parts of the year it's just a muddy field. I wanted to go when the field was full of fresh crops.
My vision was clear. I wanted the setting sun to illuminate the tower and I really wanted the fresh crops to be gently swaying in the wind. It's not often you get everything you want but everything came together rather nicely the evening I took this image. The light was beaufitul, the sky was lovely, and there was just enough wind to put a little movement into the crops.
Daymark Tower - Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35 f/4 at 16 mm, f/13, 1/15 second, ISO 100.
Castlerigg, The Lake District
As I previously wrote in my blog, my trip to The Lake District was challenging. The weather was very wet making creative photography difficult. However, through all that I took an image that not only captures the beautiful Lake District landscape but the dramatic weather that is often present. It reminds that despite how bad the conditions can be, patience can often be rewarded.
Autumn Storm at Castlerigg - Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR at 78 mm, f/9, 1/60 seconds, ISO 100, Lee Filters Polariser and ND Grad.
So what do you think of my 5 images from 2016? Do you have a favourite? Have you selected your top 5 or top images from 2016? Let me know in the comments.
Finding a Gem in My Back Catalogue
In this blog post I talk about the value of looking back at your catalogue of images and how you might just find a little gem in there.
Super Dad 1, Photography 0
As I mentioned in last weeks blog post the winter months are playing havoc with my ability to get out and take pictures. However, last weekend it wasn't the weather or the short days that stopped me getting out with the camera. My wife was away for a well deserved break so I was left holding the fort with the kids. So unless you count some family snapshots as photography it was a shutter free weekend.
Competition Time
Not one to let the lack of camera action stop me from scratching my photography itch I decided I would get together my entries for this year's South West Coast Path photography competition. This is my first year entering this competition and it looks like a good place to hopefully show case one of my images. It's also good to see that they have respected landscape photographer Adam Burton on the judging panel.
The Power of the Catalogue
Fortunately a lot of my photography takes place along the South West Coast Path so I had a good range of images to work from. It was also really easy to find them. I'm a Lightroom user and I like to keyword my images. I don't keyword all my images on import, but any image that I complete editing on gets a full set of keywords. So when it came to finding all my 4 and 5 star images taken on the South West Coast Path it was a matter of just creating a dynamic collection and there they all were.
Creating a dynamic collection allowed me to find all my images from the South West Coast Path.
Finding A Gem
Winning images from the competition will be published in the South West Coast Path 2018 calendar and while the rules didn't preclude the inclusion of vertical orientation images I thought I'd stick with horizontal orientation. The slight problem was that I had a series of images from Trevose Head that I had taken earlier in the year and while I was very happy with them, they were all of vertical orientation.
I had a couple of options. I could either submit a vertical orientation image or bypass my Trevose Head images all together. I knew I would have taken images in both orientations so I right clicked the one the Trevose Head images and selected the collection it was in. (I add each photo shoot to it's own collection so it was easy to find).
Almost immediately I found what I was looking for. Best of all though the image had been mostly processed to completion. It only needed a bit of dodging and burning in the sky and it was ready to go. At the time I must have done a basic edit on it and then ditched it in favour of the vertical version. With a few clicks I had a new image and the competition entry I was looking for.
This is the image I found in my catalogue and have now entered into the competition.
Check Your Catalogue
Finding this image has made me think about what other images I might have lurking in the depths of my Lightroom catalogue. How many other images were culled during the editing phase in favour of a different composition?
What about you? Do you have a back catalogue of images with some hidden gems? Do you process your images straight away or leave them for a bit and come back to them at a later date? If you cull an image is it culled forever? Let me know in the comments.
Magazine Submissions - Seeing Your Images in Print
Is this blog post I chat about seeing one of my images printed in Outdoor Photography magazine and how this inspires and motivates me to work harder at my photography.
Outdoor Photography Magazine
In Outdoor Photography magazine this month (Issue 211, November 2016), on page 110, you will find one of my images :
Without any shame or modesty, this makes me very happy. I'm happy for two reasons. Firstly, Outdoor Photography magazine is my favourite photography magazine. I've been a reader for many years and the quality of the content and the magazine itself is brilliant. Every month I look forward to my issue arriving so I can sit down with a nicecup of coffee and get inspired!
The other reason for my happiness is that it's one of my favourite images of 2016 and it is wonderful to see it in print. I'm ashamed to say that I don't print my work. For some the photographic process isn't complete until you have printed your work. The more I think about it, and the more times I actually see my work in print, the more I'm convinced that this is the truth. I'm going to start printing at home soon, but that story is a tale for another blog post.
Back to magazine though. Seeing one of your favourite images in a well printed magazine like Outdoor Photography is very satisfying. For those that already print their work it's a very tactile experience holding your image in your hand rather than pixel peeping on your monitor.
Inspiration and Motivation
The image above is in the magazines "If you only do one thing this month…" feature. Each month the magazine sets a new challenge and readers submit their best images that meet that brief. I find these monthly themes a great source of motivation and inspiration. So much so that I do try and regularly submit images. Though there is a prize for the monthly winner, I don't enter to win a prize, I enter for the satisfaction of being featured in print. It's much the same motivation that drives me to enter other photographic competitions.
Though I didn't win the competition this month, I did win "Masterful Compositions" in issue 206 (July 2016, page 106) with this image:
I was also featured in issue 194 (August 2015, page 109) with this "Natural Light" image from Swanage:
In issue 192 (June 2015, Page 110) I also had my first image printed in the magazine with this "Low Light Landscapes" image of St Michaels Mount:
St Michael's Mount - Nikon D750, Nikon 16-35mm f/4, 19mm, 30 seconds at f/13, ISO 100
Why Submit?
Now, for some of you this post might all seem very self-congratulatory. And to a certain extent it is. I'm very proud to have a 4th image in Outdoor Photography magazine. What is more to the point though is how seeing that very first image in the magazine has driven me even more to improve my photography. Submitting your images to a competition, even a monthly magazine competition, sets you up with the risk of failure. But I need to take that risk, and no matter the outcome I will use my success and failure to continually drive my desire to improve.
So should you submit your images to magazines? Well that would be up to you. What works or drives me will likely be different for you. All I can say is that seeing my first image in a magazine gave me confidence that I was going in the right direction and made me want to work even harder at the art of photography.
Have you ever had an image published in a magazine or a book? Did it bring you any further success? Do you print your own work? Let me know in the comments.
The Pain and Joy of Photography Competitions
Do you enter photography competitions? Do they bring pain or joy? Let's discuss!
Measuring Success
There are many ways to try and measure the success of your photography. You can post your images on social media sites such as Flickr, Instagram or even Facebook and see how likes you get. If you are a full time photographer you can measure your success by how well your business is doing.
I measure the progression of my photography skills in two ways. Firstly I have my images regularly critiqued by a professional photographer (see my post on Tuition and Mentoring). This provides invaluable and detailed feedback on my images that I can use to further develop my skills. The other way I measure progression is through my success (or failure) in photography competitions. For me having my work recognised in competition provides some sort of validation for my photography. Some people may consider this shallow or vain, but for me photography competitions have often been a great source of inspiration and being placed in one of the more prestigious competitions would be a great source of pride and joy.
Entering Competitions
One of my entries in LPOTY 2015.
It's only recently that I've actually started entering images into competitions. Though I've always I wanted to enter I probably lacked some of the commitment to achieve this in the past (see my bog post on Practising the Craft of Photography). Over the last couple of years I've put a significant amount of effort into being placed in Landscape Photographer of the Year (LPOTY). I fully appreciate that going from entering no competitions at all to being successful in LPOTY is a bit of a jump but for me LPOTY is the pinnacle in landscape photography competitions. So I'm aiming high that's for sure but seeing an image printed the LPOTY book would be for me at least, a dream come true.
The good thing about having such a lofty goal is that it has driven me to get out more with my camera and improve my photography. In 2015 I entered a number of images into LPOTY but failed to have any shortlisted. At the time I was gutted not to have progressed anywhere. I had put a significant amount of effort and passion into those images, and the rejection was painful.
Rejection and Motivation
This image was shortlisted in OPOTY 2016 but it unfortunately didn't make it any further. It was however published in Outdoor Photography magazine (issue 206).
However, I use that pain as a way to motivate myself even more! I decided to submit some of my images in the Outdoor Photographer of Year competition (OPOTY) in 2015. One of my images was shortlisted for the competition but that was as far as it went. The image did go onto win the monthly competition in Outdoor Photography magazine which was a huge confidence booster. I love Outdoor Photography magazine so seeing my image in print there was really pleasing.
So for the 12 months following the end of LPOTY 2015 I worked hard at my photography. I was out shooting more than ever and I undertook more 1-2-1 tuition days with my mentor (see blog post on Tuition and Mentoring). By the time LPOTY 2016 had come around I had already had a few images in Outdoor Photography magazine published and I had won a local photography competition.
One of my entries in LPOTY 2016.
When I entered my images for LPOTY 2016 I was more confident and was excited about the possibility of being shortlisted. The excitement was unfortunately short-lived as I soon got that email that had caused me so much pain last year. But I'm not letting it get me down. After all, who knows what the judges are really looking for? It's not to say that I necessarily had a bad image it might be that it didn't appeal to that particular judge at that particular time. Art competitions are fickle things so some of my entries from previous years will be submitted again. They might just strike a chord with someone else.
I invest a lot of time into these photography competitions and while rejection is painful, that just makes me try even harder the following year. I'm already hard at work for my OPOTY 2016 portfolio and of course my LPOTY 2017 portfolio. If I do ever get placed in one of these prestigious competitions it will be joyful day. Of course with such a singular goal what would I aim for after that? I'll just have a cross that bridge when I come to it but for now I will live with the pain and joy that competitions bring.
So how do you feel about photography competitions? Are they a painful or joyful experience? Are they a measure of success or just fickle things where luck is a factor? Let me know your thoughts.