Competitions worthwhile or worthless

 So why do we or should I enter competitions? what have I to gain or more important lose from the experience?
I can only really comment on my own experiences and perhaps the reason why I entered competitions, both here in New Zealand and Internationally. We have to go back a few years to the time I was a member of a Christchurch club. I had returned from my second trip working in Antarctica, I had a few images I thought were pretty good. I entered an open comp and the judge slammed my image, his comments indicated that as far as he was concerned he had never seen anything like this before, so it must be a picture of someone else artwork, (those of you who know me it was not even a composite), so if the photographers going to continue on this vein, they should think about taking up another hobby. I was gutted. To cut a long story short I was not happy but I would try again and I did, this time I got honors. First lesson learned, just because one judge makes a shitty comment, do not tar all judges with the same brush.

 

I had a good first year, plenty of honors, I tried for letters, what a disaster, if you decide to go for letters pick a person who really wants you to succeed, not set you up for failure.  At this point someone suggested International salons, I tried and was successful, lots of times. One of the things that has kept me addicted to International salons has always been the catalogs, the images that I have seen over the many years have affected my photography, it has given me a broader base of images to draw ideas from, to gauge my level of photography and often why I have not done as well as I could have or thought I should have.

To be honest the hardest part of competitions is not the entering, it is the ability to produce new and interesting work, year after year. DO NOT take the judges comments to heart, enjoy the challenge, grow from the challenge and especially in the International circuit enjoy the wonderful catalogs that often arrive in the mail, with an award or two as a bonus.
TRY NO-ONE DIED FROM NOT WINNING AN AWARD.