The of us at CEWE have simply introduced the class winners of the corporate’s mammoth bi-annual images competitors, the CEWE Photo Award, and it’s acquired me fascinated with how picture competitions might be an effective way to develop your abilities as a photographer.
Photo contests are vastly well-liked: over 650,000 pictures had been entered into the CEWE Photo Award 2025 throughout 10 classes, making it the largest picture competitors on the earth. What I like about this explicit competitors is that it has a charitable partnership with SOS Children’s Villages International, and it’s open to anybody. Including you!
There is a wealth of picture competitions to select from, whether or not it’s a neighborhood digital camera membership comp or a world award, it doesn’t matter, simply put your images on the market. Perhaps you’re pondering, however Mike: “I’m not very competitive.” Or maybe, “I’m competitive to the point that it stresses me out!” Maybe you query how creative expression may presumably be judged. And a few of you may not even care about accolades. These are all very authentic causes to keep away from images competitions, however what concerning the causes to enter them?
Photography competitions have guidelines, themes, classes, and deadlines. These constraints power you to take a extra thought-about method to your images. Instead of merely snapping images on a time out, themes and classes encourage you to think about parts similar to your location, topic, lighting, and the climate. You’re basically compelled to plan shoots, which is what fairly often separates good photographers from nice photographers. Deadlines create a way of accountability. You have a tangible purpose, which may be very helpful should you typically end up laying aside picture shoots or by no means committing to them in any respect.
When you enter a contest, you’re placing your work on the market to be judged. Naturally, you’ll wish to guarantee your absolute best work is submitted, which can encourage you to hunt out higher places and topics, plan for higher circumstances, and spend that little additional time to good your pictures (be it out within the discipline or within the modifying room).
There’s an aspirational facet to images competitions, too. A specific class would possibly immediate you to check out one thing new. And even should you don’t win, you’ll expose your self to extra images, which can inform your individual inventive selections. Similarly, some competitions boast thriving communities the place entrants work together with one another. This is widespread on the membership circuit or weekly/month-to-month competitions held on social media. In these situations, you could discover your pictures are subjected to reward and constructive critiques out of your fellow entrants, which may show confidence-boosting and academic.
Finally, some competitions have some fairly darn good prizes. CEWE Photo Award 2025 boasted a mixed prize kitty of €250,000 (roughly $291K / £216K / AU$522K), with each picture tools and CEWE vouchers up for grabs, in addition to a €10,000 journey for the general winner (but to be introduced).
Nobody has to enter a photograph competitors in the event that they don’t wish to, however I needed to place this text collectively within the hope I may encourage just a few readers who’d maybe by no means thought-about it an possibility to choose up their digital camera and provides it a go. I actually assume that anybody who spends a yr getting into competitions can’t fail to enhance as a photographer, and that basically is the worst-case state of affairs. The greatest? Well, you would possibly simply win.
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Want my top tip for achieving success in photography competitions? Don’t overthink it. Perhaps you want to brush up on your photography skills in general. If so, here are my landscape photography tips. Finally, if you’re thinking of upgrading your kit, these are the best mirrorless cameras.