The reasons why I completely stopped participating in photography contests
To tell the truth, I have never participated very actively in photographic competitions. There are photographers who participate in any land-based contest / award. I also won a couple but all over these years I was able to see the true nature of many of these contests and above all I thought that my photography does not deserve to be wrecked in those situations.
Los Angeles, California (USA) - October 2011
To tell the truth, I never believed that art or any form of expression can be included in a ranking. And for this reason I experienced it, every participation, as a forcing. I have always felt uncomfortable with selecting my work and participate in a horse race .
Many of these competitions have become a business for the organizers. A way to make money with the work of photographers. Furthermore, the rules often provide for an incorrect use of images, and when this does not happen, however, you have the feeling of exploitation of your work.
Many of these competitions count with many sponsors, especially the best known, and despite this they charge an entrance fee to the participant that most of the time is expensive. The result is that only those who have money participate. And this goes against the very concept of giving a voice to artists, who we often know are not doing well economically or in any case do not have fixed income.
If over time, as my career became more and more consolidated, I always paid more attention to where my photos were going, I also realized that many of these contests always reward a certain type of photography and aesthetics. Competition photography is often mediocre, useless and redundant, full of cliches, to the point that by now we already know what types of photographs live in a given competition. I know coleagues that edit their images to participate to the World Press Photo!
And speaking of World Press Photo, one of the last awards in which I stopped participating, we have seen how often people who cheat have been given space. And when they do not exploit minors and the approach, for example, with black people is different, of exploitation on the issues of poverty and undignity. To tell the truth, they have sometimes withdrawn rewards from abusers, but this is not always the case. And that made me think even more about delivering my photos in certain dimensions. As a photographer I have made respect one of the focal points of my photographic dimension, how can I mix with certain realities? Only to have, perhaps, a prize?
Now you can accuse me of talking like that because I've never won any major awards. Fine. Free to believe me but that's not the point. I believe that he does not need any confirmation on my photograph. I do not consider an award to be a confirmation or not of the work I do which is finally aimed at quite other goals. The real rewards come from getting close to certain themes and people. To have been published for real. To be able to create a connection through my photography and in general all my activity within the world of photography.I could see how to work with NGOs has done good on a social level. I was able to give money to people in need thanks to my photographic work.
These are the real victories, guys.
From not participating in certain situations I do not become an accomplice of exploitation. Every time I uploaded photos to a contest I had this bitter aftertaste of debasing my photography. My photography does not deserve this, because and as mentioned, it is aimed at other objectives.
I don't even want to be misunderstood with this post: this is first of all a personal choice and is not meant to be some kind of do you like me. This is just the point of view of a professional photographer with no need of confirmation. I have other confirmation rooms, fortunately. And this is only about awards: I continue to participate to selections for editorial projects like inclusions in a book or an exhibition.
