The oldsters at CEWE have simply introduced the class winners of the corporate’s mammoth bi-annual images competitors, the CEWE Photograph Award, and it’s acquired me interested by how picture competitions will be a good way to develop your abilities as a photographer.
Photograph contests are vastly standard: over 650,000 photos had been entered into the CEWE Photograph Award 2025 throughout 10 classes, making it the most important picture competitors on this planet. What I like about this explicit competitors is that it has a charitable partnership with SOS Youngsters’s Villages Worldwide, and it’s open to anybody. Together with you!
There’s a wealth of picture competitions to select from, whether or not it’s an area digital camera membership comp or a world award, it doesn’t matter, simply put your images on the market. Maybe you’re pondering, however Mike: “I’m not very aggressive.” Or maybe, “I’m aggressive to the purpose that it stresses me out!” Possibly you query how creative expression might probably be judged. And a few of you may not even care about accolades. These are all very reliable causes to keep away from images competitions, however what in regards to the causes to enter them?
Images competitions have guidelines, themes, classes, and deadlines. These constraints pressure you to take a extra thought-about method to your images. As an alternative of merely snapping images on a time out, themes and classes encourage you to think about parts reminiscent of your location, topic, lighting, and the climate. You’re primarily pressured to plan shoots, which is what fairly often separates good photographers from nice photographers. Deadlines create a way of accountability. You will have a tangible purpose, which could be very helpful in the event you usually end up pushing aside picture shoots or by no means committing to them in any respect.
Once you enter a contest, you’re placing your work on the market to be judged. Naturally, you’ll need to guarantee your easiest work is submitted, which can encourage you to hunt out higher areas and topics, plan for higher circumstances, and spend that little additional time to good your pictures (be it out within the area or within the modifying room).
There’s an aspirational side to images competitions, too. A specific class may immediate you to check out one thing new. And even in the event you don’t win, you’ll expose your self to extra images, which can inform your individual inventive selections. Equally, some competitions boast thriving communities the place entrants work together with one another. That is frequent on the membership circuit or weekly/month-to-month competitions held on social media. In these cases, it’s possible you’ll discover your photos are subjected to reward and constructive critiques out of your fellow entrants, which may show confidence-boosting and academic.
Lastly, some competitions have some fairly darn good prizes. CEWE Photograph 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).
No one has to enter a photograph competitors in the event that they don’t need to, however I wished to place this text collectively within the hope I might encourage a couple of readers who’d maybe by no means thought-about it an choice to select up their digital camera and provides it a go. I actually assume that anybody who spends a 12 months getting into competitions can’t fail to enhance as a photographer, and that actually is the worst-case situation. The most effective? Nicely, you may simply win.
You may also like…
Need my prime tip for reaching success in images competitions? Do not overthink it. Maybe you need to brush up in your images abilities typically. If that’s the case, listed below are my panorama images ideas. Lastly, in the event you’re pondering of upgrading your package, these are the greatest mirrorless cameras.