make cash from competitions
Pit your best images against the rest and you could end up with cash or equipment Photo competitions offer big prizes... either in cash or in terms of top-of-the-range kit. It is a great way of trying to get some return from your hobby with the minimum of
Where to look
At any one time there are hundreds of photographic competitions around the world open for entries. The key is finding the right one for you. With prize values running into thousands of pounds or dollars, it’s tempting to jump straight for the extremely prestigious competitions such as the Landscape Photographer of the Year, Travel Photographer of the Year or Wildlife Photographer of the Year. However, these high-profile competitions attract thousands of entries, many of extremely high quality, so your chances of winning are pretty slim. Rather than only looking at these well-known competitions, it’s worth starting out by seeking out some of the less prestigious national or international contests.
You could be better off starting out by entering smaller, local competitions: although the prizes may not be as generous as those awarded to the winners of the major competitions, your chances of winning, or at least being shortlisted, are much better. One other advantage of these smaller competitions is that they often don’t require you to pay the entry fees that many bigger competitions charge. As well as checking in
Digital Camera and on www. digitalcamerworld.com, it is worth looking at the specialist competition site www. photocontestinsider.com and subscribing to its newsletter.
Entry fees are also something that you need to weigh up when entering larger competitions. While it’s a fact of life that many extremely reputable competitions charge fees, you need to decide whether the amount being charged is reasonable
compared to your chances of winning, the prize on offer and also the prestige of the competition.
copyright and usage
Whenever you enter your photograph into a competition, you will be granting the organisers a limited right to use your image, but these usage rights can vary from one competition to another. You will find the detail in the small print in the terms and conditions, so it’s worth checking what they are before entering.
Almost every competition will expect you to allow them to use the images you submit to help promote and advertise the competition, including using them in any book or exhibition that’s connected with the contest. But you should also look out for clauses that give the organisers the right to use the images in other ways (even giving them the right to free usage forever).
This free use of the image is most commonly found when the competition is free to enter, as this access to ‘free’ images may be why the organiser is running the contest, but it can also be found in the terms of other competitions.
If you are serious about making money from your photography, avoid competitions where they ask for these types of usage rights.
the rewards
The obvious reward for winning any competition is the prize on offer. These can range from genuinely useful items such as money or new camera kit, to the potentially useless. But even unwanted prizes can be sold to provide you with some cash. There’s also the potential to use winning a competition as a good way of gaining exposure for your photography. This is much more difficult to quantify than the prize, and will ultimately depend on what you want to achieve with your photography. But when it comes to pitching for work, being an award-winning photographer won’t do you any harm whatsoever.