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Print Competitions? Are they worth it?

J

Jerome Love

New member
I've received emails over the year from PPA and other photography organizations about a print competition they are having, or one they sponsor. More recently the PPA International Print Competition opened and it sparked some interest. I thought this may be an opportunity to try something new and stretch myself a bit. Has anyone here participated in a competition before (any level, local, national, international)?

Also are any of you members of a particular photography organization (PPA, CPA, SPS, ETC)? Would you recommend membership to student like myself? Why are member? What benefits do you get from it?


Jerome
 
K

Kathy Rappaport

pro member
PPA and WPPI and DWF

I am a member of PPA - I sponsored a QuickBooks for Photographer's class last October on the Super Monday education workshops; I took a workshop from a local photographer as well the year before. PPA has indemnity insurance as well as I have my equipment insured with them, they offer their Imaging USA conference each year and have lobbying presence to keep legislative issues in our best interests.

I attend WPPI each year which has some incredible learning and networking for my area of photography - DWF is a community of wedding and portrait photographers much like OPF where there are seasoned pros and newcomers. I have made some great connections via DWF that have been very helpful. They too have an annual conference that piggybacks on the PPA's Imaging USA. For me, the conference is in January and since I am an Accountant cannot go to that.
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jerome,

Your question on print competitions is important. In the first place it forces you to get together a portfolio of actual prints to submit to the world. If you are already well represented in galleries or you have sales elsewhere, it might not matter.

Some of these are merely ways of the organization raising money. However, if the competition results are sent to thousands of members, then this can help you.

Asher
 
K

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Without knowing any more about you than what you've revealed in your question, my off-hand answer to your title question would be no. You pay your fee, you send your print(s). You win -- yay. You lose -- aw. But either way, what have you accomplished? Have you really "stretched yourself"? Unless you consider mustering the attention and discipline to prep and mail prints a "stretch", no, not really.

The bigger question is whether you should join one of these trade organizations. The answer depends on what direction you think you want to take in photography. PPA, for example, is almost exclusively composed of wedding, family, and school photographers. They publish a good magazine for that genre and offer some educational and kumbaya-style events each year. (Qualification for membership is your ability to pay dues.) So if that's the type of work you want to do, PPA is probably a good fit.

There are quite a few such organizations out there, each with particular types of membership orientations and varying degrees of qualifications for membership. Nearly all have fairly inexpensive, open-admission student membership programs. So this may be the best time to sample.

In the end, in order to judge value you'll have to ask yourself what you really get out of one of these organizations. Some people just love to have a sense of belonging to something and feel more accomplished with a card in their wallet. They love to meet others doing similar stuff. Others look for advisory and referential resources, perhaps discounts --which are generally sparse-- , and other tangible benefits to measure value.

But I do suggest sampling while you're a 'poor' student. It's cheaper and easier than when you're a 'poor' pro.
 
Alain Briot

Alain Briot

pro member
Jerome Love said:
I've received emails over the year from PPA and other photography organizations about a print competition they are having, or one they sponsor. More recently the PPA International Print Competition opened and it sparked some interest. I thought this may be an opportunity to try something new and stretch myself a bit. Has anyone here participated in a competition before (any level, local, national, international)?

Also are any of you members of a particular photography organization (PPA, CPA, SPS, ETC)? Would you recommend membership to student like myself? Why are member? What benefits do you get from it?


Jerome
Click to expand...

Hi Jerome,

As with all things its a cost versus rewards issue. Ask yourself what you expect from being a member and from entering contests, and see if this exceeds the costs and work involved.

Personally I am a member of some organizations that focus on my personal professional field, Fine Art Landscape photography.

Regarding contests, when I was studying photography I entered a number of contests, usually with very good outcome, and at that time doing this was helpful in allowing me to find out where I stood regarding other photographers. If I won, I was at their level at the very least. If I lost, I had to go further.

Let me know if this helps. One thing that can help me answer your question is knowing what your goals are. If you let me know what your goals are, then I can let you know if entering contests and joining associations will help you reach these goals or not.

Alain
 
J

Jerome Love

New member
Hi All,

Thank you all for the well supported replies. It's been a huge help to read.

I think I should first outline my goals. Currently I'm a student at a community college here in Sacramento, CA hoping to transfer to either Cal Poly SLO, CSU Long Beach, or BIOLA by Fall 2010. I will be transferring as an undergraduate in both Art - Concentration in Photography and Business - Emphasis in Marketing. There are many names for these majors depending on the school, but my ultimate educational goal is to have a degree in photography and marketing. Formal training with business sense behind it.

Photographically I do most of my business in the portrait wedding field but also have begun to break into promotional and advertising work which is where I think I would like to go. To sum it up into a career, I would love to photograph ad campaigns, fashion spreads or editorial portraits. For now I shoot what I love, paid or not and make my bread and butter from portraits and weddings. I enjoy both and could see myself doing either but prefer the advertising. I originally wanted to go into photo journalism but the field, along with the economy and state of newspapers are too competitive for my character. That said, I have taken an internship for which I leave in about a week, spending 3 months in South Africa working as a photojournalist, public relations and aid worker for an NGO VoxUnited (www.voxunited.org) I thought I should take this opportunity mainly because of my love for helping others and the obvious photographic experience involved.

Sorry this is so much but it seems like I should put as much of myself out there as possible to get the best help.

Ken and Alain

Hopefully this can help with your advice.
The sampling, are they any other organizations besides PPA and WPPI that offer a good sampling program for students maybe more specific to the commercial, advertising, fashion world?

Kathy,

Thank you for your thoughts on two of the most popular organizations. It's nice to see it from a legal perspective, though at this time I don't think I'm enough of a photographer to get involved in the politics of photography.

Best

Jerome
 
Alain Briot

Alain Briot

pro member
Jerome,

From your answer I can see one goal that you stated:

"my ultimate educational goal is to have a degree in photography and marketing. Formal training with business sense behind it. "

I don't think contests can help you reach this goal. What you need is formal training to do this."

If you have other goals it would help me if you can state them simply such as:

My goals are:
1-
2-
3-

That's the way I do it for my own goals. Simply stating goals is crucial to reaching them.

Alain
 
J

Jerome Love

New member
Alain,

Thank you for the input.

My goals are as follows:

I'd like to establish my name in the area of on-location portraiture and fashion photography.

I'd like to become a full time photographer.

I'd like to gain more experience as a photographer.

I'd like to become more versatile in my style as a photographer.

Ken,

Thank you, I will check out both of those organizations.

Jerome
 
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