I’ve recently been working on some print competition images, so I thought this would be a good time to share my “12 Elements of Wootness.” These 12 elements are part of a lecture that I give to professional photographers on print competition. They are loosely inspired by the “12 Elements of a Merit Print,” as published by the Professional Photographers of America. These elements are serious, this is not a parody or satire, but are elements that *I* personally use as a guide in preparing my own prints for competition. I will be sharing them here one at a time and when they have all been presented, I will consolidate them into an ebook available for download in the Fan Club Freebies section. I hope you find these useful in prepping for your own competitions.
1. Enter client images.
Do not enter an image of a family member
or an image that you have become emotionally attached to.
The first element of Wootness has to do with WHO the subject of the photograph is.
It’s my own personal philosophy to only enter client images. I know that there are photographers out there who shoot specifically for competition. That’s fine. For them. It is a personal challenge of mine to create competition-level images every time I do a studio session. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. If I continually push myself to produce competition-level images during regular client sessions, it can only serve to improve my photography in the long run. I’d much ratherbe in a position where my normal work was of a high quality, than to schedule special sessions and have the stars and planets all aligned properly, you know?
The element also says to stick to non-family images. Why? Because it’s very hard to listen to a critique of your image when it is of someone you love. Furthermore, stay away from entering any image that you have developed an emotional attachment to. You need to be objective about your work and you cannot be objective if the image is of your precious children, siblings or an image that you *personally* love.
I became very emotionally attached to the images I submitted to my very first print competition exactly two years ago. I entered 4 images and one did quite well. In fact, it went on to be a merit image at the 2010 International Print Competition. But, I digress…
Anyway, at this particular competition, I entered 4 images that I really liked. One did very well and 3 did okay. I won 3rd place in Portraits at that competition. I stayed after the awards ceremony because we had the opportunity to meet with master photographers and have our entries critiqued.
A man named Bob critiqued one of my images. I was not being objective. I took the critique very badly and was angry for several days. It actually took me over a year to understand the critique. I had not learned to look at my work critically and objectively. After a full year, I finally realized what Bob was trying to tell me. Fortunately, he is a true professional and was very gracious when I tracked him down and talked to him about it. We’re now like this (fingers twisted).
So, I learned element #1 in a very hard way. I’m all about NOT learning lessons the hard way, so take it from me, stick to client images that are not people related to you or images that you have bonded with emotionally and this will be the first step towards success in competition (and critique-handling).