Why I Won’t Submit to Payed Photo Contests Anymore

Recent news from the world of photography awards are not that good. There are numerous photo contests around, and today I read that five of them relate to just one person. This sounds, at least, a little bit odd. I mean a photo contest is probably a business like any other business. And sure the business owner doesn’t run it for the sake of running it. There is some profit involved, and that’s fine for me. But why is there just a plain contact page on those websites and no address or phone number? Is there something I should not know? It smells.

Nothing to judge about

Two weeks ago Petapixel reported that judges of a photo contest didn’t judge anything. If that aligns with the awards from the other article, and especially with the Monochrome Awards, I want my money back! It is one thing to get rich with such a business concept, but when there are details provided that aren’t true, then it’s fraud. The reason I entered an image, was not to get international recognition but to be judged by experienced people, so that I get valuable feedback. And that would simply not be the case.