Competitions and Awards

During my Army Career I won many awards including Army Photographer of the Year, Best Overall Image and Best Operational Image all in the same year, 2013. I picked up awards in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018 in the annual competition until I became more of a manager and took less photos.

Why am I telling you this? Well entering regular competitions against your friends and colleagues gives you two things - a thick skin and an understanding of how it feels to not win when entering despite thinking you have the best images ever.

ABOVE Some of my winning Army images.

When I think of competitions I always say that its just someones opinion on whether that is a winning image or not. As long as your picture is technically correct, exposure, focus, white balance, well composed then everything after that comes down to personal choice and depending on the competition, whether it fits the theme or message the competition wishes to convey.

I was actually in the room for one of the judging panels for the competition to assist with laying out the portfolios, it came down to the last 4 portfolios two of which were mine. I thought surely I am going to at least get second, the two civilian judges from the photographic industry were both favouring my portfolio so it was looking good. Then along came the Brigadier for Army Media and Communications who had no photographic knowledge or understanding at all and proceeded to poo poo my portfolio and sway the other judges away from it. Now there are lots of things in this that could be discussed in detail but the point I’m trying to make is how much it comes down to the opinion of the people in the room on the day.

I’ve judged categories of the RAF Photographic Competition for a few years and have seen myself change my winning order just by looking the following day with fresh eyes.

I joined the Guild of Photographers in 2018 with the goal of achieving the Photographers Bar award, you enter the image of the month and are awarded Bronze, Silver or Gold. To gain the Bar you have to get enough points over the year, I think it was something like a Bronze 8 out of the 12 months, something like that. It was a good competition and its great to have a challenge to shoot for each month but I wasn’t really a fan of the amount of editing on some of the images so I left after my first year. You can see my certificate for achieving the bar in the image at the top, I think I have a pin badge somewhere too.

ABOVE This image featured in the Guild of Photographers Awards Book 2018

Now I have entered the British Wildlife Photography Awards for the past couple of years and had the email requesting high resolution and RAW images for the second round of judging. This stirs all sorts of emotions inside and starts the brain thinking “Oh maybe I am in with a shout” the worst part of this is the months long wait to find out you haven’t been successful! I did get an image in the BWPA book for the past two years so I at least knew I was on the right track photographically.

Last year I entered the Deer Photographer of the Year competition, the first one they have ran and in March received an email to say one of my images has been awarded Highly Commended which is my first award for any of my natural history imagery.

ABOVE My Highly Commended image in DPOTY

I’m really chuffed to receive this, sure its a highly commended but there were a lot of entries so to make it to the last few in the behaviour category is great. I did a Top Ten Deer images podcast with Andy Rouse last year which included this image, he said at the time its a competition winning image. I’ll put my certificate for the Highly Commended on the wall next to my other ones when it comes through.

DPOTY 2025 will be open for entries in September with a grand prize of £5000 so plenty of time to get out shooting.

If you are going to play the competition game then my advice is do not leave it to the last minute to sort you entries out. I’ve done that and while it is exciting racing a clock that will run out at 23.59 its not the best way to approach it. One other thing, if you don’t routinely caption your images then don’t forget you need to do this, again its no fun typing up a paragraph about an image you took 2 years ago and trying to remember the details of it whilst the clock ticks down.