Each year around the country there are literally hundreds of photo competitions, from your local camera club to your school fete right up to big companies running a photo related promotion like this one from Peter Alexander (by the way, don’t even bother entering this, our 19 year old cat Isabelle already has her paws all over first prize!).
However, there is one competition that stands above all others in the industry in terms of the quality of entrants and the prestige attached to successful entries, the Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPAs). Looking through the category winners of recent years is like looking through a who’s who of internationally acclaimed photographers with names like Jerry Ghionis, Sue Bryce, Dan O’Day, Darren Jew and Peter Coulson featuring.
The APPAs are the national awards, sitting alongside those are the state awards and in SA we have the SAPPAs. Last year I entered 12 prints in the state and national awards (8 for SAPPA and 4 for APPA) and walked away with a grand total of zero awards. This year I did the same thing and came away with 7 silver awards and 1 silver with distinction (including 3 silvers in the nationals!!). I even managed to finish runner up in the South Australian Travel Photograher of the Year.
Needless to say I was ridiculously happy.
The whole process of having your work judged is pretty nerve wracking. Actually ridiculously nerve wracking. As a 35 year old man I don’t often put myself in a position to be judged publicly and when my prints were before the panel of 5 judges it was like I was a 13 year old basketballer waiting for the coach to read out the names of the players who made the A team (I didn’t, but I did the next year!!)
Without further ado here are my entries, three of them were entered in both awards which explains why there are 9 photos instead of 12.
WEDDINGS
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| Silver with distinction at SAPPAs. Silver at APPAs. |
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| Silver award at SAPPAs. Not entered into APPAs. |
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| One point off a silver award at SAPPAs – so close! Not entered into APPAs. |
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| Again, one point off a silver award at SAPPAs! Not entered into APPAs. |
TRAVEL
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| Silver award at both APPAs and SAPPAs. |
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| Silver award at APPAs. Not entered into SAPPAs this year. |
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| Silver award at SAPPAs. Not entered into APPAs. |
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| Silver award at SAPPAs. No love from the judes at APPAs! |
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| No love from the SAPPA judges and didn’t enter in APPAs. |
When it’s all said and done winning these awards doesn’t actually have a huge bearing on your abilities as a wedding photographer, the type of photos that win awards are often very different to the photos a bride would fall in love with and how you conduct yourself on the day and in the lead up isn’t seen by just looking at the 4 photo from the last 12 months. I see the awards more as a pat on the back from your peers, an acknowledgement that you’re creating something different and interesting and that technically everything is up to scratch (you wouldn’t believe the sort of things the judges pick up on that a non-photographer would never notice in a million years!).
If you want to see the category winners you can check them out here, there’s some pretty amazing stuff in the mix. Bring on 2014!
