Photographic Competitions - some suggestions, or Instagram

Google photographic competitions to see what you can enter and what inspires you.
What do you need to do?
Take photos in the categories listed.
Make sure your photo is sharp.
Do not take any pictures which might infringe somebody else's copyright.

First look through your existing photos to see what you have in the listed categories.
If you have a good subject, but bad lighting, go back and take more photos in better light. If your photo is not sharp, go back and take another photo with a tripod.

If previous winning competitions included human interest, or objects to illustrate size, add these to your composition.
1 Dress in your best clothes. Take a selfie. Or use time lapse.
2 Take your dog or a family member's dog. For example, a photo of a tree might be enhanced, or size exaggerated, with a dog or bird.
3 Set up time lapse in your garden and take multiple shots hoping a bird or cat or spider will come into view.

Many competitions have closing dates far ahead. You have time to take many different photos or many photos of the same scene with different lighting, people, or added objects.

Emotions
Add the joy of a prizewinner. The sadness of a funeral. Loneliness. Crowds. One person out of step.

Contrasts
Large and small. Old and young. Light and dark.

https://www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/2017/open

Instagram
If you don't feel your photos are ready for competitions, you might like to use Instagram. A new friend told me she does not use Facebook which is full of distracting text. She used Instagram just to put up photos.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Photographing Groups So All Are Seen - including the photographer

How do you photograph a group so everybody can be seen, with VIPs in the middle?

First take the VIPs or prize winners alone. Then the committee. Then photograph the whole group.

You can't ask visitors or ordinary members to stand at the sides. But you can ask the VIP such as the mayor or president, or visiting speaker to stand in the middle.

You can't tell one person to move back. You can ask the smaller people to stand at the front. Or ask the VIPS or prize winners to sit on chairs at the front holding their trophies.

Sometimes the VIP or President is the person keen to have a photographic memento and also the person with the clever camera or the camera kept handy. In order to get them in the photo, somebody else should swap places with the photographer to take another photo including whoever took the first photo.

An alternative is to use a tripod and a time lapse. The photographer then sets up the camera, on time lapse, makes sure there is a place to stand in the group, warns the group the countdown and dashes into place - reminding everybody to smile.

If you are planning to do this for the first time, practise taking time lapse photos of a group of chairs and rushing into place.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.