Photography Competition Tips from a Master Photographer | What Helps (and Hurts) Your Score

As a PPA Master/Craftsman photographer, I’m asked to speak around the country and often judge photography competitions. Recently I was judging an out-of-state fair print competition and was asked how to get better scores.

The easy answer is to point to PPA’s 12 Elements of a Merit Image. They’re a solid standard. But creativity doesn’t come from a clipboard. You don’t write inspiring music by reciting theory — and you don’t make a great photograph by checking twelve boxes.

Science and Art

That doesn’t mean the craft doesn’t matter. Photography is a mix of Science and Art. On the art side, we need room to be creative and have fun (fun is a huge part of creativity). On the science side, we need to be “Proficient in our Profession” and nail the technical details.

I don’t know any creative person who actually makes pictures by walking through all twelve elements — and I don’t know many judges who score that way in real time either. Those ideas sit in the back of our minds. Nobody consistently checks them off one by one.

So what’s the better advice? One rule that folds most of those ideas into a single test:

“Everything in the image either helps it or hurts it.”

If something distracts, it hurts. Get rid of it. How can you get rid of it? Crop it, move your feet and hide it behind a pillar, wait for better light, straighten the horizon, put light on the face, keep detail in the shadows, or print it clean.

But if a little “flaw” is character — a crooked tie on a 100-year-old farmer — leave it.

Here’s a video walking through the tips I share most often: what judges notice, the mistakes that quietly cost points, and the refinements that made some of my own images score well — and hang on the wall.

Want more training? That’s at BryCoxWorkshops.com. Portrait work lives at BryCox.com.

PPA – The 12 Elements of a Merit Image

Full descriptions are on PPA’s site. The short list:

  1. Impact
  2. Technical Excellence
  3. Creativity
  4. Style
  5. Composition
  6. Presentation
  7. Color Balance
  8. Center of Interest
  9. Lighting
  10. Subject Matter
  11. Technique
  12. Story Telling