The purpose of this special blog article is to inform anyone who is interested in photography about the veracity of photography contests.
Via storytelling from my own real experiences as well as itemizing some specific factors of which to be wary (and query), my intent is to ensure potential contestants are well-equipped with some knowledge and helpful insight before deciding to enter a particular photo contest.
Initially, I thought I would (or could) make this article a brief one. I’ve decided against that because this specific issue deserves in-depth, intricate scrutiny in contemporary times. As I told my sister, “Time to go full ‘Lois Lane’ and exposé this.”
For individuals who enjoy reading, I hope you’ll enjoy this article and find value in the content. According to the WordPress’ calculations, this article takes about half an hour to read. Perhaps brew some coffee or tea and nab a biscuit to enjoy and ingest at this point.
LET’S DIVE IN, SHALL WE?
As my career in professional photographer has progressed since 2009, my interest to participate in photography contests has diminished exponentially. In fact, I have developed an acute disdain for most photo contests. There are several reasons why I avoid them, and they mainly boil down to the following topics:
- INVESTED EFFORT
- FINANCIAL COST
- METHODOLOGY OF JUDGEMENT
- BENEFITS OF WINNING (a.k.a. IS IT WORTH IT?)
- VERACITY OF THE COMPETITION
Invested Effort
As a “Generation X” photographer, I grew up during a period when contests had curious intrigue surrounding them — and not in a negative way. Quite the contrary, truly. The probability of winning a contest was sporadic, random, and doused with so many unknown factors. A contestant never knew whether he, she, or they could be lucky enough to win. Personally, I felt there was a light-hearted element of fun and thrill to contests when I was growing up.
If you won, congratulations! 🥳 🥳 🥳
If you lost, better luck next time! 😋 😋 😋
And you moved on without remorse, bitterness, or doubt…
There was little suspicion or shadiness associated with a contest because the rules and instructions were plainly stated without equivocation. You had to follow the rules precisely or else risk disqualification. If you planned to participate, you weren’t going to purposely ruin your chances by skipping a step listed in the instructions or dodge a rule with the belief that the judges or whoever presided over the contest would benevolently turn a blind eye on the discrepancy. You were either “all-in” for the contest, or you didn’t bother to enter. Period. A contest wasn’t worth the effort if you weren’t fully vested to give your best effort to win.
Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, if I didn’t win a competition, I didn’t dwell on it or think “what could I have done” to change the result. The fact was that I didn’t win. It was done deal. I carried on with my life without questioning the outcome. (One could argue that there was definitely more trust, good faith, and integrity in contests during this time). Prior to the Internet Age, after entering a contest, if I didn’t receive any mail or was not called (via landline) about the result, then my (typically correct) assumption was that I didn’t win. Contest organizers only had an obligation to inform you if you had progressed in the competition or won. This made sense because the finalists or winners could only be a finite sample size out of the entire pool of entries.
Fast forward to the 2020s and the dynamics of CONtests appear to be significantly more complicated — to the point that the concept of them feels foreign and very much the opposite of fun. There are myriads of rules, endless instructions, excessive boilerplate, hard-to-translate legalese. The amount of information a contestant must understand and acknowledge is so fathomless that one can sympathize with why contestants often ignore them altogether.
This notion is akin to the mandate of clicking the “Agree” button to access content on modern day software applications despite the thousands of words you have not read in what is a binding contract that protects the company’s product or service — and inadvertently implicates you if anything goes awry. It will almost always be your fault if something goes wrong. Ultimately, for all of us who just want to enjoy the product or service, there is legality in this scenario should you choose neither to read nor understand the terms and conditions to which you’ve literally just consented by clicking the button.
Sometimes, contestants unwittingly surrender their own intellectual property rights of their photo(s) because they did not read all the rules, regulations, terms, and conditions for participating in the CONtest. Nevertheless, if you try to protest, the host of the CONtest can easily convince most lawyers of the fact that you committed to the rules when you agreed to pay the registration fees for the CONtest and/or clicked the “Submit” button. The End. You Lose.
Ironically, when these problems occur (and they occur all the time), the contestant rarely wins. This coerces my mind to frequently query: Isn’t the contestant suppose to have a chance of WINNING THE CONTEST instead of protesting its organizers’ ridiculous rules and red tape?
If you plan to enter a photo contest, try to know as much about how it is managed as well as the expectations from you. The effort you invest in entering should not be a deterrence. If it begins to feel that way, abandon ship immediately. It’s not worth your expended energy.
Financial Cost
When an organization or company hosts a contest, there was a time when the only cost to the contestant would be equivalent to a postage stamp, or maybe the expense of a long distance phone call via a landline telephone. (Actually, perhaps not because the number to call would likely be toll free). I would like to emphasize this point: In a genuine contest, the contestant should incur negligible to no personal cost.
Nowadays, what I have just stated likely sounds mythological or speculative. It’s not. However, we’re living in age in which so many aspects our daily routines are monetized, especially online habits. In terms of photography CONtests in the 21st century, the registration fee, exclusively, should encourage you to query if you’re ready to lose that income — because you will never recoup this amount unless you win the CONtest. Think of it like paying the premium for your automobile insurance or life insurance but with a 99.9% chance you won’t be able to submit any claims now or ever.
If the registration fee for a photography contest is US$50 or €50, be prepared to part ways with that sum forever. There is no refund or remittance. If you’re certain that you can afford the registration fee, and you really want to enter the contest, then at least you know what you’re risking. It’s essentially like gambling, which is why I encourage contestants to not invest too much emotion in the contest. Some CONtests have exorbitant entry fees which a student in high school or university, for example, may find to be unaffordable. Also, if you already have day-to-day budget constraints, do you really want to part ways with US$50 or €50 over something that will likely not yield any return?
Below, please find an example of the contest entrance fees hosted by Dodho Magazine, a photography publication based in Barcelona, Spain. I plan to make an example out of Dodho because I have had a bizarre relationship with this publication for several years — and the most bewildering part of this relationship will be described later in this article. This is not necessarily an attack on Dodho. However, this organization underscores (too) many points for the purpose of this article.
Let’s take a look at Dodho’s latest photo contest at the time of publishing this article — The Color Awards 2026. Please click on the second image below to view the registration fees.
OK. Let’s say you enter Dodho’s most selected option of submitting six images for review by the CONtest’s judges for €45. (Remember, be ready to part ways with that money forever. You’ll never see it again unless you win the contest). Now, try to imagine how many people who also plan to enter this contest for a chance to be titled Dodho’s “Photographer of the Year”. If 1,000 individuals from different countries choose the same option of six images for €45, that’s a total of 1,000 contestants who have collectively given Dodho a grand total of €45,000 JUST TO ENTER THE CONTEST.
Not bad, right?
Now, increase the number of contestants to 10,000. Perform the math. With €450,000 directly deposited into its account, Dodho has now earned the base salary of a medium-sized company’s CEO (before bonuses) in a matter of days. That’s a serious cashflow influx for only the second option available out of three options. This is part of the reason why organizations rarely reveal how many photographs were submitted in a contest. You could calculate how much the organizers earned just from registration fees alone.
Last month, I was discussing the whole concept of photography CONtests with one of my buddies who is based in Canada. Facetiously, my imagination started to wander to new heights, or sink to new depths, depending on how you see it. I joked with my friend that if I was a corrupt individual who wanted to hitch my business to the “Grab-N-Grift” bandwagon that has savaged the United States (to name one nation of many) in the last several years, I could easily (and unethically) start my own photography CONtest.
I could offer a bogus prize such as some grandiose certificate presenting the contestant with the title: “TIA International Photography’s PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE QUARTER DECADE”. Alternatively, I could also offer an attractive prize, such as a new dSLR camera featuring the latest bells and whistles (that most amateur photographers would likely never use). TIA could definitely afford to offer a camera worth $5,000 if TIA charged entry fees that landed $500,000 or more in my bank account in advance. In the end, the host always wins, especially financially. It’s such a lucrative venture — and that is part of the very egregious problem with photography CONtests — and yes, it’s all legal (which is infrequently synonymous with ethical).
If more individuals could properly discern between the two terms, I believe there would be better comprehension regarding why certain individuals and entities conduct themselves horribly with very little reprimand within the legal system. There are terrible things that people and companies do that may be completely unethical, but can be defended by law, making these terrible things, unfortunately, legal. Bad actors and borderline fraudsters are aware of this which is why they appear to get away with abhorrent conduct against unsuspecting individuals who may believe they are acting in good faith. I suspect organizations that host photography contests are well aware of what they can get away with when unethical practices are tempered to a level that releases them of culpability.
Fortunately, I’m not a corrupt or dishonest individual, and I refuse to engage in a practice what could be easily misinterpreted as dubious or dishonorable. I don’t want my name or my business associated with anything unethical or that could be risky to my brand as a professional photographer. TIA has maintained an “A+” rating from the Better Business Bureau for 15 consecutive years for a reason.
With so many temptations — and how EASY it is to grift others of their money — it’s difficult for many entrepreneurs to remain ethical, objective, and honest. I can’t defend or offer reprieve for that behavior, though. Ironically and sadly, there are people in my inner circle who know me very well and profess that my commitment to ethics is exactly why I haven’t been more successful in both my career as a professional photographer and in my separate day-time job.
(We can save that annoying story for a different blog article).
Methodology of Judgement
Photography CONtests are equivalent to gambling at your favorite casino in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Monte Carlo, or Macau. If you don’t take them too seriously and aren’t afraid of inadvertently throwing away your income (assuming it’s your own hard-earned money that’s in question), CONtests can be fun just for the sake of probability and taking chances. However, if you lean on being more pragmatic, practical, and realistic with how your fiscal expenditures or tend to take CONtests more seriously, I would advise cautiously if entering a competition is worth your while. The probability of winning is slim to none.
Let’s go back to the Dodho magazine example. For the Color Awards 2026 competition, they have published profiles of the judges. Each judge is a winner of a previous Dodho photography contest. That’s typically how Dodho operates. For the sake of clarity, I hold no ill-will or judgement against the judges in these photography CONtests. I don’t know any of them, how they’re selected, or how they get involved in evaluating submitted photographs.
Here are the profiles of the judges for Dodho’s Color Awards:
Again, there’s no shade about the jurors for this contest — but what do you notice? Considering the number of images that will be submitted — which is probably in the hundreds of thousands — this is a rather enormous and colossal responsibility to fall upon only four people.
(As a side note, I cannot recall a photography contest in which the majority of judges have not been white men. In the last decade, I have seen few women as judges, and maybe one or two competitions in which there was judge who looked like myself. Stating this — since I’m trying my best to be candid in this article — in all my years in photography, it’s pitiful that the pool of judges for most competitions have not become reflective of the kaleidoscope of colorful photographers who create brilliant images across the globe).
Alas, if we return to our sample size of 10,000 contestants who chose the option for submitting six images for the Color Awards for €45, that means a total of 60,000 photographs are subject to the artistic perspective and verdict of four individuals. That is a daunting demand for such a short amount of time to decide on the very best images.
At this point, my mind now goes to employers who post a job description for a new position in their organization. Perhaps the job ad is posted on LinkedIn, Indeed.com, as well as the organization’s official website in the “Careers” section. Given the state of the job market today in the United States, Canada, and many countries in 2026, the phenomenon of thousands of resumes being submitted for just ONE new position is fairly commonplace (but still jaw-dropping in a negative way).
We know the hiring managers cannot review 1,000+ resumes. They are going to use whichever method (i.e. artificial intelligence, keyword finders, metadata searches) to whittle — at scale — 1,000+ resumes down to 10 resumes or fewer.
Judges for photography contests probably have their own equivalent system to downsize the volume of digital images that contestants paid a sum of money (in this case, €45) for review. Alas, the probability of winning is solely dependent on the methodology of each judge, a system which will be doubtlessly subjective and inconsistent between each judge.
Why would I want to subject myself to a subjective process of elimination when I’m probably in competition with thousands of images, most of which may not even have been looked at for more than five seconds before the judge decided to discount them? Judges are human beings, after all. They will probably give at least a minute of review (which is hardly enough time for a proper assessment of a photograph) to the first hundred or two hundred photos, but once they reach the 1,000th or 2,000th photograph, do you really think those images will get the same level of observation or assessment as the first hundred?
In reality, I surmise that judging photographs must be an extraordinarily tedious and monumentally difficult task given the time constraints allotted. In the end, I believe the winning images were just very, very fortunate (a.k.a. LUCKY) at the time the judge first laid eyes upon them. I’ve never been an official judge for a photography contest, so I do not claim to be an expert, but this is my own (subjective) perspective about why photography CONtests are excessively off-putting.
I’ll be brutally honest here — if you have money to waste while feeling lucky, then sure, submit your photograph(s) for the contest, but scale down your expectations of the results.
In fact, don’t harbor any expectations at all.
Benefits of Winning (a.k.a. Is It Worth It?)
Perhaps this is an opportune time to insert the disclaimer that NOT every contest is a CONtest. There are a few competitions that are legitimate, such as the Sony World Photography Awards for which there is no registration fee. It is a free competition to contestants and there are many prizes for the winners. (Imagine that).
According to my account for Sony World Photography, the last time I submitted a photograph for that contest was in January 2023. Even now, I look at my submissions and stand by them without cringing or wondering, “What was I thinking?”
It’s worth reiterating that winning a contest should be advantageous and at very little to no financial cost to the winner(s). In the case of a contestant losing, the only real loss might be postage or perhaps the time utilized to prepare for the contest. One shouldn’t have to lose a sum of money to enter a competition, but most photography contests today require that you “pay to play” which is counterintuitive. You may as well turn your US$45 or €45 into coins and dispense them all at that slot machine at your favorite hotel or resort in Vegas.
The benefit of winning is essentially in the prizes that are offered. Typically, your only responsibility is to communicate clearly with the organizers so they can send you the prize(s). There should be virtually no inconvenience incurred by you as the winner. That’s part of the reason why contests were fun decades ago. You won an item for which you had no premeditated expectation, anticipation, or scheme. You just had to make sure the organizers had your correct mailing address. Thenceforth, your bragging rights could commence once the prize was physically in your hands (or if a publication, such as your local newspaper, printed an announcement, etc).
Let’s look at some real examples.
For Sony’s current Single Image Competition, the organizers plainly state what the prizes are should you be lucky enough to win. If the contestant performs adequate research, the prizes should be relatively simple to understand if communicated properly. If “X” photo wins, you will win “Y” prize(s).
As a personal example from my own career, I won a photo contest for Digital Photo Pro magazine (now defunct) back in 2020. The organizers contacted me directly to tell me that I had won third place and itemized the prizes that corresponded with my ranking. The prizes listed corresponded with the same ones that had been advertised at the beginning of the contest. (That’s always nice). Here is the message that I received:
Two months later, I received a check for $100 and the very cool Fujifilm X100F camera alongside the additional items. To be completely candid, the biggest reward of the contest was seeing my winning photo in print. Personally, that’s always the biggest prize — media distribution of my work printed in front of the eyes of hundreds or thousands (or millions!) of people. I’m definitely NOT disparaging or dismissing cash prizes, cameras, or “free swag”, but I’m most particular about my work featured in print. As I’ve matured in this business, I know that I don’t need to wait for a contest to have my work printed. (Talk about gambling and disappointment). It’s still a real struggle to get my photography in printed volumes or publications, but this will be a goal I want to achieve and re-achieve perpetually until my time on Earth is done.
The benefits of winning should be fully enjoyed by the winner(s). This may be the only occurrence when a contestant can attest that the entrance fee was worth all the rigmarole — but only a few people out of thousands can ever claim this to be true for each contest. In terms of finances, the winner will always be the contest organizers who charged you a fee to enter the competition. Whether one likes it or not, this collection of cash from contestants is legitimate because the organizers can label the cashflow influx from contests as “fundraisers”. That’s why so many organizers host different contests frequently and consistently.
Veracity of the Competition
Everything I’ve discussed above leads us to this final section. At first, I thought about questioning the legitimacy of photography contests, but after performing this qualitative analysis, I realize that legitimacy is not issue. Even if the premise of these contests have the optics of being unethical, shady, or underhanded, they are still legitimate nevertheless. There are laws that will protect the organizers of the contest. As a result, we need to ask a different, more pertinent question.
This question is not whether photography contests have legitimacy. Rather, the question is whether these contests have any veracity, and that’s what I’ll discuss. Let’s start with some definitions so we have an established source of reference.
The reasons why I avoid most photography competitions is because I believe most of them have real veracity issues. These issues can be broken down into the following itemization based on my own observations:
- Methodology of judging photographs
- Number of judges assigned to evaluate photographs
- Number of submitted photographs for evaluation
- Time allotted to evaluate submitted photographs
- Exorbitant or dubious entrance/registration fees
- Questionable intellectual property conditions for submitted photos (that are typically disadvantageous to the contestant in terms of licensing for use after the contest has concluded)
- Quality of the winning photos (lack of transparency regarding measurements — technique, composition, current trends, mood, or other factors)
- Genuine photography contest vs. popularity contest (when photos “win” based on online votes instead of quality)
To extrapolate on my itemization above, I will share two bizarre anecdotes involving photography contests that I entered in 2026. You may wonder — if I am so adamant about entering contest — why did I bother to enter two contests this year?
The truth is twofold:
1) I hadn’t entered a contest in years and thought I would try my luck as I still believe in the quality of my own work and believe they are competitive; and
2) One of the two contests had such an entirely different twist in the prize that I was compelled to give it a try.
Contest Anecdote #1
Regarding the first reason, we’ll return to Dodho Magazine. As I’ve explained, they’re currently hosting a Color Awards photography contest. Prior to this contest, Dodho hosted a very similar contest, but it was called the Monochromatic Awards. We’re dealing with the same contest, but for imagery in black and white instead of color.
Dodho described that part of the prize will be that each winner and finalist will have their submitted image featured in a print-and-bound publication akin to that of a grand coffee table book. I was intrigued because, as I’ve stated, I have an insatiable affinity to see my photographs in print. For this contest, there were three ranking winners (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place), two “Honorable Mentions”, and approximately 100 finalists.
Dodho stated in their contest FAQs that all contestants would be contacted whether they win or lose. Great! That’s good communication and beneficial to everyone involved. Kudos to Dodho for committing to this responsibility.
I forgot how many judges there were for this contest, but there weren’t many. I also chose the option of six images for €45. The deadline for submissions was July 15, 2026.
On July 31st, I received a message from Dodho (pasted below) that one of my six images had been selected as a finalist. Interestingly, the image was the same one that I submitted for the Digital Photo Pro magazine competition in 2020. (I told you my work remains competitive over time)! 😘 😘 😘
With a deadline of July 15th and a response on July 31st, this meant the judges had roughly 16 days to review all the submitted photos. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t expected this response. I did not expect to become a finalist. (There’s actually a separate story to the reason, but it’s minutiae in comparison to the grand finale of this story). Please keep in mind that this announcement led me to the expectation that I would receive a physical copy of the print-and-bound book in which my image will be featured.
I followed Dodho’s instructions to supply a high-resolution image and additional, relevant information. A few weeks later, I received a follow-up email from Dodho informing me that the book was in the final stage of production. However, they requested each finalist to perform one last quality check to ensure the information printed was accurate. Sure. That’s a straightforward request and very professional, right? Which photographer would ever decline or overlook accuracy in a printed publication that features details about the photographer? I’m too detail-oriented to bypass the opportunity for quality assurance.
After viewing Dodho’s final draft online, I affirmed that my information was correct. At this point, all that was left was to receive a copy of the book! Yay!
One week later, Dodho announced that the book was ready.
I read the correspondence, but I had an expectation that had not yet been met. I was of the belief that Dodho would inquire to which address I would like the book to be shipped. I thought it would be the final inquiry of verification as a finalist for this contest. That didn’t happen, so I clicked on the “MORE INFO” button — and that’s where my surprise (and disgust) flooded my psyche.
In case that previous hyperlink doesn’t work, please view the images below — specifically the THIRD image — to illustrate why I was so profoundly incensed and disappointed.
Recall that I had already spent €45 just to enter this thing. Now Dodho wanted me (and all the other winners and finalists, presumably) to pay another US$200 to obtain a copy of the book of which they stated was part of the prize.
I understood that Dodho wanted to capitalize on the publication, but shouldn’t the winners and finalists receive a complimentary copy of the book? That’s why I entered the competition. Why do I have to pay TWICE for this contest? The winning contestants actually lose money TWICE should they consider buying the book. I hope most of them declined as I did. As far as what went through my head at the time, there’s a graphic four-letter word typically uttered in an expression that precedes the word “that” that I will leave to your imagination.
I felt swindled, deceived, resentful, and — worst of all — dumbfounded that I could not foreshadow this ridiculous outcome to a contest (that’s supposed to be BENEFICIAL TO THE WINNERS). Ultimately, the true winner here, again, is Dodho. With all the contests they organize each year, I imagine this publication has earned millions of euros every year from contestants exclusively. My unethical alter-ego (who doesn’t have a name yet) concedes that this scheme and grift are brilliant. No court of law would denounce this.
Nevertheless, enlightenment inevitably settled in my mind as I finally understood how Dodho’s photography contests operated. I will never submit an original TIA image to Dodho ever again for anything.
In conclusion, Dodho’s photography contests have an inauthentic (and lucrative) legitimacy with absolutely no veracity.
Contest Anecdote #2
In late August, I entered another photo contest hosted by America’s Favorite Photos (AFP). This organization hosts monthly contests in which the winning photo is determined by the total number of votes it receives by anyone with a registered account on AFP’s website.
For AFP’s monthly contest, the winning photo earns US$10,000 for the photographer and an additional US$10,000 awarded to a charity organization of the photographer’s choice.
That second part of the prize was the ONLY reason why I decided to entertain the AFP contest for the month of September 2026. I am a volunteer for the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) headquartered in Seattle. DESC’s mission is simple — to eliminate homelessness in the Emerald City through the provision of housing and health services. This is a mission that has been dear to me for most of my life as I also want any human being born into this planet to always have a place to live as well as a street address.
For the past five years, I have been a volunteer photographer covering DESC’s events, including grand openings of new housing facilities and rehabilitation centers. There are customized, password-protected galleries on my official website that only members of DESC can access because that’s where I upload all the photos that I have captured for them to use for their media distribution and marketing purposes. I am happy that it’s useful for them to access anytime they need or want.
Over the years, I have developed a small network of DESC employees with whom I consistently interact with in person and virtually. Inevitably, some of these employees have become friends. They are among the kindest, sincerest, and most hardworking people I have met since I relocated to Seattle from D.C. nearly 20 years ago.
Needless to say, I am thoroughly entrenched and dedicated to DESC’s mission. I have been a monthly donor to DESC for many years. DESC is one of the very few organizations for which I celebrate their successes whenever they are reported on their website, newsletters, on in published articles in the Seattle Times.
Therefore, with AFP offering US$10,000 to the charity organization of the winning photographer’s choice, I was “all-in” and quickly created a game plan to try to dominate. After all, the contest would be over in 30 days.
Part of my plan was to inform all my colleagues at DESC of my intentions. AFP’s rules were simple enough. People could vote once a day for one photo (i.e. mine) on its website. As a result, the cumbersome part was to ask my colleagues (and my entire network) to register once and vote every day of September.
As you can imagine, it’s a tedious task, but I honestly believed I had a chance. In my mind, I imagined that my colleagues at DESC would tell their own coworkers, colleagues, and friends to participate. Between my network and DESC exclusively, I truly believed we could conquer the contest and have AFP send a check of $10,000 to DESC when it was all over.
I was so bloody optimistic.
However, that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to ENSURE a victory, so I went to my LinkedIn account and issued a very rare public announcement to my entire network with weekly reminders. I also told all my favorite photography contacts all over the world from Singapore to Germany. I even recruited some friends from my high school years in Norway, including my favorite teacher and his wife!
In retrospect, as far as I could gather, most of the people who I contacted directly participated in the repetitive process of voting for my submitted photo each day with occasional, annoying reminders from me via texts and emails.
For the AFP monthly contest, there is no reprehensible registration fee. It is free for anyone to enter.
Although the rules are simple, the question of veracity dubiously overshadowed the methodology of this contest like sinister specters looming over the graveyard. In fact, when one examined how the AFP contest was conducted, the optics could be considered egregious, even though — you might have guessed — it’s still legitimate.
How did this “veracity specter” materialize? It pertained to the way people could vote. AFP offered various options on how to vote. For these monthly contests, the voter has the option of submitting one “free” vote for a contestant’s submitted photo. In addition, you could purchase additional votes at US $1 per vote.
You read that correctly.
When my friend in Toronto later pointed it out, a queasy feeling developed in me, thinking “I hope my friends know me well enough to know that I would never fathom asking them to purchase votes.” What kind of friend would ask or assume such a notion? All the same, that aspect of the contest remains as cringeworthy and creepy as someone pouring any icy, viscous form or slime down your back. If you practice any kind of ethics in your day to day routines, you know the feeling that I have just described. To be transparent, two of my friends revealed that they did purchase votes — out of their own volition — because they really wanted my photo to win. I hadn’t asked them to do this but I still felt badly, because the optics look terrible to me.(Rebecca and Matt, your faith in my work means everything to me).
If you weren’t satisfied with the one vote, free of cost, you could purchase additional votes for the AFP contest. Interestingly, the contestants cannot purchase votes for their own photos, but if you have some wealthy connections who have cash fluttering around the foyer, you can purchase as many votes as you want every single day of the contest. How do I know? I tested AFP’s system after I lost the semifinal round. (Please don’t be upset with me if you believe I just revealed a spoiler to this story. All of you who have read this far probably deduced already that I lost this contest given the context of this entire article).
My photo — which was first place in the semifinal round all day on September 19th until the last 59 minutes — lost to the image pasted above. The next day, I went back to the AFP website because I could still cast a vote for another contestant’s photo for the remainder of the month. I wanted to see if there was a limit to the number of votes one could purchase.
It looks like there wasn’t one.
I had randomly entered 10,000 votes because the contest’s prize was US$10,000 for the photographer and US$10,000 for the charity organization. I could not believe that this transaction really could have been processed by AFP if I had allowed it.
Once again, I found myself gravely disappointed because I knew that some of the contestants probably had the resources to buy the votes. If I’m being fair, I don’t even know if anyone else in my network purchased votes for my image, so I can honestly be sure aside from the two people who told me directly.
Need more evidence about the veracity of AFP? Check out the unaddressed query (dated November 18, 2025) posed to Socialmark, LLC (the owner of AFP) on Bizapedia.com.
Ultimately, AFP’s monthly photo competition is both a popularity contest and a “cash capital” contest. As I told my Canadian friend, so many things in the United States are monetized that many people don’t even seem to question the validity or veracity of this function. This contest is only one small example of what I’m describing in American society. Just to illustrate how extreme and unethical many contests have become, two years ago, there was a worldwide argument that the U.S. Presidential election had also been bought (literally). In so many contests in the United States — not photography exclusively — you now have the option to just buy the whole damn thing — and it’s yours. To blazes with ethics or veracity.
Looking back, even though I was severely irritated at the time of losing the semifinal, I am relieved that I didn’t win this contest. In spite of all the effort that I invested to make it happen, I don’t think popularity was my nemesis here. Capitalism was the culprit. Besides, when you look at the winner and the ranking of photos for the AFP contest in September, one who is familiar with the competition will wonder if the winner won without the help of hundreds of dollars.
This is another reason why I evade photography contests.
Whew! I am mentally exhausted recalling the experiences I have had with so many photography contests in the last two decades. Only a handful have been positive experiences, like this one. Nevertheless, I am glad that I have finally documented this subject matter as it has always been in on my mind to share with anyone who has questioned these photography contests.
Hopefully, my “Lois Lane” exposé was of some utility in your current or future considerations with photography contests — because I don’t think many of them are exclusively about photography anymore.
