Q&A

STORIES GUIDE FOR ENTRIES

By March 11, 2020 No Comments

Why enter awards?

Photography awards mean different things to different people. They can represent a significant milestone in a professional’s career, a way for independent photographers to engage with the wider photographic community, an avenue to get your images in front of a panel of experts or anything in between. To enter an award you don’t need to be a famous photographer, you just need to have an interest in photography and a desire to engage with the broader national community.

We pride ourselves on being an all inclusive organisation where we award photographers not because they hold a level of notoriety, but because their ideas and execution speak to us. You’ll never know if you don’t have a go, so we encourage everybody to get involved.

 

Is my work right for an award?

Of course it is! With that being said, there are a few details to iron out before sending in your imagery to make sure it gets the look-in it deserves. We only accept imagery that has been made either by Australian Photographers OR Photographers residing in Australia. We also have some requirements for how to enter, which you can read over here in greater detail.

 

 

APA vs. Stories (single vs multiple image entries)

Sometimes a single image can tell a long story, leaving the viewer coming back for more time and time again. This can be so exciting to discover new details on multiple viewings  that help paint a wider view. Other times we photographers decide to utilise multiple images, carefully photographed and sequenced in order to be able to direct a narrative with a little more nuance.

The recognition of these different methods of storytelling has inspired us to announce a brand new award for excellence in photographic storytelling in 2020. We are calling this Stories. Stories will open for submissions in April, running earlier in the year to Australian Photography Awards, as a different award to serve a different purpose.

If you have a set of images and you can’t decide whether you would rather submit as a project, or submit as single images, here are some tips. Take a look over the imagery as a group, where is the story being told? Is it wrapped up in one or two images, or does it need the extra details to round out the narrative? If you can read a story in your single image, it may be stronger for APA. If your story is being told more effectively by looking at the group all together, then your project is suited to Stories. Of course there are times where images are strong individually as well as a part of a series, so you are welcome to enter both awards.

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