Blog

Photo Contest Insights

September 14, 2026
What Are You Actually Buying When You Book a Photography Trip?
Photo tours and workshops can take you to the same wildlife. What they are designed to give you once you arrive can be very different.
July 22, 2026
Why Photographers Struggle to Judge Their Own Work
Reflections on improvement, feedback, and contest success after judging 27,000 images for Nature Photographer of the Year.
June 4, 2026
What Could We Learn From Every Contest Entry, Not Just the Winners?
We have galleries full of winners and no record of everything else. That gap is the most interesting problem in contest photography, and it's the one I'm building a new feature — ImageIQ — to close.
May 22, 2026
Why Great Images Don't Always Win: The Psychology Behind Nature Photography Contest Results
After years of entering and studying major nature photography contests, I've come to understand that judging is deeply human — and human evaluation follows patterns more complicated than we like to admit.