Competition as Assignment: Why Photographers Should Always Keep Creating
In photography, competition is often viewed as a final goal where a finished image is submitted, judged, and compared. But for many photographers, competitions can serve a deeper purpose: they can be a challenge to fine-tune their craft.
Participating in a competition is an opportunity to test yourself to think differently, experiment more boldly, and refine the way you see the world. Competitions become prompts to stretch your imagination and explore subjects, techniques, or stories you might otherwise overlook.
Photography is a lifelong craft. No matter how experienced you are, there’s always something new to learn. The competition itself offers the construct of a deadline and a purpose that results in new work.
What I observed from participating in the Nov. 1st North Georgia Camera Club Council (NG3C) Shootout was that my approach to my assigned theme, “Pairs,” was quite literal. I sought visuals that showed, “two things make a pair here.” Titling the images helped highlight the subjects I captured, and perhaps in the ‘pairing’ of words to image, gave the visuals more context. In posting the images to this blog page, I realized there’s a whole other meaning to ‘pairs’ when it comes to image flow and layout on a page.
Real competition will always be with ourselves first and foremost. It helps us to stay curious, to keep creating, and to remain passionate about the images we share with the world.
Thank you to the greater photography community that provided this opportunity. As a member of two clubs, the Cobb Photographic Society and Women in Focus, and as a Facebook follower of the surrounding photo clubs in my area, it was wonderful to participate in the NG3C Shootout competition.
Of the (approximately) 150 photographers who gathered in Marietta and captured one of five topics, I won a 7th-place ribbon for my ‘Air Control’ image in the Pairs category.
To view all the 2025 Shootout Winning Images and Results, click here: https://www.northgeorgiacameraclubcouncil.org/2025-shootout-winning-images/
To view my submitted photos in full, click on any image:
