Each year in the photography community, several professional organizations host photography competitions. It can feel incredibly vulnerable, as an artist who puts so much time, energy, and passion into their work, to submit it to these contests to be judged by peers and leaders in the industry. In fact, it’s pretty tempting to just skip entering altogether.
Typically, when I am thinking about entering a competition, I don’t really expect to win or even place. So, while it might look from the outside a bit like an exercise in ego-stroking, it doesn’t usually feel that way at all. But there are some really good reasons to go ahead and be vulnerable and enter anyway — even if the chances of winning are slim.
Having an opportunity (and a deadline) to go through my body of work and choose an image or a handful of images that are technically correct and objectively powerful is a practice that really pushes me as an artist. It helps to remove the emotional attachment I have to certain images (after all, I was there feeling all the emotion in the room and at the time I clicked the shutter with thoughtful intention) and see them through the lens of what makes a good storytelling photo that stands alone and affects the viewer (even without the backstory and the context of the emotion that existed in the moment it was created). And doing this helps me to more consciously make that kind of art in the future. It truly fosters individual growth as an artist and as a professional. And all of that is true no matter the outcome of the competition.
As a birth photographer, there is another driver in my decision to enter birth-specific competitions. I truly believe that there is a misconception in our culture about what birth looks like. When my clients are happy and comfortable sharing their stories, I am always excited by the opportunity to show the world so many versions of what birth can look like. So many options for how and where they can welcome their babies. How empowering it can be. How full of love and support and consent and calm and care it can be. How very different it can look from the Hollywood version of birth we all grew up on.
I, of course, share on my own platforms in hopes of telling those stories and exposing my followers to the many beautiful facets of birth in all sorts of locations, from home to hospital to birth center. But participating in an international competition is a way of combining forces with so many other birth photographers around the world to show the variety of raw, real, beautiful, emotional birth stories that exist today. Together, our platform grows so much bigger, and we can show this gorgeous version of birth to so many people who might not otherwise be exposed to birth photos.
When media outlets pick up the story, the net widens, and birth is normalized that much more. So far, these are just a few of the media outlets who have given press to the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers 2021 Competition:
HuffPost, Today, BuzzFeed, Motherly, PopSugar, Daily Mail, National Geographic, Yahoo, Insider, and Bored Panda, and many more from around the world.
This year, I was surprised and honored to learn that a panel of more than 25 judges scored one of my photos highest of all the photos entered in the Labor category of the annual image competition put on by the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers (IAPBP) earning it a Diamond Award. Another of my photos won a Gold Award (Honorable Mention). Still another Won a Bronze Award, meaning it scored in the top 20% of all images.
To have even a single photo win any of these awards is such a huge honor, but to have two place in the highest award categories and a third be in the top 20% is truly such an honor — it’s hard to really even put in words how it feels to have my work recognized by leaders in my industry.
When the other entries are of such high caliber, the honor of being among them is especially noteworthy and honestly feels pretty amazing. And the collective picture that is painted of birth, in general, is just so darn beautiful. Be sure to click over and have a look at the whole gallery here.
And, of course, a huge thanks to all the judges who took the time to thoughtfully rate each image and give feedback to the entrants so that, no matter the outcome, each person can grow as an artist.
Congratulations to all the winners, and to all those who made themselves vulnerable by entering at all. And an extra special thanks to Liz Cook, IAPBP Director, for all the work she put into making this competition a huge success. This work matters.