Local photography clubs are a good place to get critique - mine has various competitions throughout the year but there are also more casual opportunities to seek feedback
this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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Also consider joining a local photographers group. Most will have a competition each meet up. The judging is process is a great learning opportunity. You will learn what the judges look for and often how closely they look at the images. It's a great opportunity to meet and network with other shooters, too. With what you learn about judging locally, you will have a leg up for the wider scope.
Well just about all larger international and national photo competitions won't be able to offer any serious critique due to volume of entries.
Which particular events are you considering?
My advice would be to participate in smaller juried exhibitions in nearby venues or cities. In the US, the CAFE website lists these; maybe there is a UK version you can check out.
Entering competitions is a reasonably bad and possibly expensive way to improve one’s skills. A better way, imo, is a multi-prong approach:
Learn your camera well and understand how various settings affect your shots
Read about the parameters of good photography
Find a group of photographers whose work you like and seems to be good to be willing to spend time to critique your work.
Decide what you like - and why. If others don’t like what you like, understand why.
Take many, many photos and analyze what makes some ‘good’ and others not so good.
Ignore people who give you ‘empty’ praise or criticism. People should know why they like/dislike something. If they don’t know, they can’t teach.
""You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" -Wayne Gretzky" -Michael Scott
But for real, if there's no cost to enter, why not submit as many photos as you can? If there's a topic for the contest, it may even get you to think about different styles or try new things. The contest alone won't improve your skills, but researching and trial and error for trying to meet the competition requirements might.
Good luck.
Better to post in some local groups (on Facebook) perhaps. There are also subreddits dedicated to giving critique on your photos. r/photocritique is one of them.
Competitions are... meh. It's all subjective anyway. There is no 'best' photo really. Some competitions are good, most are worthless to be honest. Also the fact that everybody can organize a competition these days.... it isn't as prestigious as it used to be to win one. I see a lot of local agencies and freelancers organising all kinds of competitions, and some photographers that have like a dozen badges on their website of competitions they won (which nobody ever heard about before anyway, but yeah...).
I see so many that have like 'Best editor 2019' or 'Best young photographer 2021' and 'Winner photo selection X 2023'. And if you look into those competitions it's like organised by some local folks in their specific town. But if it helps you impress clients, I guess it's useful lol.
I think portfolio reviews, mentorships and workshops are more what you're looking for. Find a photographer or photo editor whose work you really admire and see if they do them.
As for competitions, they can be a bit of a money sink but some of the more prestigious ones can be a nice boost if you do well. You typically won't get critiques though, at least not to the same extent as a portfolio review.