If you’ve read any of my early issues of superchARJ you’ll know my own personal mental struggle with the world of awards.
I announced in true over-dramatic style that my time entering awards was over. And it was. And it was good for me.
But for some reason at the end of last year I decided I wanted to give it another go. So I thought I’d tell you why and how that’s going.
I decided to start entering for two awards again – This is Reportage (TiR) and Fearless. Because they’re most relevant within my ‘style bubble’. More on style bubbles later.
My original newsletter “Awards are Bad” (you can read that here) explains why I stopped entering. In a nutshell I had got into the habit of entering to keep up appearances and never really felt any sense of achievement when I won.
I also had just spent a few years trying to be an educator, and had just lost sight of being a photographer first and foremost who wanted to make amazing images for their clients, and didn’t feel the need to impress other photographers all the time.
So I stopped entering awards to focus on just that – being a photographer for my clients – and to re-find myself as an artist without over-analysing it from an educational perspective.
And it worked! I fell in love with the process again and I fell in love with my own work again and in the process I think my style evolved a bit while staying true to the look and feel I’d worked hard on over the years.
So that’s fine, yeah? All is good and hunky dory and you just stay away from awards?
If only that’s how my brain worked!
So I was in a place where I felt like my clients were loving their images more than ever. I was delighted with what I was creating. All good.
But I just felt (and this is very much a me problem) like without awards I didn’t know if my work was “relevant” good. Was I pushing myself hard enough creatively. Am I making work that other artists think is good?
Because I think that’s important to always remember that making our clients happy is relatively easy.
And this is why I’ve never bought into the “I enter awards for marketing” because I truly don’t think clients care all that much about that side of things.
Awards are for ego boosts, and on some level that’s ok.
What awards give you is some kind of yardstick to say that creatively speaking, in your chosen ‘style bubble’, what you’re making is relevant on an artistic level within the industry at the moment.
Or at least I think that’s what it should do.
In reality each award is a style of its own and exists within a very specific bubble of the industry. So you’re kind of competing in an echo chamber.
Which is also ok, as long as you realise that’s what’s happening.
So far I’ve entered two rounds of TiR and one of Fearless.
First round of TiR: two story awards and an individual.
First round of Fearless: one award.
Second round of TiR: absolutely nothing.
So… mixed results.
I will keep entering for this year and see how it goes and if I can make it into any of those end of year lists. But so far I feel nothing. I feel no satisfaction from winning, and getting nothing feels the same as ever… rubbish.
I think you’ve gathered about me by now that I over-analyse most things. Awards are no different. And what awards created has kind of spread like roots into other areas of the industry… like education.
I noticed this when I went to Elevate conference a few weeks back.
It’s not a bad thing, by the way, as long as you’re aware of it.
Take Fearless and TiR awards. They’re both I’d say a very similar style of photography. And it’s a style I personally admire and aspire to be good at.
So I enter there, and I tend to attend workshops and conferences which assist me in becoming better at that particular style bubble.
Elevate conference was absolutely not within my style bubble. And that’s something I think none of us do enough of, pushing at the walls of our style bubble.
I can’t for sure say I learned anything at Elevate, but I got inspired on a totally different level than I do when I’m existing only within the bubble of my own style and tastes.
So try that – try and look to appreciate work that exists outside your style bubble whether it’s TiR and Fearless like me or something more editorial in style like Elevate or something totally different. Something I definitely don’t do enough is try and get inspiration outside of the wedding bubble. So maybe I’ll try that more!
We don’t all need to burst our bubbles, but what happens when you breathe more air into a bubble? It gets bigger. And a bigger bubble only draws more ‘oooh’s from the crowd doesn’t it?
Big bubbles. That’s what the crowd want.
Thanks for reading.
Adam
