I entered photos into three Photographic Society contests last night: Foto Art Super Circuit and Photomania Circuit, both in India, and World System Photo, in Hungary. It's always a labor-intensive but interesting process to decide which photos to enter. I always try to mix photos that have been successful at other contests in the past, with new photos that haven't been entered anywhere yet. Choosing the latter photos is what's most interesting, as I try to objectively evaluate my own images, as others would see them. Sometimes I surprise myself -- photos that I had originally loved don't look as good from an outsider's eye, and photos that I was critical of suddenly look promising. And the results often surprise me as well. Photos that I were unsure about get rave reviews, while others I was sure would be popular get low scores. That's why entering these contests is so informative. I get to see how my art is viewed within a community of my peers.

At the same time, it's also interesting to see how different contests, and in particular contests in different countries, view the same image. I've found that my genre in particular, figure nudes, can get widely different reactions in different places. I've learned that it's helpful to review the photos that have been accepted or awarded in the past, and to avoid contests where few or no photos featuring nudes have been selected, in favor of contests where nudes make up a higher percentage of the accepted photos.

I've also learned that my travel and nature photos don't compete as well as my general color and monochrome images do. I've had mixed success in the photojournalism category as well. So, for these contests, I entered only the Open Color and Open Monochrome categories, plus "Woman/Man/Child" in the World System Photo salon.

You can see all of my entries on the pages linked above. Here are a few of the new images I'm putting out there for competition for the first time:

Aphrodite in the willow tree (Open Color PIDC) Pedestal (Open Color PIDC) Together (Open Monochrome PIDM) (Accepted) Wild woman (Open Monochrome PIDM) Off season (Open Monochrome PIDM) (Accepted) States of matter (Open Monochrome PIDM) (Accepted) Canyon (Open Monochrome PIDM) Last light (Open Monochrome PIDM)Last Light
6I8A8293 (2/24/2021)
7/29/2015
DianaJean
Upper Crystal Lake, Mount Rainier National Park, Washington

2021-04-01 Colors of Humanity Art Gallery (online) "Human Nature": Exhibited virtually

Above: "Aphrodite in the Willow Tree," DianaJean, Green Lake Park, May 2020; "Pedestal," Katlyn Lacoste, Third Burroughs, August 2021; "Together," Lior Allay and Cyndical, Discovery Park, Seattle, June 2017; "Wild Woman," Dolly Mattel, Crystal Lakes, September 2021; "Off Season," Katlyn Lacoste, Ohanapecosh, March 2022; "States of Matter," Bunny Luna, Tatoosh Range, July 2019; "Canyon," Katlyn Lacoste, Silver Falls, March 2022; and "Last Light," DianaJean, Crystal Lakes, July 2015