'Selecting for Success'
Alex Mustard
Fresh from his category win in the Wildlife Photographer of The Year competition Alex has been working on a very special presentation for photographers looking to impress competition judges by 'Selecting for Success'
“This time last year, before entering the last Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, I watched the recording of Greg du Toit presentation - The Wildlife Oscars - here on Photography Experts,” says Alex. “Greg, a former overall winner of WPY, talks about his approach to the contest and I have no doubt that his advice directly led to me entering my shot that turned out a category winner. My photo wasn’t brand new, I could have entered it the previous year, but instead it sat on my hard drives – never even shared on social media.”
“And that experience resonates with so many of the photographers who I work with. We are not naturally the best critics of our work. Our favourite shots are not often our best, and rarely our likeliest to succeed in competitions. Yet we enter them, and leave shots that could win sitting unprocessed. The aim of this presentation is to make us better at selecting for success.”
Although Alex’s examples and illustrations will be his own underwater images, this is very much a presentation aimed at all photographers interested in photographic competitions.
“With lots of contest deadlines looming, this new presentation won’t repeat Greg’s philosophy - I recommend you watch that too. But I do want to help you improve your selections and avoid leaving winners languishing unentered. There is clearly no simple recipe for success, and I certainly don’t have all the answers - otherwise I’d win every time, which I don’t! But there are plenty of dos and don’ts that can significantly increase your odds and a bunch of photographic tips for catching the jury’s eyes. We’ll examine judge’s advice and comments (they always want to help you enter the most suitable shots) and I’ll analyse a selection of my winning images, to see why they got picked from a field of equally impactful imagery. We’ll finish the evening with a question and answer session and hopefuly there will be some great ideas and suggestions from the audience too.”
Alex has a strong contest pedigree. His is the only underwater photograph to win overall in the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year, he has 6 category wins in the British Wildlife Photography Awards and over the last 20 years his photos have appeared in 14 different portfolio books of winners in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. He has also acted as judge in both the WPY and the GDT contests and is the ongoing chair of the judges for the Underwater Photographer of the Year contest.