Ty Swartz (00:01.038)
Hello everybody, this is Ty Schwartz with Snap Lens and today we are going to be talking about why it's important for photographers and visual design artists to enter professional photographic competitions. This is something that I didn't really embrace right away. I think when I retired from the Navy in 2011, I started, actually I did my first image competition in 2010.

And I failed miserably. And let me tell you something. I was afraid to enter again, because I'm like, OK, so my images are great. I'm getting front covers. I'm getting magazines to pick up my stuff. I love it that my images are going in newspapers. And I'm thinking, OK, all I've got to do is just take these same images and toss them into some photo competition, and I'm going to win. That could be furthest from the truth.

It's taken me forever to figure out exactly how to set up images, what I'm looking for when I'm doing images. And so I figured this is something that's really passionate that I've started to really focus on the last couple of years because when I started to really pay attention to images, I realized it's not about my personal feelings.

As photographers, we have easily bruised egos and we want everybody to love our images right away. And guess what? Not everybody loves our images. And that's OK, because I've learned that there's two major categories for me when it comes to images. I personally love the green ribbon award, which is a customer just paid me.

for my images, they love them, they made somebody happy, and now they're hanging on somebody's wall. The other ribbons that I could get are from an organization that says, hey, your images are of high quality, we love them and we like them, and here you go, here's an award or here's a merit for these images. But that's about where they go. There's no money now.

Ty Swartz (02:19.2)
I guess they're now with the IPC. It's changed a little bit. But most of the time, in my experience with competition, it's not really money driven. It is really, how did I create this image? And how am I going to improve what I'm currently doing? And that's what I look at when I'm doing image competition. It's not, hey, I'm going to make some money here. It is, wow.

I need to make these improvements. I'm working on my Photoshop skills, I'm working on my photography skills, I'm working on so many different skill sets that it's very important to me because every single time I enter a competition, I get a look at all these other photographers just doing this amazing stuff. And I get ideas and I wonder how people do things and I do. I reach out to these photographers and I say, hey, how did you do that? Can I learn from you? And so I've learned.

that there are a ton of things that I can learn from other photographers, even though I've been doing it for 40 plus years, there's never a time where I'm not gonna be learning. And I always tell my students, the first thing that you need to know about anything in life is there's always gonna be somebody younger, there's always gonna be somebody better looking, and there's always gonna be somebody who has a different or better idea. And once you accept that and embrace it and go with it, then...

you're not really competing in a sense of, I gotta be better than you. You have to be better than yourself in that last image that you produced. But let's talk about what entering the professional photographers of America, PPA, and if you're interested, you can go to ppa .com to become a member. I have been a member of PPA, gosh, since 2010.

So that's been going on 14 years while I was in the Navy. I didn't really know about a lot of professional organizations. The Navy's kind of closed knit. And I'll be honest with you, most of my photographic education kind of stopped after I went through photo -a school. And it was me practicing and doing things on my own. But it really, when it comes to military education,

Ty Swartz (04:36.558)
it's like you learn it and stop learning it. And it's more of an alpha personality organization, and it's really ego driven. And that's sad. I wish it would change. And I wish people would listen on how to make that change. But let's talk about international print competition. I think it's very important and it's very significant for photographers to understand the importance in this type of competition.

So let's talk about recognition and prestige. I think a lot of people, once you start really getting awards and recognized, you do, you start to get a lot of recognition. So winning or even just participating in the competition can enhance your reputation as a photographer and also the prestige within the industry. There's a lot of photographers that really weren't known.

And they started to enter the photographic competitions and wow, all of a sudden they're starting to be known, they're teaching, they're educating, their business is exploding, and they're all over the place. But also the PPA is an extremely respected organization. It's a nonprofit and it's being recognized by them, which in reality is being recognized by other photographers. And it can open doors to so many different opportunities working with other photographers.

getting networked within companies. So also your images can go into exhibitions, speaking engagements, and you can also do collaborations with other photographers. There's so many different things that you can do just by entering the PPA competition, International Photographic Competition. And I think it's really great that there's still pure networking going on. But also I think the biggest...

next step for a photographer is the feedback and learning. A photographic competition is not really a competition of my mind. It is nothing more than a learning opportunity. How did this light fall? Does the light fall on the edges? Am I creating light traps? Am I, is my colors blocking? Or am I doing blocking on my colors? Am I doing banding? Is there a halo effect? There's so many things that you don't look at in your technical work sometimes.

Ty Swartz (07:00.876)
as a photographer, so it's not until you put it in a really high definition screen and somebody's looking at it and they have no opinion. They want you to be successful, but they're honest about how they do that. So you're getting that great valuable feedback from experienced judges who evaluate entries based on technical excellence, creativity, and impact.

And this feedback also helps photographer understand their strengths and their weaknesses and this is going to improve your ability to create better images and it's improving your craft when you sit and listen and you don't take it personal because as personal as our photographs are and how We put passion into every single image. We want other people to look when people are judging and critiquing it it feels like

They're crushing our souls. I mean, that's how I feel. But at the same time, it is something that I have to sit back, I listen to, I get my images evaluated, and then I make some changes. A lot of times those images will end up on my Facebook page. Hey, I love these, check it out, or I'll print it up and put it in my studio, or I'll put it up in my house. But also, I look at where I was at in 2010.

You know, and I was a good photographer in the Navy. I mean, I had a lot of stuff going all over the place. When I took pictures, I knew how to get images into military magazines. But guess what? Once I left the military, nothing I was doing seemed to hit in the civilian world. So I had to relearn. So I'm not just competing against other photographers. I'm actually competing against myself because every single year that I'm entering a competition.

I'm benchmarking my skills and I'm comparing it to what I did last year. And now I'm seeing growth. And every time I see growth, I'm seeing my images get better. And by working with other photographers and learning from other photographers and listening and taking notes, I see those benchmarks move in the direction that I want them to go. And it allows me to add some creativity. So by improving my skills,

Ty Swartz (09:19.658)
And it does it has with our industry standards that we have as photographers my skills jump and I love it because I just see how I'm creating images today compared to what I was doing 15 years ago and it is night and day and I would love to say that the military would love for me to be back in and creating images for them because they would be ten times more spectacular than what I was creating.

Um, so, but the other thing is I'm going to, I'm going to see where I stand in terms of my technical proficiency. So I'm keeping up with my skills. Uh, how am I create, how is my artistic expression moving? Uh, I'm a, I'm a very, very, uh, analytical person when it comes to a lot of things. And a lot of my photography is very analytical, but it's, it's allowing me to push myself more so into the artistic. And that's something that I have to teach myself to do.

But also the quality of my work the quality of my editing goes up the quality of the images that I'm pushing out go up One of the biggest things that I do love about image competition is because I'm a member of the Virginia professional photographers Association The VPPA and I'm also a member of the Texas professional photographers Association the TPPA Because there's benefits to being members of both. I have some of the most amazing friends in

Virginia and they have greatly enhanced my skills. They support my students in high school. So there's so many things that Virginia professional photographers are doing to help me and my students grow. But I became a member of the Texas professional photographers because their competition is a little bit different but I'm also going to the Texas School of Professional Photography.

and I'm really, really, really working on my creativity. So I'm building my network. I'm talking to other photographers. I'm meeting the judges. I'm talking to industry professionals about cameras and gears and lights, something that I hadn't done while I was in the military. So this right here is just really building relationships within the photography community. And so I can lead, so that leads into different memberships and collaborations. And it also, it,

Ty Swartz (11:42.03)
And it has opened up a few business opportunities for me when it comes to helping other people or me helping a company do something. But also what's really important is you have to be a lifelong learner. There's never a time that I've noticed, actually no, I stagnated while I was in the Navy because, and again, I think it was the ego. Oh, I got this, I don't have to worry about this.

But then I realized once I became a civilian, there was so many soft skills that the military didn't teach me. And now I'm seriously focusing on my professional development. I grew leaps and bounds after I left the military. I love the Navy. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love everything about the Navy. But professionally, when it came to mentorship and growth, I never realized I had been stunted as much as I had been while I was in the military.

while I was in the Navy. And now that I'm out of the Navy, there's so many different things that I see and I now experience it. And so that's the process of preparing and entering the competition. It encourages me to strive for excellence in my work. And I'm doing that more now in a focused and projected way than I ever did while I was in the Navy. But also it pushes me to continuously improve my skills.

I'm experimenting with new techniques. I'm seeing what other photographers are doing. I'm mixing and matching my personality, my techniques with what other photographers are doing. And it's just really defining my artistic vision of what I want to see with an image. But also, you know, when you do image competition, you're developing some marketing skills. You're working on your exposure as a photographer. Every time you win a blue ribbon or you get a merit or...

image excellence. That's also establishing you in the community. And it serves as a powerful marketing tool. Hey, come hire me because I have this and this and I now have this. So you're able to talk about your success. And my joke is the first time I got a merit in the international photographic competition, I said, you know what? I'm now an internationally award winning photographer.

Ty Swartz (14:06.094)
And that's technically true. And it was a great marketing thing because it was true, but it was also a very loose reality of it. But it also, it allows those accolades and achievements. I'm able to showcase those to my clients and say, hey, I'll look, you know, take a look at my website, take a look at my social media profiles, see what I've done. And, you know, if you like what I'm doing,

for these competitions and you like the work I'm doing, I'm consistently creating great works of art now that I think that people won't get. But it's always given me something constantly for marketing and I'm helping others. I'm helping my clients solve a problem and also I'm attracting clients and I'm helping elevate my brand and my image as a photographer.

But finally, I think the last thing I want to talk about really is the success and the validation in competition. So competition validates, hey, I've spent all this money and time learning these skills. And now because I've won this competition or I've gotten certain things in this competition, I'm now validating that, hey, it was a good investment to spend the money for this education. Take the time to...

learn this stuff or create those opportunities that I wanted to create. But it also helps me showcase my talent and the ability to grow and learn and my dedication to this craft. It reinforces my confidence as a photographer because sometimes I feel, oh, you know what, nobody's hiring me. I'm a horrible photographer, but you know what? It's not that I might have been missing my marketing targets.

I might not be doing everything I could to bring in a customer. So those are things that you have to look at. But just entering image competition, it just validates where you're at as a photographer and where you're growing and where you're going to. But also it motivates me to try new things and it helps me remove that fear when it comes to creating artistic items and artistic pieces because you know what?

Ty Swartz (16:23.406)
I can always reshoot it. I can always try this. I can always do this. It's not anything that I haven't wanted to try. It just might be something that I'm fearful. And this validation of this reinforcement of my abilities has really helped me out. But also, you know, I'm such a passionate person about photography and visual design and everything else. I just want people to understand how much I care about helping others and teaching what I know.

And honestly, I could sit and talk to a hundred other photographers and they're gonna fill my head with way more information than I'll ever have. But that's what I love about the photography community because we're always sharing and we're always helping each other out. So overall, I wanna encourage anybody who's interested in photography to check out the PPA, it's at ppa .com.

And you know, you can check out the International Print Competition. But it's not just about winning awards. It's about figuring out how to improve your photography. It's also about personal and professional growth, validation of your skills, and being part of a community dedicated to the excellence in photography. And that's all I want people to do. And I want people to be part of an organization that they're proud to be part of.

And also, you know, the PPA has helped me grow, has helped me learn to teach others. And that to me is more valuable than getting a blue ribbon anytime. Anyway, I just wanted to talk about image competition. I brought that up today because today was the Texas Image Competition. And I'm feeling good because I didn't get all four images that I wanted to get merited.

but you know what, I got a merit on three of the images. I got a, um, uh, text excellence award and, um, I did get a excellence award. So, I mean, I'm very happy with where I placed that in that competition, but the images that didn't get the merit I'm looking at it and I'm saying, Oh, I could have probably done this or I could have done that. Um, and that is what I love is because people saw what I miss because either I was in a hurry or I wasn't paying attention.

Ty Swartz (18:44.878)
And that's the great thing about image competition is you always open your eyes, open your heart, and you just listen and learn from others. Anyway, my name is Ty Swartz and I'm with Snap Lens. And my goal is to help you learn as much as you can about visual design in different ways. So if you have any questions, please leave comments. Check out our new website. This is the blog channel that we're doing now. It just went live today and it's at snaplens .blog.

I'm just happy that we're starting to get things in the right direction and we're starting to build up a nice community of people learning and definitely send me questions. Or if you'd like me to talk about a topic, I would love to research and talk about it. Anyway, you have a great day and we will talk to you next time.