Daily, Monthly & Yearly Contests at Digital Image Cafe

I've always felt that one of the best ways to improve your photography and to get more out of your picture taking is to join some type of photo community--whether it's a local camera club, taking an adult-ed class in your hometown or an by joining an online community. Online communities are especially appealing because you can participate when you have time and join only activities that are important to you. You can come home after a long day of working (or shooting!) and post your newest images for others to see and enjoy (and critique) and (what else?) talk with others about cameras.

One of the most interesting online communities I've come across is the Digital Image Cafe. One of the neat features of the Cafe is their online-gallery hosting service that comes with membership ($29/year); you can post up to 100 of your images in your own gallery. They also host a number of great contests, including Photo of the Day, Photo of the Month and Photo of the Year contests. And the prizes (that include some of my books) are great--in 2009 they gave away $69,000 in prizes! (In fact, Digital Image Cafe was one of the primary sources for photos for my book Winning Digital Photo Contests (Lark Photography Book -- so you never know where entering a contest can lead!) Plus, every month they give away Lark Photo books just for belonging to the community. There is a full list of member benefits on their site.

Welcome to Winning Digital Photo Contests!

Hi, my name is Jeff Wignall and I'm a photographer and writer and the author of numerous bestselling photo books. This blog is based on my book Winning Digital Photo Contests.  I'm hoping this blog will become the info center for all things related to digital contests--including tips on how to take photos that will win contests, interviews with photographers that have won contests (some of them have won a lot of contests) and, of course, lists of the best photo contests with the best prizes!

My book is the most complete book on how to win photo contests that I've ever seen and it has one very interesting twist: it is illustrated almost entirely by photos that have won photo contests--and almost all of them were shot by amateur photographers. And wait until you see some of the photos! I'll be showing you some of the photos on this blog, of course, and when you see them you'll be blown away.

To get things rolling, here's an interview that I did with Digital Image Cafe about how the book was created. I think you'll find the background of the book interesting and you'll also hear how we found (and eventually chose) all of the photos for the book.

Please, if you have contest questions, news about a contest or if you've won a contest,  leave a comment or email me!