How many of your competitors promote themselves as “award-winning”? Better still, “international award-winning”? “Plenty” is the likely answer. Award-winning (like quality) is claimed by too many people for you to rely on it as your only differentiator.

And yet there’s no denying that winning awards doesn’t just feel good, it’s good for business.

Tony Bramley of Storm Photography, one of our key UK clients, certainly thinks so. He was already feeling pleased with himself for winning second place in his regional BIPP Wedding Print Competition when he was called back to the stage as the winner!

Tony’s point is that you win awards by working hard to stay ahead of the game, “creating unusual pictures… developing new ideas and techniques and honing your style”.

And that does set you apart from what he describes as the “unqualified people” who each year “buy a digital camera and say they are wedding photographers… Excellent wedding photography does not come cheap but you are buying into the quality of the photographer and their work.”

We agree. Winning awards validates you as a photographer, and in the long run helps to justify the prices you need to charge.

A similar theme surfaced on the Photojunction blog, where a reader commented, “The average client just wants good believable pics that are vibrant & clean & candid. The challenge is to give them that + more by way of making sure that we include some masterpieces that are beyond the ability of the semi pro masses.” The emphasis on the client is exactly right: it’s more profitable to impress them than your peers!

Tony’s winning picture, a night shot of Stacey and Matt Armstrong (above), was lit only by a streetlight.

The second-place shot was inside the Abbey Gate arch in “a very dim, grimy corner”. Tony managed to capture the internal beauty of the architecture, with some wonderful natural light coming through on to the bride, Alex Dey.

While we’re at it, several of our other clients were acknowledged that night: Gavin Woollard (Weddings by Gavin), Amanda Every, Ivan Finch (Town & Country), Rebecca Portsmouth, Jo Tennant (Studio Rochford) and David Islip. Well done all.

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