Entering a photo competition should be a fun and an engaging thing to do. While it’s great to get recognition for your work it’s also a wonderful way of gaining experience in the process and learning a lot for the next time. Standards in photo competitions these days are very high and the more prestigious and well-established the competition, the harder it is to do well. Nevertheless, there are a few simple things you can do to increase your chances of at least making it through to the latter stages of a competition and giving yourself a fair chance of getting to the final round of judging.
Read the rules before entering
First of all, and it sounds so obvious, read, re-read and digest the rules of the competition before you even start to consider which images you are going to enter. I never cease to be amazed by people who spend time and money entering photo competitions but effectively rule themselves out of the running by simply not reading the rules.