Tips To Win Baby Photo Contests

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Cute baby photo

If you were to ask any parent if they think their newborn baby could win a baby photo contest, I bet they would almost certainly tell you yes. This myth is exactly what baby photo contests running companies want everyone to believe – that any kid could win. And sometimes with the top prize of $5,000 US dollars it is actually very tempting. But in reality it is actually often the most funny or interesting photo rather than how ‘cute’ the baby looks.

Baby photo contests (and even pet photo contests) have been popular for years. New parents are keen to show the world that they have the cutest baby, and probably more important to them is to be able to tell their friends and family that they have a prize winning baby. But the winning parents are often semi ‘pros’ at baby photo contests. They know what they’re doing, and they rinse and repeat.

A lot of baby photo contests also ask for a caption to the photo. Imagine you are a judge and are seeing hundreds if not thousands of baby photos and you have to pick a top one. After a while they all merge into one, and you can’t really remember what your favorite photo is.

But as soon as a photo with a caption makes you laugh – well, that makes you remember it a lot more. And that is half the battle – making the judges remember your photo.

Another top tip (which would be common sense if you thought about it) is to make sure the photo is a high quality one. You really would be surprised at how many photos are submitted that are not great quality. The judges very rarely choose a photo that doesn’t meet all of these requirements:

  • In focus – yes, people really do submit photos that are not in focus
  • Have good lighting – even with a flash you can have bad lighting. Outdoors photos are best (when it is sunny of course
  • The subject (i.e. the baby) is the main part of the photo. This does not necessarily mean that the baby is in the center. But if it is a photo of your baby and its grandmother, and it is mostly the grandmother that takes up the focus of the photo it is going to have a hard time winning
  • Decent quality – a photo taken by a camera phone just won’t win. Or even worse – a webcam photo! Use a proper camera

Although all the tips above really do help win baby photo contests the best type of photos are the candid funny ones that are not planned, don’t have the best lighting etc. The reason they are often the best? Because even without a funny caption they often make judges laugh!