Billed as “The World’s Greatest Photography Game,” GuruShots helps photographers around the world gain experience and recognition for their work. No matter your skill level, you can join the GuruShots community, share your images, and participate in challenges. Before you sign on, you can find out answers to frequently asked questions about GuruShots.

5 Things to Know About GuruShots Photo Contests

1. How Do I Get Started with GuruShots?
2. How Do GuruShots Challenges Work?
3. How Does the GuruShots Voting System Work?
4. How Do I Use the GuruShots Mobile App?
5. What Benefits Can I Gain from Joining GuruShots?

GuruShots offers a unique photography approach that features gamification. After you join, you can view and enter current live photography contests. The site encourages you to vote in open photo contests—and the more you vote, the more exposure your entries gain. Active members have more opportunities to win contest rewards, increase levels, acquire points and badges, and earn awesome GuruShots prizes.

1. How Do I Get Started with GuruShots?

To sign up, look for the “Sign Up” button on the top menu bar of the GuruShots website. You can sign up using your social media credentials from Instagram or Facebook, or supply your email and password. The entire sign up process is easy and takes just minutes to complete.

After creating your account, you can join GuruShots’ online photography competitions. Just go to the “Open” section to find contests that are currently accepting photos. Click on the “Join Challenge” button and select the photo you want to upload. Just click “Submit” to complete your entry. GuruShots only hosts digital photography competitions, so you’ll never have to worry about photo printing, mounting, or framing. For most photography competitions, you can enter up to four photo submissions. Entering more images gives you more chances to win!

The GuruShots online platform is open to any photographer over the age of 13 from around the world. It can be a great first experience for young people looking to enter their first teenage photography contests. There are many professional photographers who use GuruShots as well, so it’s a great resource for anyone looking to build creative skills and win international photography awards. Also, you should know that GuruShots does offer a user-controlled filter in case you don’t want to view certain types of pictures, such as lingerie photos or horror images.

When you are new to the site, look for GuruShots “Newbie of the Month” photo contests. These contests are designed to help those who are new to GuruShots membership get a feel for the site and how it works. Plus, by joining the Newbie challenge, you can access more open competitions and gain levels quickly.

2. How Do GuruShots Challenges Work?

Experienced users, called “Gurus,” can set up photography challenges on any topic you can imagine. You can find many interesting photography contest themes, from street photography competitions to fashion portrait photography, as well as themes like landscape, nature at night, pet photography, photojournalism, wildlife photography, or conceptual photography.

There are often contests focused on human body photography, vantage point photography—or you can even find a cutest kitten contest. These are just a few of the many types of contests you can find on GuruShots. With so many contests to enter, every online photographer is sure to find a photo competition of interest. Note that GuruShots only accepts images in JPEG (.JPG) format from any type of camera, even mobile photography. If you’ve ever wondered, “what camera should I buy to enter a creative photo contest?” the answer is you can use whatever you have—even a simple smartphone or point and shoot camera.

In most contests, you’ll be able to enter edited or processed photos. Be sure to look over rules for photography contests carefully to find contests that are a good fit for you. You can only exit contests within five minutes of submitting your entry.

In addition to selecting a theme or topic, contest organizers can decide on the level of GuruShots members who can enter. This helps level the playing field so that newbies can find beginner photography competitions, while pros can focus on professional photography competitions. Gurus determine the reward for winning—which can be anything from cash prizes to photography equipment or even a high-end camera!

A prize winner may also have an opportunity to host a photo show as part of a physical Guru exhibition. These exhibitions have been held in reputable galleries—including ones in New York and Paris.

Once you’ve submitted a photograph, you can start earning votes. You’ll see a number under each photo that indicates the number of votes it has received thus far. Also, you can see your ranking, which is your position in the game compared to other players. The more votes you receive, the higher your ranking. If you find your photo isn’t performing well, you may be able to swap it out for a shot that is a better fit for the contest theme.

Even if your entries aren’t among the winning photos, you may still earn an honorable mention—and you can gain levels and points to boost your presence on the site. You can also earn achievements, such as placing in the top 10 or top hundred or placing in the top 20% or 30% in photographic competitions. In many contests, the Guru hosting the challenge will name one more special GuruShots winners as a “Guru’s Pick.”

GuruShots photography competitions can be a fun way to gain experience and exposure while networking with photo-lovers from around the world. Best of all, many GuruShots contests are free to enter. A few, more competitive contests do require users to spend money on a key to enter, however.

3. How Does the GuruShots Voting System Work?

Each online contest has its own voting pages. On every voting page, you can view 300 images. Every image is presented anonymously to make voting fairer. That way, voters will more likely to vote on the merits of each photograph instead of selecting friends’ photos or past photo contest winners. With your GuruShots membership, you can vote and comment on others’ pictures even if you don’t enter any free photography competitions.

You’ll often find your entries gain the most attention and votes in the first few hours after entry. To help keep your images in front of votes, you can be active on the site and vote for other photos. You can also pay a small fee to increase your rank on GuruShots and increase your exposure. Check out the GuruShots marketplace to learn more about purchase opportunities.

How does the GuruShots ranking system work? Everyone who joins starts out as a “Newbie.” Your activity and success on the site will help you increase ranks from “Rookie” and “Challenger” at the lower end all the way up to “Master” and “Guru” at the top. Each rank level affects voting tallies. For example, every vote by a “Newbie” counts as a single vote, while every vote by a “Guru” counts as nine votes.

4. How Does the GuruShots Mobile App Work?

One of the great features of GuruShots is that it offers an intuitive mobile app so you can participate in photography contests from anywhere! The app is available for both iOS and Android devices and lets you perform many of the functions you can access through the GuruShots.com website. You can find the GuruShots download on the App Store or through Google Play.

With the GuruShots app, you can upload photos, enter challenges, vote, view your status in competitions and your overall ranking. You can also update your profile portrait or cover photo and control push notification settings.

5. What Benefits Can I Gain from Joining GuruShots?

Once you’ve set up a GuruShots account, you can find daily free photography competitions that can help you hone your photo-taking skills. You can also build an international network of fellow photography lovers from around the world.

Participating in GuruShots contests gives you important insights about your photos. When a photo does well in a competition, you can analyze it to understand why it resonates with the community. The same is true when an image doesn’t perform as you might have expected. GuruShots also provides data on views and likes, which gives you even deeper insight. You can use the online photography competition community to provide a neutral and unbiased perspective on your work.

With GuruShots, you can expand and improve your photography. Most photographers find they perform well in a few niches but can always challenge themselves to explore new ideas and genres. For example, a nature photography expert may want to experiment with portrait photography or enter a fun Christmas photography contest. Over time, you can explore any topic from awesome wildlife photography to travel photography and more.

Even if you don’t enter, you can find amazing commercial photography examples, shots of beautiful eyes or the female form, studies of color, low vantage point photos, lighting experiments, to give you new ideas. You can even see incredible wildlife photos that look like they belong on the cover of National Geographic!

Participating in GuruShots can help you build your portfolio and grow your career in photography or communication arts. You can note the award as an award on your resume or photography website to showcase your success. The site also offers helpful GuruShots articles on interesting topics like photography composition, lighting, human form photography, and more to help you learn new skills and continue to progress towards your photographic goals.

GuruShots: Fun Contests for Photographers of Every Skill Level

Wherever you are in your photography journey, you can find the best photography competitions for your skill level on GuruShots. The site takes a fun, game-based approach to engage users while offering amazing photography awards to photo contest winners—and doesn’t require a monthly subscription fee. If you are looking for a top source for free to enter photography competitions, look no further than GuruShots.

If you’re an amateur, you can enter contests for newbies and other less experienced photographers. This ensures you compete on a level playing field. As you grow, you can enter more challenging contests that often offer more valuable prizes. Some of the most prestigious GuruShots game contests are its exhibition challenges that reward winners with displays of their photographs in digital or physical venues. While these contests often require an entry fee, winning these esteemed GuruShots awards bring recognition and the opportunity to sell photographs and make money with photography.

The GuruShots website and app are easy to use and navigate. It takes just a moment to set up a GuruShots login and begin exploring the site’s many contests. You can also start to vote and like photos, view entries from previous winners, and connect with a community of followers. When you start out, you can join the latest “Newbie of the Month” competition. This amateur photo contest helps you understand how the competitions work and can help you quickly gain rank on GuruShots.

There is something for everyone on GuruShots—whether you are a student, and amateur, or a professional. Whether your interests lie in street photography, landscape photographer, or you want to explore blank and white photography portraits, there’s a good chance you’ll find the perfect contest on GuruShots. Don’t see a photo contest that fits right away? That’s no problem. Check back daily. The site’s Guru members are always adding new competitions—and winning can net you a valuable prize, such as photography tools or editing software.

Even if you participate in other photography contests online or sharing communities like Unsplash or Tinypic, you’ll find value in GuruShots. You don’t need to make the GuruShots vs. ViewBug choice—join both!

The GuruShots large and active international community is constantly creating the best competitions and sharing breathtaking photos. You’ll often find photo challenges with cash prizes. At a minimum, you’ll gain great photography inspiration but you could find yourself featured in an exhibition in an important art gallery or earning a “photo of the year” award. Entering a GuruShots contest can be fun, but it can also bring a valuable career boost. Join the GuruShots photography contest community and watch your skills and confidence soar!