I just received a surprise email – I have pre-qualified for the “Singapore Prestige Class Award”.
WHOA!
This feels really good. After years of adversity, of struggling for acceptance, of sometimes clinging on bare threads just because I believe in my work… finally, vindication? On a grand national scale?
I asked a very good friend, because I had no clue. Here’s the truth: to accept such awards, expect to pay the organiser a big sum – for a table at a lavish gala dinner.
Indeed. On further research, such awards have become rather common, dished by profiteering business entities. To receive the award in person, handed to you by a prestigious guest-of-honour at a luxurious event, you have to pay for your table. Quite often, a very big table.
I should have known.
Early in my career, I submitted three photographs to one of the world’s largest photography competitions. It wasn’t cheap. Every submission costs heart-earned money. But those costs disappeared when I received certificates in my mail – not only had I been awarded, I won a total of three awards. Three! For every single one of my entries!
Suddenly, I had become an international multi-award winning photographer! With a 100% success rate!
Only to realise one of my peers had won six.
I am not against profit-making award businesses, as long as they conduct their affairs ethically.
What bothers me is whether I deserve such awards at all.
The “Prestige Class” award organiser lists qualifying criteria like business model, innovation, growth. I’m still kicking after 18 years, but these metrics say nothing about the work I do.
Even if the judges consider the intrinsic nature of my work, how do you measure such things? Even if they consider intangibles like empathy, how can anyone say one is better than the other?
For the longest time I had stopped submitting my work for awards. Imagine being the judge. You go through thousands and thousands of images to pick winners within a deadline. What do you really judge on? Can you even afford to pause, to feel? Can you really feel how much the photographs mean to us? Can you – should you – even judge on such intangibles?
I thrive only because of an exceptionally niche group of fans who believe in my work. This believe didn’t happen just like that. It is grown over time, through patience and understanding, through human warmth. Whenever someone tells me how beautiful they felt, how the experience changed their lives, it gives me reason to carry on. My work is my life, and you give my life meaning.
If I ever deserve any award, that award can only be given by you.