Creator Contests · 35AWARDS
Create your own photography contest
Bring photographers together around a theme, invite participants and choose the winners. 35AWARDS provides the tools to run your contest and hold anonymous voting.
What you can set up
Set a name, theme, description, entry requirements and optional prizes. Each contest has one category. Add a cover after saving your draft. The description is available in Russian and English.
- days for submissions
- 5–14
- entries per participant
- 1–3
- winning places
- 1–5
Set the start date in Moscow time and choose a voting method in the draft.
Upload limits
The organizer sets a separate limit of one to three entries. Annual award and themed contest quotas do not apply. Platform-wide file, upload and storage requirements still apply.
Invite photographers to your contest
Bring friends, followers, a photo club or a photography school together around your theme. Share the contest link on social media, in messaging apps and with your communities.
Organizer
Sets the theme, invites photographers, reviews entries and chooses the winners.
35AWARDS
Provides a contest page, submissions, voting, results publishing and management tools.
Inviting participants is the organizer’s responsibility. 35AWARDS does not guarantee participant, entry or vote counts.
Support for active organizers
As the format develops, 35AWARDS may give selected contests more visibility. Bringing in new photographers, participant activity and good organization all matter. Additional promotion is at 35AWARDS’ discretion and is not guaranteed.
From draft to results
Prepare your contest
Save a draft, upload a cover and submit the contest for review. Once it’s approved, a moderator can announce it.
Invite and review
Share the link, review entries without seeing photographers’ names and track participants, entries and votes. Organizers cannot enter their own contests.
Publish your selection
After voting ends, assign the places to eligible entries. You can add comments and preview the results before publishing.
How voting works
Voting is anonymous and runs in two rounds. You choose how viewers assess photographs in the first round.
Score from 1 to 10
Viewers score one photograph at a time. The first round runs for 5 days after submissions close, followed by a 2-day second round.
Pairwise comparison
Viewers choose one of two photographs. The first round runs for 10 days after submissions close, followed by a 4-day second round.
The first round may begin while submissions are open. In the second round, viewers choose up to three photographs from a shortlist. 35AWARDS tallies the votes. Organizers see aggregates after voting ends, while voter identities and vote editing are unavailable to them.
How the winners are chosen
Contest winners
The organizer awards 1–5 places to eligible entries and publishes the selection under their own name. Scores and selection counts can inform their decision.
Audience selection
35AWARDS builds a separate selection using the first-round ranking. It is published alongside the organizer’s picks.
The organizer has 7 days after voting closes to publish their selection. If the organizer misses the deadline, the system publishes the audience results and the organizer’s places remain unassigned.
What participants get
My Entries shows each photograph’s status and its first-round vote count. The score or pairwise win rate appears once it has at least 10 votes.
Creator Contests and the annual award
Creator Contests are a separate format run by independent organizers. Placements and audience results belong to the individual contest. They do not grant official diplomas or badges or affect the international award ranking.
Who is responsible for the contest
Organizer
Reviews entries against the theme and rules, decides which entries to keep and handles disputes about eligibility or the selection of winners.
35AWARDS
Enforces platform rules and handles prohibited content, copyright claims, vote manipulation, fraud and security issues.
When the platform intervenes
The organizer makes artistic decisions. 35AWARDS may intervene when platform rules or legal requirements are breached, including for pornography or screenshots prohibited by the rules.
Who can create a contest
During the closed beta, you need active Premium or Advanced for the current award season, an account that is more than a year old and has passed moderation, and an AI level v10 of 6 or higher. Every contest is reviewed before publication.
- One unfinished contest at a time.
- One new contest per 30 days.
- 35AWARDS may revoke access for rule violations.
Ready to run your own contest?
Start with a theme that brings photographers together and draft your entry rules.
Sign in to get startedContest creation is available to participants who meet the closed beta requirements.
