So photo contests are an interesting activity. On one hand winning a contest can be self validating and good for your ego. You may even win a prize. If you take them too seriously, loosing a contest can be depressing, frustrating, aggravating. If you have a good judge, the constructive feedback is a great opportunity to learn and improve your photography. Here is an image of mine that I really like. This image has bombed in every contest I've entered it into. In one contest the judge did not like HDR (High Dynamic Range). Below you can see the original image and the HDR image.

Route 66 Classic Garage - Normal	Route 66 Classic Garage - HDR
Original Image	HDR

Another judge had issues with the composition. Personally I find this critique to be more valuable than the judge that was biased against HDR. The main subject of the image is centered and there is a lot of stuff to look at in this image. So I cropped the image.

Route 66 Garage

Cropped Image

Guess what, the cropped image didn't do any better in the next contest I entered. In fact this judge also criticized the composition. So maybe the lesson is that HDR can't fix a bad image. Or maybe the lesson is that composition is critical. Ether way I still like this image.