Frequently Asked Questions

Photography is rewarding in many ways and our competitions are but one of those ways. Too often, however, our studio receives entries that are great compositions, deserving of a title or cash prize, except...THEY DIDN'T FOLLOW OUR CRITERIA SET FORTH IN THE CALL, and our jurors had no choice but to disqualify them. It only takes a couple of moments to read through each of our calls on Café to get the criteria down. We want as many quality photos as possible for our gallery. We enjoy being able to email our winners to tell them they've won Best of Show and a nice cash prize. Help us improve the quality of our gallery by abiding by our criteria. We want to feature your best work!

No. We are 100% online. While we would love to have an actual gallery that accepts artwork and a place we can hold art events, it is not in our foreseeable future.  Stein Ward Studio is a small operation with a very limited budget, plus the owners have day jobs and families aside from managing the gallery!

Artists can submit their work through Café Call for Entry. Setting up an account and portfolio is easy and free. Artists will only incur costs for entering calls.

Typically, our entry fee is $35 per call. That can change from time to time, however. Most of our calls have a 3 or 4 image limit. The fee photographers pay does not guarantee invitation into the gallery for the call, but it does guarantee that each photo will have the same opportunity to be judged by our jury fairly and without bias.

Stein Ward Studio is completely 100% online. We offer photography competitions for photographers worldwide, both amateurs and professionals, who wish to enter their work in a fun, rewarding and relaxed atmosphere.  

Unless otherwise noted in a special call, all of our competitions request family-friendly content. In other words we do not accept any photos or artwork that feature nudity, foul or offensive language, etc.  Photos may not have any signatures, artist names, frames, watermarks or borders. Each photo should be a minimum of 1200 pixels on the longest side and no larger than 5 MB in file size, or the current requirements set forth by Café.

Some calls may have a select theme, while others may be open theme. 

All of our competitions reward artists with cash prizes. Depending on the call, we may offer added money if we have enough entries. Each call is guaranteed to offer a minimum cash prize of $100 to each Best of Show winner.