"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter."

The unregulated photography competition industry has a depressing track record of controversies and scandals ranging from: a very casual approach to due diligence of rule compliance, incompetent judging, shameless profit gouging by competition organisers, personal agendas, undermining photographers image rights and rewarding photographers whose images are of dubious photographic merit. Nevertheless, there is a seemingly insatiable appetite by an international market of would be punters - that comprises amongst others a surprising number of less confident, obsessive, naive and gullible photographers - eager to part with money in the hope of filthy lucre, fame and adulation. These vulnerable photographers are ripe for cynical exploitation by allegedly prestigious and less-prestigious photography competitions.

Petapixel.com have been reporting on one contemporary scandal:

https://petapixel.com/2018/03/23/martin-stavars-the-one-man-in-a-web-of-online-photo-contests/

"Of course, operating a photo contest for the purpose of profit isn’t out of the ordinary these days, but there are a few aspects of this strange network of photo contests that likely won’t sit well with photographers.

First, at least two of the contests (IPOTY and Monochrome) are no longer being judged by actual jury members, which is how this whole thing turned into a scandal. If the contests had continued asking its judges to judge, perhaps the world of photography wouldn’t have looked at these contests more closely.

Second, it seems that Stavars may be judging his own photo contests, which would be a major conflict of interest.

Finally, prestigious photo contests are always operated with transparency in their operations, clearly disclosing the company or organization behind them. These five contests have been operated under a shroud of secrecy.

In summary, the five known photo contests that appear to be operated by Stavars are: International Photographer of the Year, Monochrome Awards, Fine Art Photography Awards, ND Awards, and Monovisions Photography Awards."

There's very little to add to this sorry affair except that it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at the irony of fine art and black and white digital artists who have been manipulated and exploited.