Want to win a $300 prize with one of your photos? Now is a great time of year to do it!

posted Friday, January 22, 2016 at 8:07 AM EDT

When the weather turns nice in the spring, and extending through the gorgeous autumn months, many of you get out there to enjoy Mother Nature and to document her endless beauty through your photographs. Some of the best will make it into our Photo of the Day contest, potentially gleaning a daily winner and possibly even being honored with a prize at the end of the month.

Want some inside information? Well, keep this on the down-low, but the middle of winter is a great time to enter! Between the holidays, the cold weather and tax season looming, we just don't receive as many submissions to our contest at this time of year, and this seasonal drought is a boon to any of you looking to earn an extra $100, $200 or even $300 to put towards that new lens you're been dreaming of, or that cool new camera bag and tripod!

Frozen pier and clouds by Gus Panella is an excellent example of a winter image that won a prize

It's easy to enter, and you still retain complete rights to any and all images you submit to us, including any that may win awards. You're welcome to watermark them, but we recommend against it. Your name will always be displayed prominently beside any photos selected for our contest, and watermarking doesn't generally prevent someone from attempting to steal it anyway, as clone stamp tools can remove it quickly enough. But if you insist, keep it small and unobtrusive or the judges won't even bother to look at your photo.

Now, for any of you who really, really want to succeed in our contest, we've written up a nifty little "How To" guide that is literally jam-packed with great tips, penned by the contest judges themselves. You just wouldn't believe how many images we receive that are "close" to being selected but that don't get the nod for something easily correctable! We mention all of these blunders in our tips article, including the best way to get yourself disqualified (which is, of course, sending in more than three images per month - our system will now automatically disregard your images if more than three come through in a given month).

Aurora Eruption by Gisli Kristinsson is yet another cold weather image that captured a prize

So, study our tips article, grab your gear and get out there! Don't let Old Man Winter stop you - plenty of prize winners were shot in extreme conditions! Once you capture a shot that has you smiling and showing your friends, send it our way. Less than 10% of submissions are awarded daily winners, but this just makes it all the more sweet when one of yours is selected! You'll know that it beat out 90% of the selections we received that month, and you'll automatically make it into our judging at month's end for the prizes!

Good luck, Happy Shooting, and thanks for being a part of the IR community.
-IR Team