Resource: Photo Contests and Grants Calendar

(updated December 2019)

Did you know that an editor can help you home in on the right images for contests and grants?

An objective, outside opinion and fresh look at work can help you craft a contest or grant entry that connects with the judges.

I've created contest edits for numerous photographers who went on to win World Press Photo, POYi, Communication Arts, and PDN Photo Annual awards.

Contests... Some are great. Some feel like they only exist to rob photographers of their precious income. Before you enter, carefully consider if it's worth your money. Stick with contests that have, in the past, recognized photographers whose work you admire.

Remember, the primary (commercial) benefit of entering a contest is getting your work in front of industry bigwigs who otherwise might not have seen it. You don't even have to win to enjoy that benefit, although, winning is preferred.

Here's a general timetable of contest deadlines throughout the year. Things change so make sure you go straight to the source for definitive info on deadlines, entry fees and eligibility.

Know of others? Connect on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram and let me know.

January

Andrei Stenin International Photo Contest
American Illustration-American Photography
Aperture Portfolio Prize (entries accepted December through early February)
Art Directors Club Photo Contest
Days Japan
Hillman Prize for Photojournalism
Inge Morath Prize - Recognizing outstanding female photographer under age 30
New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)
NPPA Best of Photojournalism
Pictures of the Year International (POYi)
Pulitzer Prizes
Sony World Photography Awards
The Syngenta Photography Award
World Press Photo Contest

February

Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Documentary Prize (entries accepted February through May)
Foam Magazine Talent Call
CENTER awards (The Choice Awards, Project Competition, & Project Launch)

March

Big Picture Natural World Photography Competition
Leica Oskar Barnack Award
Communication Arts Magazine
Spider Awards B&W Photo

April

Imagely Fund
Px3 Photography Competition

May

Burn Magazine Emerging Photographer Grant
Canon Female Photojournalist Award
W. Eugene Smith Fund (entries accepted January through May)
Getty Images Grants
Howard Chapnick Grant
ICRC Humanitarian Visa d'Or
POYi Emerging Vision Grant

June

CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography - Biennial book prize
PDN Photo Annual
Visa pour l'image - Visa d'Or award and Pierre and Alexandra Boulat Association Grant
The Bayeux-Calvados Award for war correspondents

July

Ian Parry scholarship
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize
New Orleans Photo Alliance

August

Critical Mass by Photolucida
Moran Contemporary Photo Award - Portrait and documentary prizes (up to $150,000) for Australian photographers

September

Alexia Foundation
ASMP/NY Annual Photo Contest
BJP International Photography Award
Graphis Photography Annual
The Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Female Photographers
FotoEvidence Book Award

October

Hasselblad Masters Awards
Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar Contest

November & December

Aftermath Project
Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards
Louis Roederer Discovery Award
Magenta Flash Forward
Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award
International Color Awards

Moving Walls deadline one week away

from: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography/focus_areas/mw/guidelines The Open Society Institute invites photographers to submit a body of work for consideration in the Moving Walls 18 group exhibition.

Moving Walls is an exhibition series that features in-depth and nuanced explorations of human rights and social issues.  Thematically linked to OSI's mission, Moving Walls is exhibited at OSI’s offices in New York and Washington, DC and includes seven discrete bodies of work.

Moving Walls recognizes the brave and difficult work that photographers undertake globally in their documentation of complex social and political issues.  Their images provide the world with human rights evidence, put faces onto a conflict, document the struggles and defiance of marginalized people, reframe how issues are discussed publicly, and provide opportunities for reflection and discussion.  Through Moving Walls, OSI honors this work while visually highlighting the mission of our foundation to staff and visitors.

For participating photographers, a key benefit of the program is to gain exposure for both the social justice or human rights issues they photograph, and for themselves as photographers.  When the tour ends, photographers may keep their professionally-produced exhibition to use however they wish.

Ian Parry Scholarship Deadline is July 2

For those of you under 24, from http://www.ianparry.org/

The Ian Parry Scholarship 2010 deadline is Friday 2nd July. Applications are digital. FTP instructions and application forms are available from http://www.ianparry.org/

The Ian Parry Scholarship is designed to award young photojournalists with a bursary that will enable them to undertake a chosen project and raise their profile in the international photographic community. The Scholarship is aimed at traditional or contemporary photojournalism and photographers with strong story telling capabilities.

Ian Parry was a photojournalist who died whilst on assignment for the Sunday Times during the Romanian revolution in 1989. He was just 24 years old. The Scholarship was set up by Aidan Sullivan and Ian’s friends and family in order to build something positive from such a tragic death.

The competition is for photographers on full-time photographic courses or who are 24 years or under. The prize is £3,000 towards an assignment, a commission for Save The Children plus £500 for runners up. Entrants must submit: A digital portfolio of 12 images to our FTP following our guidelines An application form A brief synopsis of a project they would undertake if they won the award

We are delighted to announce the continued support of the Sunday Times Magazine, which publishes an extended feature of all the finalist’s work and World Press Photo who will automatically accept the winner onto their final list of nominees for the Joop Swart Masterclass in Amsterdam.

Once again, our extremely popular and well-attended print exhibition will take place in London at the Getty Images Gallery. The exhibition will run for one week from the 18th August 2010.

Thank you for your interest and continued support, Best wishes Rebecca

Contact: Rebecca McClelland, Deputy Director becky@ianparry.org http://www.ianparry.org/

Fabrica F Award Deadline Extended

from http://www.fff.ph/ Fabrica, the Benetton Group’s communication research center and Forma, Centro Internazionale di Fotografia (international photography center) launch the third edition of the F Award - international award for concerned photography.

The F Award aims to involve photographers from all over the world.

The F Award aims to award photography that documents and criticizes, that tells a story: dramas, struggles, abused rights, but also dignity; pain and consolation, desperation and hope; the loss of everything and the triumph of life’s new possibilities and lastly the things that people do to face all of this. In a word, life.

The F Award aims to promote photography as a means of transmitting information and creating awareness. Without photography what would we know of hunger in the world, of the likely outcome of every war, of the living conditions of “the other half” to quote the work of one of concerned photography’s pioneers?

The F Award is inspired by the following words, published in 1972 by Cornell Capa: “They are concerned photographers. They take sides. They are people who wanted to show things that had to be corrected…wanted to show things that had to be appreciated”. The Concerned Photographer, Editor Cornell Capa, Grossman 1972

What to do: photographers who would like to participate should propose a series of photographs by June 7th, 2010 that would be part of a wider project that the prize will help finance.

The jury is formed by international personalities and is chaired by Peter Galassi, Director of Photography at MOMA, New York.

The other jury members are:

Monica Allende, Director of Photography, The Sunday Times Magazine Enrico Bossan, Director of Photography, Fabrica Melissa Harris, Editor, Aperture Roberto Koch, President, Forma Paolo Pellegrin, Photographer Magnum Photos Urs Stahel, Director of the Museum of Winterthur (Zurich)

The jury will award the most interesting project with a contribution of euro 20.000 and the possibility of publishing a book.

A special section, F25, for photographers under 25 will see the winner awarded with a one year scholarship in Fabrica’s photography area.

For further information:

Fabrica Press Office Angela Quintavalle angie@fabrica.it ph: +39-0422-516209 www.fabrica.it

Forma Press Office Laura Bianconi lbianconi@formafoto.it ph: +39-02-58118067 www.formafoto.it