Earth Photo 2025

Opportunities include awards, cash prizes, residencies, mentoring, features and a touring exhibition in galleries and outdoors including the Royal Geographical Society, Forestry England forests the Sidney Nolan Trust and National Trust properties.

Overview

Earth Photo is an annual open call that invites submissions from still and moving image makers, from anywhere in the world, who have a compelling story to share. It is dedicated to encouraging conversations about our planet, its peoples, environments, and the changing climate through visual storytelling.

Earth Photo is looking for work that communicates about the world around us and makes us think differently, capturing nature, people, place, forests, the environment, lands and seascapes, and the varied impacts of, and adaptations to, climate change. Submissions can consist of any genre of photography and moving image but must tell powerful stories about our planet: its inhabitants and lands, the dynamic link between environmental and social issues, its exquisite beauty and power, and also its fragility. 

Practical Info

The award is open to all approaches and ideas -- from documentary,  photojournalism, contemporary, artistic and conceptual projects. They are keen to receive proposals from all the image-based genres - moving image, photographic series, single images; long-term researched documentary; multimedia; participatory and mobile. Individuals and collectives are encouraged to apply. Submissions need to have been created within the last 5 years, however images older than this can be included as part of a longform documentary series or as an archive or vernacular photography, or related project as relevant. 

Photographers can submit up to 10 works, including short films, photographic images as singles and as a series.  Each film submitted needs to be between 5 seconds and maximum 5 minutes long. Entry is by online submission through the website, and deadline for entry is by 5pm (BST) on Monday 3 March 2025. Applications must include a CV (500 words), a short statement about the artist (250 words) and each of their submitted images/films (100 words).

Awards include the Earth Photo Award 2025 which will grant £1,000 for an outstanding photography project that tells a compelling story about life on our planet. The Climate of Change Award - Royal Geographical Society consists of a £500 cash prize for a submission that explores the impacts of climate change upon people, environments, and wildlife or showing resilience and innovative adaptations resulting in positive actions. The Forest Ecosystem Award - Forestry England will award £500 for an extraordinary submission relating to trees, forest ecosystems, ecologies, workers, inhabitants, guardians of the forest, forest biodiversity, resilience, climate impacts and communities. The Moving Image Award will grant £500 for the strongest short film that tells a compelling story about life on our planet.

Founded by the famous Australian modernist Sir Sidney Nolan, the Sidney Nolan Trust is delighted to offer a new residency prize to a UK based practitioner. The two-week residency at Nolan’s former home The Rodd will offer unique access to the artist’s important photographic archives and will be awarded for internationally relevant storytelling and innovation.

Plus, the David Wolf Kaye Future Potential Awards will be awarded to two practitioners 25yrs old or under (age as of the 2nd of May 2024) – one for stills photography and one for moving image - and will help young photographers and filmmakers realise their full potential, championing their work and celebrating their emerging talent. The winners will each receive a cash prize of £250 towards the cost of their next project, and mentoring by a leading photographer or filmmaker. In addition, the recipients’ images and films will be exhibited at the Society and at Forestry England locations across England, on the Earth Photo website and across social media platforms.

Additionally, at least one Earth Photo participant will be selected for the Photoworks Digital Residency to work with this prestigious organisation to present their work in variety of ways online, £400. And the New Scientist Editors Award consists of a mentoring for a photographer/filmmaker with the potential of an image spread in the Aperture section of the magazine or an online video article.

All entrants will be informed if they have been selected for the Final Earth Photo 2025 Shortlist before the 9 April 2025, by email. All shortlisted artists will be contacted by the exhibition organisers regarding further details for providing final exhibition quality image or film files, and further details about the exhibition dates and events. 

Exhibitions will be curated in partnership with each venue and will feature a varied range of Final Earth Photo 2025 Shortlist and Award-winning submissions. The Earth Photo 2025 exhibition will be presented in over 15 locations in the UK and internationally. It will open at the Royal Geographical Society, London in June 2025, together with a national tour to Forestry England sites. We are delighted to announce that the exhibition will also be touring to the Sidney Nolan Trust, a series of National Trust properties and more venues throughout the UK. 

The jury is composed of Tim Boddy, Louise Fedotov-Clements, Vron Harris, Skinder Hundal, Jae-hyun SEOK, João Kulcsár, Anne Nwakalor, Wang Peiquan and Wang Xueke Isabella, Arianna Rinaldo, Marissa Roth FRGS, Dagmar Seeland, Fiona Shields, David Stock FRGS, and Steven V-L Lee.

About Earth Photo

Established in 2018, Earth Photo is a world leading international programme dedicated to engaging with still and moving image makers, working across all genres, on the prescient issues affecting our planet in order to stimulate conversations about our environment and the impact of climate change. 

Developed in partnership by Forestry England, Parker Harris and the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), Earth Photo organises exhibitions, awards and events that celebrate photography and moving images that tell compelling stories about our planet, its inhabitants, its beauty, resilience and its fragility.