A Guide To January 2023 Photo Awards & Opportunities

The list comprises PhMuseum 2023 Photography Grant, Fotografia Europea, V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography,  Kassel Dummy Award among many others.

PhMuseum 2023 Photography Grant / Early Bird Deadline: 26 January / Entry fee: €28

The 11th edition of the PhMuseum Photography Grant is now open for submissions. From today you can present your projects to the open call that offers €10,000 in cash prizes to support photographers and recognise the importance of visual storytelling. Beyond the monetary prizes, your work will be considered for several opportunities to exhibit, produce work, get feedback and exposure.

To enter, you are invited to present one or more projects featuring between 5 and 20 images. The theme is open and all photographic approaches are welcomed. All entries will be reviewed by an independent jury comprised of Jason Fulford (Photographer and co-founder of J&L Books), Federica Chiocchetti (Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts Le Locle - MBAL), Vasantha Yogananthan (Photographer and co-founder of Chose Commune), and Max Siedentopf (Multi-disciplinary conceptual artist). The review will happen in March with the shortlist to be announced in early April.

The deadline is set for 17 February, while there is a reduced entry fee option until 26 January.

FOTOGRAFIA EUROPEA 2023 Open Call / Deadline January 16 / Entry fee € 25

Fotografia Europea is a leading international contemporary photography festival taking place every year in Reggio Emilia, Italy, since 2006.

Through the Open Call, every European or Europe-based photographer, curator, or collective is invited to explore this year’s theme, Europe matters: Visions of a restless identity. Curated by Walter Guadagnini, Tim Clark and Luce Lebart, this edition of the festival will confront the idea of a European common identity, questioning how contemporary photography can foster a response to its present challenges. The selected artists will be granted a € 3,000 fee funding the production of an exhibition that will take place in one of the festival venues and be included in the official program.

The deadline to apply is the 16th of January, 11 AM CEST (entry fee € 25). For more information on how to participate, visit their website.

V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography / Deadline January 22 / Free entry

V&A Parasol Foundation is inaugurating an exciting, new annual initiative aimed at promoting diversity and equality. As part of the V&A’s new Parasol Foundation Women in Photography curatorial program, the Prize seeks to identify, foreground and support women’s practice in the field of contemporary photography, offering several career-development opportunities.

Women from all over the world can now apply to this inaugural edition, themed Agents of Change: the Prize will award submissions that can visualize or conceptualize pressing social, political, environmental and technological issues of a world in constant flux and transformation. A £ 2,000 bursary will be awarded to ten shortlisted artists, five of whom will be included in a group exhibition at Peckham24 photography festival in London. Networking events and public programming will accompany the three-day festival, and artists will be offered travel and accommodation expenses. Together with the Foundations’ co-chairs Fiona Rogers and Vivienne Gamble, the selection committee will be composed of Aperture’s Creative Director Lesley Martin, artists Ronan Mckenzie and Ingrid Pollard. 

Free to enter, the call will be open until the 22nd of January. Find more about it and participate through the Award’s website. 

KASSEL DUMMY AWARD 2023 / Deadline January 31 / Entry fee € 36

Since 2010, Kassel Dummy Award has been yearly offering photobook production to international emerging, unpublished work. Thanks to the award, a high number of compelling photobooks have been created since then, and many others have found international exposure and opportunities by being featured in the shortlist exhibitions program.

For the first year organized in full cooperation with Cologne’s PhotoBookMuseum, this edition of the Award will select a shortlist of around 50 books that will be carried on an exhibition tour touching more than 10 high-level cultural events and locations all over the world. Among the shortlist, 5 winning books will be selected, one of them being produced and published through the PBM/MAS Prize, bringing together the leading Turkish photobook printing and binding house MAS MATBAA, the Kasseler Fotografie Festival and ThePhotoBookMuseum. The other four will be awarded a grant covering 25% of production costs through MAS MATBAA. 

To be considered, physical dummies must be received by January 31 (entry fee € 36). Visit their website to find out more.

Tremplin Young Talents / Deadline January 20 / Free entry

Sarah Moon-chaired photography festival Planches Contact is offering support to emerging photographers through the Tremplin Young Talents prize, a grant aimed at the development of five photographic projects engaging with the territory of Normandie, France.

Each year, five artists are awarded a € 5000 grant each to sustain the conception and realization of their project, which will then be exhibited during the Planches Contact festival, opening in Autumn. To develop the selected works, the photographers should be available to spend at least one period of residency in Deauville between February and June 2023. 

With no entry fee, applications are open until the 20th of January. Emerging and studying artists of all ages and provenance are welcome to apply, as long as they were never the subject of a solo exhibition or publication at date. Further details about the application process, which is based on the artists’ portfolios and project proposals, are to be found on Planches Contact’s website.

Belfast Photo Festival 2023 Open Submission / Deadline February 3 / Entry fee € 29

With previous editions having welcomed over 150,000 visitors from all over the world, Belfast Photo Festival is the largest annual international festival of photography in the UK and Ireland, representing contemporary photography with an eye on the political, social and cultural climate of Belfast.

With no thematic restriction, this edition of the lens-based (but open to contamination with other art forms) open call offers a vast array of opportunities: between 20 and 40 artists will benefit from awards and cash prizes (among which the £ 2,000 Spotlight Award), will have their work produced and exhibited in the Festival’s main venue, will take part in the 2024 Photo Schweiz (Zurich, Switzerland), will be featured in several magazines and publications, and much more. Curators of international galleries and museums (ICP, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, V&A) and editors (The New York Times, Aperture Magazine) will be amongst the jurors.

Applications are open until the 3rd of February (entry fee € 29). More details about the different opportunities and the submission procedure can be found on the festival’s website.

EU Neighbours East Family Connections Open Call / Deadline January 20 / Free entry

Partnered by Lodz’s Fotofestiwal, EU NeighboursEast’s open call is a European-Union-funded initiative aimed at awarding professional photographers coming from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. Artists are invited to engage with the theme Family Connections: through a series of photos, the way families are connecting us to roots, culture, traditions and futures should be explored, with an eye on the way these relations are adapting to changing worlds. 

After the selection and publication of a shortlist, one winner for each of the six countries will be awarded a € 1000 prize. The jury members are photographers, editors, researchers and artistic directors Lars Boering, Karolina Gembara, Emma Bowkett and Arianna Rinaldo, accompanied by EU Commission communication officer Milica Saracevic, bringing in her in-depth understanding of the addressed countries' culture, history and present issues.

Applications are open until the 20th of January and free of charge. Find more about the open call on the EU Neighbours East website.

OTHER DEADLINES

FE + SK Book Award / Deadline January 16 / Entry fee € 10

For the second year, Fotografia Europea and the contemporary photography publishing house Skinnerboox are partnering in this Book Award, which is open for submissions until the 16th of January. One book will be selected to be published by Skinnerboox with a print run of 500 copies, and will then be presented as the award’s winner during the opening days of Fotografia Europea festival. Find out further information on their website.

All About Photo Awards / Deadline February 2 / Entry fee € 35

At its 8th edition, AAP Awards grants a total of $ 10,000 in five cash prizes, other than offering extensive press coverage, online exposure and global recognition. The grand prize is $5,000, the 2nd prize is $2,000, the 3rd prize is $1,500, the 4th prize is $1,000 and the 5th prize is $500. With an entry fee of € 35, submissions are open until February 2. In-depth information is to be found on their website.

POY / Deadline January 16 / Entry fee € 50

The Pictures of the Year International competition, celebrating 80 years in 2023, honours photojournalistic excellence through a series of prizes aimed at series or single images shot in 2022. The competition is divided into 36 different categories, and awards $1,000 cash prizes to the winners of five different awards: the International Photographer of the Year, the Local Photographer of the Year, the World Understanding Award, the Community Awareness Award and the Environmental Vision Award. Visit poy’s website for extensive information on the different categories and participation criteria. Check out our festivals page to get a complete view of what's coming up on the photography calendar over the next few months.

--------

Visit our awards page to get a complete view of the best photography opportunities that are currently open for entry.