Workshops, Grants, Contests, and Deadlines

2026 marks the 10th year of the LSI Photography Grant. In addition to its annual project-based grant, LSI launched an annual Women in Photography Grant in 2022. Both grants are supported by the LSI Philanthropy Fund and Leica North America.  LSI’s mission is to give back to the photography community by providing financial aid and recognition to deserving photographers who are working on a photography-based project.

The Arts in Society Grant funds projects that help arts organizations and artists find solutions to civic and social challenges facing Colorado communities. You can apply for $5,000 to $35,000. The grant provides both financial and organizational support.

The New York Times Fellowship is a one-year work program aimed at cultivating the next generation of journalists. The fellowship represents a unique opportunity to do great journalism for The Times. It incorporates speakers, feedback and training opportunities. The program’s goal is to benefit not only the participants and The Times, but also other newsrooms.

This fellowship will be awarded to artists whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching. Applicants should be early career visual artists, filmmakers, poets, novelists, playwrights, designers, directors and performance artists—this list is not meant to be exhaustive—who would find it beneficial to spend two years teaching and working in an artistically vibrant university community. Applicants can only apply for the Princeton Arts Fellowship twice in a lifetime.

The Hodder Fellowship will be given to artists and writers of exceptional promise to pursue independent projects at Princeton University during the academic year. Potential Hodder Fellows are composers, choreographers, performance artists, visual artists, writers, translators, or other kinds of artists or humanists who have “much more than ordinary intellectual and literary gifts”; they are selected more “for promise than for performance.” Given the strength of the applicant pool, most successful Fellows have published a first book or have similar achievements in their own fields; the Hodder is designed to provide Fellows with the “studious leisure” to undertake significant new work.

Latino Outdoors invites photos that support the LCW annual theme: rooted in nature, thriving in community. This year, we are focusing on the idea that conservation is about protecting landscapes and strengthening the bonds between people and nature. What role does nature play in the health of our communities? How is nature a source of resilience, belonging, and tradition within Latine communities? Entries will be evaluated based on photo composition, creativity, as well as the storytelling impact of your caption.

PhotoVogue’s 2025 Global Open Call invites women photographers and video makers from around the world to explore and redefine how women see and are seen. Celebrating diverse and self-determined perspectives across all genres—from fashion to documentary, portraiture, fine art, and beyond—this open call champions visual storytelling as a powerful force for representation, empowerment, and change. The illusion of linear progress – the belief that rights, visibility, and recognition are irrevocable – has been shattered by the current political climate. Around the world, we are witnessing increasing pushback against women's autonomy, from reproductive rights to freedom of expression, reminding us that what once seemed secure can also be taken away.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation offers fellowships to exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form, under the freest possible conditions. The competition is open only to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada.

Each year, an open-call application is made available in each of the seven active partner cities. Supporting artists equitably is a critical part of the Artadia Award process: the organization considers the unique populations of each community and are proud to reflect the country’s diversity with an Awardee pool that is over 50 percent female and over 40 percent persons of color. In addition to financial support, Awardees can participate in the Artadia Network to receive structured opportunities for valuable new connections and resource sharing as well as receive a dedicated webpage on Artadia’s online Artist Registry. Connections fostered by Artadia have facilitated major steps in Awardees’ careers.

The Lucie Foundation is dedicated to celebrating all forms of photography, in print and online and is pleased to introduce the Lucie Photo Book Prize. This program is a juried competition open to a diversity of book submissions- from traditionally published to prototypes, hand-made books to zines.  The awards are presented to photographers, editors, curators or publishers.

The SPIE International Day of Light Photo Contest is held annually to raise awareness about the International Day of Light and to demonstrate the impact that light has on cultural, economic, and political aspects of our world. Amateur and professional photographers alike are encouraged to submit photos for a chance to win cash prizes.

The Lena Grant is an award created by former WPOW co-director Molly Roberts to encourage the coverage of health care issues in the USA. This year’s winner will receive $3,000 and a Sony Alpha A93 camera kit, courtesy of Sony. Accepted subject matter encompasses a wide range and includes physical, mental and emotional health, social determinants impacting health, reproductive care, addiction, PTSD, family caregiving, gender identity, migrant health, and any other medical and caregiving topic. The Lena Grant is open to WPOW members only and supports existing or new photo, video or multimedia projects.

At a time when many parts of the MENA region are experiencing conflict, instability, and profound social transformation, it feels especially important to create space for artists. Not to simplify or overlook these realities, but to recognize that image-making and storytelling remain essential. They allow for nuance, for complexity, and for forms of connection that can bring people together across distance, difference, and difficulty. This open call invites photographers and video makers to submit work across all genres, including fashion, documentary, conceptual, and experimental practices. Rather than proposing a single narrative, it seeks to embrace the multiplicity of visual languages and lived experiences across the region.

The theme of this contest is ‘What inspires you?’. We invite photographers from all corners of the globe to capture the essence of what inspires them, and to showcase their unique vision and perspective.

Participants sign up for twenty-minute face-to-face reviews and receive candid feedback about their images, as well as information on getting their work exhibited and published.

The Queens Museum (QM) is pleased to launch its eighth iteration of the QM-Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists in New York City. Two visual artists will receive $20,000 each and professional development consultations from QM staff members working toward an artist’s project. Each fellow will also receive mentorship from a New York-based established artist. The fellowships will culminate in solo project exhibitions at the Queens Museum in 2028. The duration of each fellowship is one year, culminating with the opening of the fellow’s exhibition.

The Lucie Foundation is proud to support professional and emerging talent with vision and dynamic ideas that challenge and progress the art form of still photography into work that compels. Our support of photography is broad, from Fine Art to Documentary and Photojournalism, to digital and film-based works. Our concern is to support photographers producing work that is at once gripping, and original. The Lucie Foundation is proud to offer four cash grants and a variety of prizes to support the work of emerging and established photographers.

Each year, an open-call application is made available in each of the seven active partner cities. Supporting artists equitably is a critical part of the Artadia Award process: the organization considers the unique populations of each community and are proud to reflect the country’s diversity with an Awardee pool that is over 50 percent female and over 40 percent persons of color. In addition to financial support, Awardees can participate in the Artadia Network to receive structured opportunities for valuable new connections and resource sharing as well as receive a dedicated webpage on Artadia’s online Artist Registry. Connections fostered by Artadia have facilitated major steps in Awardees’ careers.

In partnership with Stadt-Salzburg, this program is an opportunity in July 2026 for visual artists living within the State of Minnesota to participate in a 4-week individual artist residency at the Künstlerhaus in Salzburg, Austria. Thanks to support from the City of Salzburg, the selected visual artist receives a live-in studio for one month at the Künstlerhaus and a 600 Euro stipend for food. Travel expenses to Salzburg and back to Minnesota are not covered.

The Independent and Freelance Photojournalist Award recognises excellence in independent visual reporting across three categories: Spot News, Environment, and Solutions. Each category winner receives a USD 5,000 cash prize, with three equal winners recognised annually. Photojournalism demands strict ethical standards. Images must present an accurate and honest account of events, without manipulation, alteration, or distortion. Integrity and impartiality are fundamental. Entrants may submit one 12-image essay per category that addresses urgent, underreported, or impactful global issues. Through this award, Xposure supports independent photojournalists and amplifies visual storytelling that informs, challenges, and resonates worldwide.

This award aims at recognizing and disseminating the best images that singularly demonstrate social inequities, injustices, and/or human rights abuses, or the situations that either foster or fight them. By giving this competition the name of the photographer and international aid worker Luis Valtueña, we pay tribute to his memory and the other three humanitarian aid workers of the association murdered in Rwanda (1997) and Bosnia (1995) out their duties. It is also our wish to highlight the human values they represent. The submitted images must narrate a story related to one of these topics: health, natural disasters, humanitarian action, international cooperation, social exclusion, violation of human rights, armed conflicts, vulnerable groups, refugee and/or migrant populations.

This Grant is designed to help a photographer begin a photographic project or help complete an ongoing photographic project. The Judges will be looking for a photographer whose proposed project seems most likely to use exemplary and compelling photojournalism and documentary photography (possibly supplemented by or incorporating multi-media) to address an issue of import and impact related to the human condition: social change, humanitarian concern, armed conflict, or other topics of interpersonal, psychological, cultural, social, environmental, scientific, medical and/or political significance, ideally expressing an underlying acknowledgement of our common humanity.

The Howard Chapnick Grant supports leadership in fields such as editing, research, education, and management--activities essential to photojournalism and documentary photography that complement the creation of images. The grant recognizes programs–rather than individuals–that significantly contribute to the field of documentary photography through education. Education, as defined broadly, could include not only direct learning, but also research, publication, archives, exhibitions, online resources, and social media dissemination–but only if these activities are dedicated to knowledge sharing purposes intended to effect change.

The W. Eugene Smith Grant for Student Photographers is designed to encourage and support students whose photographic work renews the tradition of W. Eugene Smith’s humanistic and compassionate photography. Special consideration will be given to work that promotes social change, that embraces new technologies and image distribution, and that seeks to integrate the tradition of photography and social change with contemporary practice.

Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) awards are run by photographers for photographers. TPOTY is truly global – wherever you live in the world and whether you are amateur or professional, beginner or expert, young or old, Travel Photographer of the Year is for you!

The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Center for Business Journalism provides experienced journalists with grants up to $15,000 and the editorial support needed to produce deeply reported enterprise and investigative stories that delve into critical economic, financial or business issues across a wide array of subjects. You don’t need to be a business reporter to apply; many of our previous Fellows have been generalists, or cover beats such as health care, education or the environment. Others have focused on issues such as economic inequality or corporate accountability.

Scholars may propose topics that relate to the visual arts, their history, practice, theory, or interpretation. Any proposal that contributes to understanding the nature of artistic activity and the intellectual, social, and cultural worlds with which it is connected is welcome. Attention will be given to proposals that promise to deepen, transform, or challenge those methods currently practiced within art history or that have the prospect of enhancing an understanding of the role of images in other disciplines in the humanities. All fellowships are intended to nurture a variety of disciplinary approaches and support new voices in art history.

This year, we’re looking for stories of hope and resilience across Wellcome’s core areas of focus, and the spaces where they intersect. The prize is open to photographers from all areas – both professional and amateur – and aims to highlight stories of health, medicine and science that align with Wellcome's research programmes. Each year, a commission is developed alongside the competition, featuring the work of one or more photographers and focusing on a specific theme. From a molecular process in a single cell to the impact of a disease across an entire community, we’d like to see imagery exploring health, medicine and science.

The Trebek Initiative is a joint venture between the National Geographic Society and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society funding storytellers, educators, conservationists, innovators and researchers who are documenting Canadian and Indigenous land, wildlife, water, culture and history. The Trebek Initiative’s mandate is to “ignite a passion to preserve across Canada”. This is accomplished by widely sharing the stories and discoveries of Trebek Grantees. In addition to funding, Trebek Grantees also receive mentorship and networking opportunities, storytelling support and opportunities to present their work on stage or virtually. Select Trebek Grantees will also receive the title of National Geographic Explorer.

Every year, Zeiss provides a wide selection of lenses for still and cinema cameras for students to “test-drive” while on campus. Students are invited to submit their work made with these lenses to the competition, in two categories: 1) Still Images (any genre, from fine art to documentary to commercial) or 2) Short Films (documentary and/or narrative).

Each year, an open-call application is made available in each of the seven active partner cities. Supporting artists equitably is a critical part of the Artadia Award process: the organization considers the unique populations of each community and are proud to reflect the country’s diversity with an Awardee pool that is over 50 percent female and over 40 percent persons of color. In addition to financial support, Awardees can participate in the Artadia Network to receive structured opportunities for valuable new connections and resource sharing as well as receive a dedicated webpage on Artadia’s online Artist Registry. Connections fostered by Artadia have facilitated major steps in Awardees’ careers.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Program is a vital source of funding for the visual arts and art history in Virginia. VMFA is committed to supporting professional artists as well as art and art history students who demonstrate exceptional creative ability in their chosen discipline and, as such, has awarded nearly $6 million in Fellowships to Virginians. The Fellowship Program was established in 1940 through a generous contribution made by the late John Lee Pratt of Fredericksburg. 2024 marks the 84th anniversary! Offered through VMFA Statewide, Fellowships are still largely funded through the Pratt endowment, supplemented by the J. Warwick McClintic Jr. Scholarship Fund.

The purpose of our grants is to support and encourage visual storytellers to create a long-term documentary photography project with local communities who are working to protect the environment and wildlife. Vital Impacts will be awarding two $20,000(US) grants to support the development of a documentary project on the work of an environmental story over the course of twelve months. The grants are for two separate photographers working on two separate projects. The grants will fund visual stories that highlight solution based environmental initiatives. It is designed to give the recipients time, mentoring and intellectual freedom to produce a body of work over twelve months. The Vital Impacts team will provide mentorship and guidance to the recipients of the grant over the course of its implementation.

The Ellie Awards honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design.

To recognize, encourage, and stimulate outstanding reporting directly to the public which materially increases the public's knowledge and understanding of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related fields.

The Peabody Awards honor a diverse range of stories distributed via television/streaming media; radio and podcast; and the Internet.

The Annual Photography Awards are dedicated to preserving the craft as a contemporary medium of fine art, and is motivated to helping artists rise in their careers.

The Anderson Center’s Winter Retreat program is a short-term residency during the organization’s off-season for artists and writers seeking concentrated creative time for reflection and the advancement of their personal artistic goals. A Winter Retreat at the Anderson Center is a fee-based opportunity for up to four artists at a time to live in community and fellowship while working on their own projects in the inspiring setting of the historic Tower View Estate.

The Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency (JTHAR) is an artist-centric nonprofit residency that awards an international community of artists the gifts of time and space amidst the extraordinary natural beauty of Joshua Tree National Park. Seven week residencies include scholarship funds, living accommodations, and studio space designed to accommodate a broad range of artistic activity and open studio events. JTHAR respects the critical role artists play in our society, and it aims to foster creativity, trust, courage, diversity and acceptance by facilitating opportunities for exploring, experimenting, quiet reflection, engagement and cross-cultural exchange with the vibrant local community. JTHAR establishes space for inspiration to happen, so artists can do the work of innovating, changing the cultural landscape and generating a fresh look at the way we connect to each other and to the world.

SIPA is one of the photo contests with the highest international participation ever. 2022 edition has received nearly 48.000 images from amateur and professional photographers from 156 countries worldwide.

The CatchLight Global Fellowship focuses on the power of visual storytelling to change the world. We support individuals looking to cultivate significant audience engagement with inventive methods of distribution that will increase the impact of their work.

The annual photo contest rewards photographers for the best single exposure pictures contributing to the past year of visual journalism.

Whether entered as singles or stories, these pictures are judged in terms of their accurate, fair, and visually compelling insights about our world.

Established creative and non-fiction writers, artists not requiring exceptional facilities, composers, filmmakers, and activists working for social justice are eligible applicants. Residents are chosen by an Admissions Committee of accomplished authors and artists. The committee is particularly interested in fine work which evinces social and ecological concern and is aimed at a general audience. International applicants are welcome.

Open to professional and non-professional, old and young, the Awards celebrate the very best in food photography and film from around the world.

The John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, which carries a $5,000 prize, is given annually for news reporting that makes an exceptional contribution to the public’s understanding of environmental issues. The award was founded in 1993 by family, friends and colleagues of John B. Oakes (1913-2001), who was an environmental journalism pioneer, the founder of the modern op-ed page, and the editor of the editorial page for the New York Times from 1961 to 1976. It recognizes journalists whose work meets the highest standards of journalistic excellence.