The cultural association dotART, based in Trieste, Italy, is organising the 11th edition of URBAN Photo Awards contest.
The contest is open to everybody and organised into three sections [see guidelines]:
Contestants can participate in more than one section at the same time. The general theme of the contest is Urban Life: Urban Photography. The theme delves into modernity through all kinds of photography set in the fabric of the city. At the heart of the contest is the City, the urban environment and the humanity living there: the everyday life of big cities and small towns, the contrasts and the contradictions between the city and the countryside, the aesthetic views, the architectural geometries, fragments of colour breaking up the greyness of the city. Real, immediate images, able to recount the City and its stories.
This section is dedicated to single photos, which have to fall within one of the following thematic areas:
STREETS
The infinite aspects of the city and of the lives of its dwellers
Categories
Post-production: allowed.
Photo editing: not allowed.
PEOPLE
The human body, to be portrayed in a pose or to fleetingly capture on the street. Portraits, fashion, glam and kitsch, faces and glances, conventional and unusual beauty.
Categories
Post-production: allowed.
Photo editing: allowed.
SPACES
Urban spaces, among buildings and streets, shapes and geometries, monuments and churches, industrial archaeology and abandoned places.
Categories
Post-production: allowed.
Photo editing: not allowed.
CREATIVE
Artistic, experimental, conceptual, visionary and abstract photos, which do not belong to any of the previous categories, but still refer to Urban Life theme.
Categories
Post-production: allowed.
Photo editing: allowed.
» New Buildings – Matrix4design Prize
Photos representing some of the symbols of architecture that have helped change the look of the city over the past ten years. If you wish to enter the competition, you will only have to add the tag New Buildings (Matrix4design prize) to the Single Photos running in the category SPACES. Pictures will be judged by Matrix4design editor Andrea Boni and by the photographer Federica Nardese, who will select a short list of the best photos and the absolute winner. Please add in the title the building’s name, the architect (if you know him/her) and the city.
Contestants can submit sets of photos, linked to each other by a common trait. The sets can be in the form of photographic projects, thematic portfolios, reportages and storyboards (sequences of images telling a story).
Guidelines for Projects & Portfolios:
URBAN Book Award is a new section, dedicated to extended projects, inspired by the theme Urban Life: Urban Photography. Authors can here compete with drafts of their own photographic books, in pdf format. The goal is to give the winning photographer the possibility to produce and promote their own authorial project internationally. It will be published as a paper book by dotART / URBAN and officially presented during the festival Trieste Photo Days 2020.
The new section URBAN Book Award is designed for photographers that feel the limit of 12 photos set for the Projects & Portfolio section as a restraint, and would like to submit extended projects (or larger versions of the same projects already competing in the Projects & Portfolio section).
Guidelines for URBAN Book Award:
The contest will start on March 1, 2020, and will end at midnight on May 31, 2020 June 14th, 2020 CET (NEW DEADLINE!).
Single Photos
Early Birds (until 31/3/2020)
First submitted photo: 10 €
+ 5 € for each additional photo submitted
From 01/04/2020
First submitted photo: 12 €
+ 8 € for each additional photo submitted
Projects & Portfolios
Early Birds (until 31/3/2020)
35 € for each portfolio submitted, regardless of the number of photos composing the portfolio
From 01/04/2020
40 € for each portfolio submitted, regardless of the number of photos composing the portfolio
URBAN Book Award
Early Birds (until 31/3/2020)
15 € for each book submitted, regardless of the number of photos composing the book
From 01/04/2020
20 € for each book submitted, regardless of the number of photos composing the book
To enter the contest, you will just have to fill in the online form in the User Area, to upload files and pay the submission fee. Users already registered in 2019 can log in with the same data.
In the User Area you can upload, check, add or delete your photos and/or Projects & Portfolios / Books, modify the titles and descriptions and manage the payment.
Entries will be selected by dotART and presented anonymously to a prestigious jury, chaired by an illustrious committee featuring:
The other members of the jury will be soon defined.
The jury and dotART have the right to award more than one photo realised by the same author and to assign it to a different section if necessary. The decisions made by the jury are final.
1 March – 14 June 2020
Registration open for Single Photos, Projects & Portfolios, Books
By the end of June 2020
The names of the Selected Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked). The photographers will have the chance to participate in summer exhibitions and previews as well.
By the middle of July 2020
The names of the Semi-finalist Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 100 single photos, 50 projects & portfolios and 20 Book Award volumes will be selected.
By the end of July 2020
The names of the Finalist Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 40 single photos, 20 projects & portfolios and 5 Book Award volumes will be selected.
By the middle of September 2020
The names of the Winner Photographs will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 12 single photos, 3 projects & portfolios and 1 Book Award volume (in this case, the winner).
Saturday 24 October 2020
The final ranking will be announced during Trieste Photo Days festival. The final ranking will then be published on URBAN website and Facebook page.
The total prize value is € 16.000. Prizes are divided as follows:
The winner of the Single Photos section will be selected by the president of the jury Alex Webb among the best four contestants of each section (Street / People / Spaces / Creative) during the prize-giving ceremony, Saturday, October 24, 2020, on the occasion of Trieste Photo Days. The prizes will include:
The final ranking will be based on the average of the grades given by the members of the jury. The prizes include:
Chosen by Andrea Boni among the photos marked with the tag New Building in the Spaces section. The prizes include:
Honourable mentions are assigned by the jury to the most representative photos for each section and thematic area. The prizes include:
Remarkable Rewards are requested by the jury. The prizes include:
The winner of the Projects & Portfolios section will be selected and awarded by Rebecca Norris Webb during the prize-giving ceremony, Saturday, October 24, during Trieste Photo Days. The prizes include:
Honourable mentions are requested by the jury. The prizes include:
The photographer who will rank among the best in several sections, thematic areas and/or categories, giving proof of its clear, definite style, will be declared URBAN 2020 Best Author. The prizes include:
* the invitation is valid only on October 23 and 24, 2020, for those who attend the prize-giving ceremony during the festival. Prize cannot be combined or redeemed otherwiseis.
» Exhibition in Poreč Museum, Croatia (€ 1.500 value)
3 ranked projects from the “Projects & Portfolios” section – selected directly by the curators of the museum – will be displayed in Zavičajni muzej Poreštine, in Porec, Istria (Croatia), from July 24 to August 30, 2020 (tourist peak averaging 120,000 people in the summer time). Moreover, the Museum will release an official certificate of exhibition. One selected author will also be awarded with a free 2 nights stay in Trieste to attend URBAN’s Award Ceremony at Trieste Photo Days 2020 festival.
» Exhibition in “Sartorio” Museum, Trieste, Italy (€ 2.000 value)
4 Semifinalists projects will be selected by a special jury and exhibited in October 2020 at the prestigious Civic Museum “Sartorio” of Trieste, during Trieste Photo Days festival. 1 Selected author will also be awarded with a free 2 nights stay in Trieste to attend URBAN’s Award Ceremony at Trieste Photo Days 2020 festival.
» Free scholarship in Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design (€ 1.500 value)
The Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design, Poland (Krakowskie Szkoły Artystyczne) will offer the URBAN 2020 winner a six-month scholarship to attend the Photography School in English during 2020/2021 school year. The Winner, if unable to attend the course, is free to transfer the scholarship to a third party. Whenever the Winner will renounce the prize, the scholarship will go to the best-ranked author after him/her.
» Stroppa Prize
Our technical partner Stroppa will offer 50 of its straps, one for each Finalist Photographer (€ 33 value each).
The highest placing works with be published on the competition’s website and will be displayed in a collective exhibit on October 2020, in Trieste during Trieste Photo Days 2020 festival. The printing of the photos will be the responsibility of dotART. Some of the entered photos may in addition be selected for exhibits in Italy and abroad.
» URBAN website
A large selection of the ranked pictures will be published on the gallery page of this website.
» “URBAN unveils the City and its secrets – Vol. 06” photo book
The highest placing works will be admitted to the selection to realize the sixth edition of Urban unveils the City and its secrets. The photo book, edited in September, will be presented during Trieste Photo Days festival the last weekend of October, and distributed by Urban/dotART cultural association.
» Publication onmedia partner’s websites and magazines
TBA.
The best ranked pictures (usually, 30% of the Selected photos – see Art. 5) could be chosen for “travelling” exhibitions around the world in the context of dotART’s events (Trieste Photo Fringe / Photo Days Tour).
You can pay in the User Area. We accept these payment methods:
If you wish to pay by bank transfer you can make a single payment specifying “Contribution to Urban Photo Contest 2020 + section1 + Name + Email”.
Each photographer maintains moral and intellectual property rights on their submitted works. Each author grants the dotART association the non-exclusive right to use the winning / selected images to promote / advertise the association’s non-profit activities, subject to official communication to the author (whose name will always be attributed to the work).
By entering the competition, the Author accepts the present rules and declares that he/she is the owner of the intellectual property rights and of the rights of use of the submitted image and of any necessary release notes. Documentation of rights ownership must be presented to dotART upon request.
If for any reason the Competition cannot be run as planned, due to infection by computer virus, bugs, worms, trojan horses, denial of service attacks, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other cause that corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of this Competition, dotART reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual(s) seen to have tampered with the entry process and/or to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Competition. If dotART elects to cancel or terminate the Competition, it will not retain any rights to the submitted photographs and it will return all entry fees.
dotART is not responsible for the cancellation or modification of the prizes offered by the partners.