1.1 To qualify to enter the competition, you must be over 18 years of age.
1.2 By entering the Competition you hereby accept these competition rules.
1.3 Entries must be submitted no later than the deadline of listed on the Competition URL, lensculture.com/awards
1.4 The competition is open to everyone that is 18 years and older, professional and amateur photographers alike.
1.5 By entering the Competition, you agree and acknowledge that LensCulture is permitted to receive and review your registration data. Participants agree that personal data including, but not limited to, name, mailing address, phone number, and email address may be collected, processed, stored and otherwise used for the purposes of conducting and administering this photo competition. At any time, participants have the right to access, review, rectify or cancel any personal data held by LensCulture by sending an email to the following address: support@lensculture.com
2.1 To enter the competition, you must submit your entries to the Competition URL, lensculture.com/awards. Participants must also pay the entry fee(s) and complete the submission form in order to be considered for the competition.
3.1 All entries will be reviewed and pre-screened by our editors and an international group of industry professionals. The screened entries are then reviewed by our international jury. The jury will choose the winners. The decisions of the jury are final.
3.2 Submissions that have been awarded a cash prize in a previous LensCulture competition are not eligible to win cash prizes in subsequent competitions. Please consider entering new work. Submissions that have been selected as Finalists in previous competition ARE eligible to win a cash prize in subsequent competitions. A photographer may win multiple cash awards but the same photograph/series cannot win multiple cash awards. If a series/photograph was submitted to a previous competition but received no prize, then that series/photograph is still eligible.
3.3 Winning photographs may be included in the future in traveling group gallery exhibitions and/or screenings and projections at arts institutions and festivals worldwide. Each photographer retains copyright of his or her images, and proper credit lines will be attributed to each photographer when exhibited or screened anywhere by LensCulture.
3.4 The full name of each entrant whose work is selected as a winner, juror’s pick, or finalist will be published online.
3.5 Cash prizes will be paid by wire transfer or other electronic methods. Any fees incurred for foreign currency transfers will be deducted from the winning amount.
3.6 No cash alternatives will be offered for any prizes.
4.1 LensCulture reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify and remove any photograph that does not comply with the following requirements, even after the photograph appears on the website. You warrant, in respect of the photographs submitted by you, as follows:
4.1.1 You are the sole copyright owner and creator of the photographs.
4.1.2 You have the right to enter your photographs in this competition.
4.1.3 To the best of your knowledge, the photographs do not contain any infringing, threatening, false, misleading, abusive, harassing, libelous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, scandalous, inflammatory, pornographic or profane content.
4.1.4 To the best of your knowledge, the photographs do not contain any material that could constitute or encourage conduct which would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any law.
4.1.5 The photograph does not infringe upon the copyrights, trademarks, contract rights, or any other intellectual property rights of any third person or entity, or violate any person’s rights of privacy or publicity, and your photograph does not include:
4.1.5.1 trademarks owned by third parties.
4.1.5.2 copyrighted materials owned by third parties.
4.1.5.3 names, likenesses or other characteristics identifying celebrities or other public figures, living or dead.
4.1.5.4 entries in which you have purchased or secured the rights to use stock images.
4.2 You agree to fully indemnify LensCulture in respect of all royalties, fees and any other monies owing to any person by reason of your breaching any of the foregoing.
4.3 You confirm that each person depicted in the photograph has granted permission to be portrayed as shown—and has the right to grant that permission. Any costumes, props or other materials used must be rented or borrowed with the permission of the owner, and all other relevant permissions must have been obtained.
4.4 Images that purport to be “news” photographs, reporting, photojournalism, or documentary photography, should comply with the ethical guidelines of the National Press Photographers Association in general, as well as those proposed by UNICEF for ethical reporting on children. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a photograph. If images are staged, this should be made clear in the written statements and captions. It is important, always, to take into account the ethical considerations of photography, and to protect vulnerable people from potential harm that could be inflicted as a result of publishing images that expose or identify individuals or groups who may be or may become vulnerable as a result of the publication of the photographs.
5.1 LensCulture recognizes you retain full ownership of the copyright in each photograph that you have submitted.
5.2 Not every photograph submitted to the competition will be publicly visible on LensCulture. There are too many submissions for each one to be shown on the site. The pictures on the website are pre-selected by LensCulture’s editors. Whether or not your entry is selected by the editors for display has no effect on your standing in the competition—the jury’s judgments begin after the competition deadline has passed.
6.1 All entrants agree that all photograph(s) submitted to the competition may be reproduced (with photographer copyright credit) and used to conduct and promote LensCulture competitions. You hereby grant LensCulture with a right to use submitted photographs in the framework of such promotional activities.
7.1 Any photograph used by LensCulture shall carry a credit line. Any failure to provide such credit line shall not be deemed to be a breach, as long as LensCulture uses its reasonable endeavors to rectify such failure within a reasonable period from the date of notice of such failure.
7.2 You acknowledge that LensCulture and its event partners assume no responsibility and are not liable for any image misuse.
8.1 LensCulture assumes no responsibility for any incorrect, inaccurate or incomplete information, whether caused by website users or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Competition, and LensCulture assumes no responsibility for technical, hardware or software failure of any kind, for lost network connections, garbled computer transmissions, other problems or technical malfunctions with regard to the Competition. LensCulture assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, corruption, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to or alteration of entries. LensCulture is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers, computer equipment, software, failure of any e-mail addressed to LensCulture on account of technical problems, human error or traffic congestion on the internet or any website, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to your or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participation or downloading any materials in the Competition. If for any reason a contestant’s photograph cannot be viewed or is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer viruses, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud or technical failures, LensCulture assumes no responsibility.
9.1 In no event will LensCulture, its members, event partners or its officers, directors, employees, be responsible or liable for any damages or losses of any kind, including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages arising out of any contestant’s access to and use of the website and participation in the competition. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, everything on the Website is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for purpose or use or non-infringement.
10.1 You agree to participate in related publicity and to the use of your name and winning images for the purposes of advertising, promotion and publicity for LensCulture and the Competition without additional compensation. Such requests will not be unreasonably withheld.
11.1 For the purpose of this award, LensCulture will not accept any purely AI-generated work. It is acceptable to modify and edit your own original photography using AI tools, but you must clearly indicate in your project statement how you have applied AI to your submission, and the extent of the modifications. All awards will be given at the discretion of the jury.
