The Pasadena Photography Arts
PHOTO AWARD 2025

$2000 Cash Prize!

We are no longer accepting submissions.

Open Theme: Excellence in Contemporary Photography

“To me photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them."

— Eliot Erwitt

“Brassai showed me that it was possible to find something significant in photographing subjects in everyday life doing ordinary things by interpreting them in your own way and with your own personal vision.”

— Louis Sterner, 1922-2016 

Pasadena Photography Arts is pleased to announce an open call for our PPA Photo Award 2025: Excellence in Contemporary Photography (Open Theme). This is an annual award for both emerging and professional photographers with residence in the United States. *Photographer must have a US bank account to complete application.

The winning photographer will receive a $2,000 cash prize, a published interview on our website, a feature on Lenscratch.com, and a virtual hosted artist talk.

The PPA Photo Award 2025 is accepting entries December 20th, 2024 through April 14th, 2025. Results will be publicly announced August 22nd, 2025. Photographers are invited to submit cohesive bodies of work between 10 - 20 images with an accompanying statement. Analogue, digital, portrait, abstract, mixed-media, documentary, street photography, conceptual, still-life photography, landscape, alternative photography, cell phone photography is acceptable.  No fully generated AI images allowed, however, AI as an editing tool is permissible. 

The jury panel is composed of Pasadena Photography Arts Advisors alongside esteemed guest juror Eve Schillo, Associate Curator at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), for the final round decision. Entries will be judged on the basis of creativity, originality, quality, and responsiveness to the call.

About Guest Juror Eve Schillo

Associate Curator
Wallis Annenberg Photography Dept.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

Eve Schillo curates exhibitions that span photographic history and appear in galleries dedicated to American, Latin American, Modern, Contemporary, and Japanese Art, as well as those devoted to photography. Recent projects include an exhibition celebrating California photography, Golden Hour (2021-22); In the Now: Gender and Nation in Europe (2021); and Mariana Yampolsky (2018). Before You Now: Capturing the Self in Portraiture is touring to several Southern California venues (through August 2025) and also on view, Nature on Notice: Contemporary Art and Ecology (a PST ART exhibit, through August 2025). Areas of interest include experimental processes, time-based media, Central and South American makers, and of course, California and The West.

    • Anyone over 18, and also a resident of the United States, may apply. You must be a legal resident and currently have a primary address and bank account in the United States.

    • Work may be from anywhere in the world, utilizing any type of photography (digital/film, color or black and white, composited or collage), as long as all work is solely the applicant’s. Work may range from documentary to fine art narrative (images may be altered or abstracted, candid or staged).

    • Applicant may submit one project per award cycle. Winning projects from prior years are not eligible.

    • All images submitted must have a common theme or work together as a whole.

    • Project must be previously unpublished. Published means where the project as a whole was featured on another site. Images that have been uploaded to an applicant's social media or an applicant’s website are okay.

    • Applicants must submit a project description of up to 2,000 characters, and a biography of up to 2,000 characters.

    • Applicants should submit at least 10 images to show the scope of the project, and can submit up to 20 images total. Images to be submitted digitally, in .jpg format, in sRGB color space, 1200 pixels on the long side, 72ppi, and no larger file than 5 MB each. Jpegs should be named as following: FirstName_LastName_ProjectTitle_01.jpg … FirstName_LastName_ProjectTitle_02.jpg …

    • Entries will be judged by a panel of nominated judges, on the basis of creativity, originality, quality, and responsiveness to the call.

    • $2,000 Cash Prize

    • Lenscratch Feature

    • Published Interview on PPA website

    • A Virtual Hosted Artist Talk

  • All submissions should be completed through our the Call For Entry (CaFÉ) portal. Click here for application.

    $42/ENTRY

  • December 20, 2024 : Call for entries is open for submissions

    EXTENDED DEADLINE: April 14, 2025: Deadline to submit. Call for entries closes at 11:59pm MT. Late submissions will not be considered.

    August 22, 2025: Announcement of winner

  • Entry deadline is by 11:59pm MT of  April 7, 2025. By submitting an entry, each applicant agrees to the rules of the contest, and states that they are 18 years of age or older, a resident of the United States, and have a US bank account. PPA will determine the winner’s eligibility in its sole discretion. The applicant certifies that they are the sole creator and copyright owner of any submitted work. For an image in which a person is recognizable, the applicant must be able to provide a model release from the subject, or in the case of a minor, the subject’s parent or guardian, if asked. Applicant retains all rights to work submitted. By submitting to the award, applicant grants PPA and those authorized by PPA a royalty-free, world-wide, non-exclusive license to publicly display, distribute, reproduce and create derivative works of the entry, in any media, for advertising and promotion of PPA and its website and programs, including promoting this award, for exhibition, for PPA publications and for all perpetuity.Any work so reproduced will include photo credit. Applicant agrees that if accepted, their artist talk will be recorded and available to the public on PPA’s website and YouTube channel.

FAQs

  • Anyone who is a legal resident and currently has a primary address and bank account in the United States.

    Previous PPA Photo Award winners cannot resubmit with a new project.

  • Yes, if you currently have a primary address and bank account in the United States.

  • Analogue, digital, portrait, abstract, mixed-media, documentary, street photography, conceptual, still-life photography, landscape, alternative processes, and cell phone photography.

  • A project is a minimum of 10 images. We will consider up to 20 images taken from a project. Images must share a common theme or concept. Projects will be judged as a whole.

  • Digital images should be in sRGB format, 1200 pixels on the long side, 72ppi, and no larger file than 5 MB each. Name the files as: ProjectTitle_01.jpg … ProjectTitle_02.jpg …

    Please do not use other symbols or spaces in the file name. Since you will be submitting a series of images, please number them and upload in order of importance. Note: The first image should be the opening image.

  • There is a $42 submission fee.

    There are a limited number of scholarships available, please reach out to pasadenaphotoarts@gmail.com for assistance.

  • To be eligible for the PPA Award, your project must not have been previously shown in its entirety in a gallery setting, been published or self-published, or have been a recipient or winner of another award/competition. A project that has had 10 or more photographs shown in a gallery and/or published on another organization's website or platform is not eligible. A project that has been published in its entirety on the artist's website or social media is eligible.

  • Yes, you can submit up to 2 projects. Please note, each project submission requires a separate entry fee.

  • If, at the time of the competition’s close, a submission is incomplete (e.g. the submission has not been paid, or the images have not been uploaded correctly), it will not be eligible for juried consideration. Though we make every effort to make contact and to ensure completion of submissions, we are not responsible for incomplete entries and are unable to offer a refund, should an entry be incomplete at the time of the competition’s close.

  • Photographers retain copyright of all images. Images will be used on the Pasadena Photography Arts website and media pages, Lenscratch and social media pages for promotion of all winners and the award in future years.

  • Yes, photographs captured by phone cameras are acceptable.

  • There is one PPA Award granted each year.

  • Yes.

  • No, once submitted no changes can be made to your application. Please review your work selection and writing carefully.

  • No, we will not require the submission of any receipts or reports. We hope that the cash prize can help the winner with any aspect of their pursuit as an artist.

  • The winner of the award is responsible for paying any taxes.