Moscow - The International Press Photo Contest named after Andrei Stenin, a Rossiya Segodnya photojournalist who died in the line of duty in southeastern Ukraine, will on Saturday begin accepting submissions for its fifth year.
The start date always falls on Stenin’s birthday, December 22.
Entries from young photographers aged 18 to 33 will be accepted on the contest’s website, stenincontest.com, until February 28, 2019.
The Stenin Contest is the only competition in Russia that discovers new names in photojournalism from around the world and develops standards of quality for documentary photography.
The contest is aimed at supporting young photojournalists and helping them on the world photojournalism stage.
Two South Africans, Phando Jikelo and Justin Sullivan, have won some of the top prizes.
In 2019, five years since the contest was established, the contenders will compete in five categories: the usual four - Top News, Sport, My Planet, and Portrait. A Hero of Our Time - plus a new one, Inspiration. Entries in this new category must be single photographs depicting either the cause or expression of inspiration, such as nature, ethnic or genre photos, and portraits of children and adults shot using various techniques and styles. The contenders can submit one single image and one series entry in every category.
The prize money for this year’s first, second and third place winners will be 100,000, 75,000 and 50,000 rubles (approximately $1,500, $1,120 and $750), respectively.
The Grand Prix winner will receive 700,000 rubles (approximately $10,470). Another perk of winning is having their work showcased both in Russia and around the world in a travelling exhibition that has become a fixture of the contest and already reached dozens of major cities in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
“The Andrei Stenin Contest is expanding its presence on the global stage of photojournalism. Our finalists say that young photographers who want to improve their skills see the contest as a must. There are few countries from which we have not received any interesting entries yet. We invite young photojournalists from around the world to take part in the 2019 contest and wish them all the best,” contest curator Oksana Oleinik, head of the Visual Projects Service of the Rossiya Segodnya United Photo Information Directorate, said.
In 2018, the Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest was supported by major Russian and international media outlets - including Independent Media - news agencies and the photography community.
Partners in several categories included the Shanghai United Media Group (SUMG), the Al Mayadeen TV pan-Arabic news network and the International Committee of the Red Cross, one of the world’s largest humanitarian organisations.