JOHANNESBURG - Young photo correspondents from Bhutan, Yemen, Sudan, as well as Papua New Guinea and Luxembourg, have applied to the Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest for the first time by submitting outstanding images in landscape and world culture genres.
The contest has in recent years set about expanding its geographical reach to new territories.
The organisers said in a statement that among Russian participants, most of the entries were submitted by photojournalists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Tomsk, Kirov, Irkutsk and Yekaterinburg, with a strong emphasis on portrait photography.
"Foreign entries are dominated by photographers from North Africa and Asia, including Egypt, India and Iran. At the same time, there are also quite a few entrants from Italy, Spain, France, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Bangladesh. Foreign contestants clearly prefer coloured photo series as a way to convey their message," the organisers said
This year the contenders will compete in five categories - Top News, Sport, My Planet, and Portrait: A Hero of Our Time, and Inspiration, and the jury will then award three winners in every category, as well as the contest's top award, the Grand Prix.
"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 your 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 contest is open to photo correspondents from any country aged 18 to 33.
Entries can be submitted until 28 February 2019 on the contest's website stenincontest.com. There have been more than 2,000 submissions by young photo journalists from 56 countries.
The African News Agency (ANA) and Independent Media are international media partners to the Andrei Stenin International Photo Contest.