Cape Town - Submissions for the 2020 Andrei Stenin International Press Photo Contest will be accepted until February 29.
Submissions opened for the annual contest on December 22, the birthday of Stenin, who was born in 1980.
The event was established in 2014 by news agency Rossiya Segondnya in memory of the photojournalist, whose car was shelled while he was on assignment in Donetsk, Ukraine in the same year.
Photo series and single photos can be submitted through the stenincontest.ru website in Russian, English and Chinese, by photographers aged 18 to 33.
The 2020 competition will include four categories, Top News, Sport, My Planet, and Portrait. One single entry and one photo series can be submitted in each of the four categories.
Winners will receive ₽100,000 and ₽75 000 for the first, second and third places in each category. The winner of the highest Stenin competition award, the Grand Prix, will receive ₽700,000.
Apart from the financial benefits, the contest allows young photojournalists the opportunity to display their work at Russian and international venues. A touring exhibit has become an integral part of the project, with displays taking in cities in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.
The New York headquarters of the United Nations has been one of the exhibiting venues for Stenin winners since 2018.
Rossiya Segodnya's head of visual projects, Oksana Oleinik, said the contest was entering a new phase in 2020.
"We marked the first five years in 2019, and we would like the next five, 10 or more years to see the competition develop and grow dynamically. We are looking forward to even more participants next year, and more interesting works.
“Discovering new names in photography is an incredibly exciting and responsible task, and I'm sure the international jury will do a great job in 2020. We invite young photojournalists from around the world to participate in the 2020 contest and we wish them all good luck,” said Oleinik.
According to the competition's official website, a new record was set in 2019, with around 6, 000 entries from 80 countries across five continents being submitted.