The World Press Photo Foundation is introducing three major new awards for the 2019 contests. These new awards will be on a par with the ‘World Press Photo of the Year’ and will put the spotlight on the stories that matter. The new awards are the ‘World Press Photo Story of the Year’ in the Photo Contest, and for the Digital Storytelling Contest, the ‘World Press Photo Interactive of the Year’ and the ‘World Press Photo Online Video of the Year’. The winners of these four headline awards will receive €10,000 each. This means all contest winners will share in prizes totaling more than €130,000 in value.
2019 Photo Contest: ‘Story of the Year’
The World Press Photo of the Year award honors the photographer whose visual creativity and skills made a picture that captures or represents an event or issue of great journalistic importance in that year. The new award for the World Press Photo Story of the Year will honor the photographer whose visual creativity and skills produced a story with excellent editing and sequencing that captures or represents an event or issue of great journalistic importance that year. On 20 February 2019, the six nominees for Photo of the Year, and three nominees for Story of the Year will be announced. The winners will be announced at the Awards Show on 11 April 2019.
Anna Lena Mehr, the newly appointed director of contests at the World Press Photo Foundation, says: “There are so many powerful stories to be highlighted. This new story of the year award, beyond recognizing incredible visual creativity and skills, is also awarding the commitment, the edit, and the storytelling skills of visual journalists.”
There are two other significant changes to the categories for the 2019 Photo Contest:
2019 Digital Storytelling Contest: the ‘Interactive of the Year’ and the ‘Online Video of the Year’
“Digital storytelling is a fixture now”, explains Anna Lena Mehr. “By adding these prizes of the year, we hope it will draw more attention to the different and creative formats of visual journalism there are today and will help get more attention to these incredible stories worldwide.”
In response to developments in the media and technology, the 2019 Digital Storytelling Contest will adopt a more flexible approach to awards in the Interactive category. The diversity of formats in this category will be celebrated through three equally-weighted awards in the form of “Best ...”. The jury will decide which productions stand out and then determine which "Best of" awards to make, such as Best VR, Best use of AI, Best Webdoc, or other inspiring formats.
On 20 February 2019, the three nominees for Interactive of the Year and the three nominees for Online Video of the Year will be announced. The winners will be announced in April 2019. Read the full description of the awards and categories here.
Key points for 2019 Photo Contest entries
Lars Boering, managing director of the World Press Photo Foundation, says: "We want the contest to showcase a more diverse and comprehensive representation and perspective of our world. We are campaigning again this year to encourage professional journalists from around the world to enter. We sometimes hear that visual journalists are hesitant to enter, as they don’t believe their stories to be good enough. We encourage all visual storytellers to participate in both contests so the juries have the broadest array of work to choose from.”
The key features of the 2019 Photo Contest are:
This year, entries for the photo contest will be submitted through the professional photography platform Picter. This platform is specialized in photo contests, offering the best user experience with the most advanced technology. This year every single entrant, including previous contestants, must provide a valid document that confirms their professional status. There are five ways to show professional status, and the details can be found here.
The 62nd annual World Press Photo Contest will open for submissions on 3 December 2018. Entrants will need to register by 3 January 2019 (12 noon CET) and submit their entries by 8 January 2019 (12 noon CET). Find out more about the 2019 Photo Contest
The 9th annual World Press Photo Digital Storytelling Contest will open for submissions on 3 December 2018. Entrants will need to submit their entries by 8 January 2019 (12 noon CET). Find out more about the 2019 Digital Storytelling Contest
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