The annual World Press Photo Contest recognizes and celebrates the best photojournalism and documentary photography produced over the last year. Photographs and projects entered into the contest are judged in terms of their accurate, fair, and visually compelling insights about our world.

Prizes

For the 2022 World Press Photo Contest, each of the 24 regional winners will receive €1,000 and the four global winners – the World Press Photo of the Year, the World Press Photo Story of the Year, the World Press Photo Long-Term Project Award, and the World Press Photo Open Format Award – will receive an additional €5,000. All prize-winning photographs and projects are included in a worldwide year-long traveling exhibition, published on World Press Photo's website and across our social media platforms, and are presented in our annual yearbook, which is available in multiple languages. Alongside receiving a physical award, all winning photographers will be invited to a winners’ event.

Find out more about the prizes here.

About

The contest has four format-based categories – Singles, Stories, Long-Term Projects and Open Format. Entries will be judged in six worldwide regions – Africa, Asia, Europe, North and Central America, South America, and Southeast Asia and Oceania – according to the region in which they were taken, by a regional jury. Regional juries, made up of professionals from and/or working in that region, first prepare a selection of entries per region. From this selection, a global jury, made up of the regional jury chairs and one additional member, chooses the regional and global winners. Find out more about the categories and regions.

The jury, chairs, and secretary are independent of the World Press Photo Foundation. The staff, board, and partners of the World Press Photo Foundation cannot direct the jury's decisions. For details of the 2022 Contest jury and judging procedure, click here.

Before you enter

Make sure you have read the following information before starting to submit your entry, you must agree to these requirements to enter your work to the contest:

Categories:
https://www.worldpressphoto.org/contest/2022/categories

Entry Rules:
https://www.worldpressphoto.org/contest/2022/entry-rules

Code of Ethics:
https://www.worldpressphoto.org/contest/2022/code-of-ethics

Technical requirements:
https://www.worldpressphoto.org/contest/2022/entry-rules/technical-requirements

Captions guidance:
https://www.worldpressphoto.org/contest/2022/what-is-required-in-captions

Verification process:
https://www.worldpressphoto.org/contest/2022/verification-process

ENTRIES MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING SPECIFICATIONS:

Photographs entered to the Singles, Stories and Long-Term Projects must meet the following requirements:

• Only single-frame photographs may be entered to the above-mentioned categories.

• Upload photographs with the original pixel size (unless cropped). Do not scale and do not change the resolution.

• ICC profile must be embedded. AdobeRGB, sRGB or grayscale Gamma 2.2 are recommended. No CMYK.


• Must be uploaded in JPEG format with high-quality compression.

Projects entered to the Open Format category must meet the following requirements:

• Photographic projects must be uploaded in JPEG format with high-quality compression (for example polyptychs, photo collages, etc.) with the original pixel size (unless cropped). Do not scale and do not change the resolution. ICC profile must be embedded. AdobeRGB, sRGB or grayscale Gamma 2.2 are recommended. No CMYK.

• Video files must be uploaded in .mov or .mp4 and have high-quality compression. Videos must not exceed 15 minutes in total. If you upload multiple videos, the jury will only watch the first 15 minutes of the entry.

• Web-based projects must be available online and accessible via URL. If you wish to submit a web-based project, please upload your production poster here and add the link to the project in the description field.

Why you should enter

Entering the World Press Photo Contest is free and open to all professional photographers working in the field of photojournalism and/or documentary photography.

As a winner, your work will be:

• Included in our annual travelling exhibition shown around the world in over 80 cities
• Published on our website and social platforms with over 2 million followers
• Included in our yearbook

You will also receive:

• €1,000 for each of the 24 regional winners and an additional €5,000 for the four global winners
• An invitation to a winners’ event
• A physical award

We are a global platform connecting photojournalists, documentary photographers and our worldwide audiences through trustworthy storytelling. World Press Photo was founded in 1955 when a group of Dutch photographers organized a contest (“World Press Photo”) to expose their work to an international audience. Since then, the contest has grown into the world’s most prestigious photography competition, rewarding the best in photojournalism and documentary photography. Through our successful worldwide exhibition program, we present the stories that matter to millions of people. The World Press Photo Foundation is a creative, independent, nonprofit organization, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We appreciate the support of our global partner, the Dutch Postcode Lottery, and our partner PwC.

Image © Lalo de Almeida, Panos Pictures, for Folha de São Paulo