Homepage take-over image: © Colby Blount, 2018 APA Award, First Place Beauty / Fashion / Lifestyle
APA Awards Call for Entries is now open! ENTER
Our annual competition is open to all photographers at every level, worldwide -- everyone from emerging photographers to established professionals.
Our Judges will select 40 APA Award Winners this year.
APA members save on each entry. Leader level members 50% on each image.
Now is a great time to join APA : enter enough images and your first year of membership can be free.
Like to upgrade? Please email: membershiprep@apanational.org
Awards Deadlines
Discount Entry Fee Deadline: Thursday, June 27 : Save $10 per entry
Full Fee, Final Deadline: Monday, July 8 : $10 per entry increase goes into effect on June 28
Top Reasons to Enter
The APA Awards is established as one of the world's most respected photo contests for professional photographers.
Directly connect to people who can hire you:
- Selected images will be included in Lürzer's Int'l Archive 2020, viewed by thousands of Creatives around the world
- All 40 winners appear in a beautifully printed book sent to art buyers and photo editors
- An impressive gallery showcasing the winning images will be viewable online, and widely promoted
- An acclaimed panel of Judges who hire, and work with pro photographers will view your work
Easy, secure contest-entering process:
- Entering is quick, easy, reliable and secure
- We’ve lowered the entry fees so you can enter more images
- There is no limit on number of images you enter
- Please upload no more than 10 images per order. You can enter more than once if you want to submit more.
For a great cause - proceeds help advance APA's core not-for-profit mission of protecting photographers' rights, so you can feel good about entering!
Awards Categories
- Architecture / Interiors
- Beauty / Fashion
- Celebrity / Musicians
- Conceptual / Altered
- Corporate / Industrial
- Documentary / Photojournalism
- Food / Still Life
- Lifestyle
- Nature / Animals
- Personal Projects
- Portrait
- Sports / Adventure
- Travel / Landscape
Awards Entry Fees
APA Members (Leader level) : $15 / entry
APA Members (Pro & Associate levels) : $20 / entry
APA Members (Supporter & Contributor levels) : $25 / entry
Non-Members : $30 / entry
NOTE: These are the Discounted Fees; all entry fees increase by $10 on June 28th
APA Membership Pays for Itself
Join APA for as little as $50 and enjoy a wide range of valuable benefits, including significantly discounted Awards entry fees.
Not yet an APA member? If you are entering more than one image, we strongly suggest you join APA first, and save on all of your entries.
APA Member levels and their annual dues:
Contributor: $50, Supporter: $125, Associate: $225, Professional: $350, Leader: $500.
(Monthly installment plans are available for all member levels, except Contributor.)
View the APA Member Benefits for each Member Level, here
Membership FAQs are answered here
Membership questions? Please email: membershiprep@apanational.org
.
Awards Fundamentals
- Anyone can enter, but APA members are entitled to a discount on every entry
- APA members receive a commensurate discount based on their membership level
- Images are assigned an arbitrary ID, for "blind" judging
- There is no limit on the number entries you can submit
- The same image can be entered in more than one category
- There is no "series" category, and please do not enter panoramas, diptychs or triptychs
- There is no restriction on when the entry images were created
- The decision of the judges of the competition shall be final and binding
- Entry fees are non refundable
- Winners will be notified in August and officially announced in September
- APA does not accept responsibility for, or warrant any product being delivered by a sponsor
- Any applicable tax, due on the awarding of prizes, is the sole responsibility of each winner
- Prizes, and the APA Awards book are shipped to the winners with U.S. addresses only
- International winners will need to arrange to receive tangible prizes, and a copy of the book
- Images that won previously in the APA Awards are not eligible for entry, or to win another Award
- Entrants can only win one Award each year
- Image size is for judging only, a larger file size in CMYK will be required for the selected images
- Please upload no more than 10 images per order. You can enter more than once if you want to submit more.
Image Entry Guidelines
- Images should not contain any text that is not part of the image
- All files must be .jpg format
- File size limit: 10 MB
- Image size no smaller than 1200 pixels on the long side, and no larger than 1800 pixels
- Color profile is sRGB, image resolution : 72 ppi
- Do not include disallowed characters (©, ®, •, $) in file names which can corrupt the file
- Judging is blind: image file names are not visible to the judges
- Please upload no more than 10 images per order. You can enter more than once if you want to submit more.
Submission Guidelines
- APA members login to apanational.org using your APA credentials
- Non-members can enter images into the contest by creating a guest account
- Please upload no more than 10 images per order. You can enter more than once if you want to submit more.
- The system will automatically charge you based on your membership level
- Once your transaction is complete, your submission is final and you cannot edit your images
- You may request to void a submission, but the entry fee will not be refunded
- You can return to your APA account at any time to review your entries
- You may submit additional images until the final deadline
- Previous APA Award winning images (view at APAnational.org/awards) will not be judged
You will receive an email confirmation upon entering. If you do not receive a confirmation email, please check your spam, then contact: members@apanational.org
2019 Awards Judges
(Please check back for updates as we add more of the Judges, here)
Andrea Bakacs
Producer
Wieden+Kennedy
Cameron Barnum
Sr Producer, Art Buyer
BBDO
Owen Bly
Sr Art Producer
Pereira & O’Dell
Jacqueline Bovaird
Photo Producer
Apple
Helaina Buzzeo
Art Buyer
Jane Smith Agency
Jessica Carroll
Director
Major League Baseball Photos
Donna Cohen
Director of Photography
Bloomberg Markets
Ali Martín Filsoof
Design Director
Phenomenon
Carol Henry
Gallery Director, Curator
Charlie Hess
Design Director, Photo Editor
Patricia Hom
Sr Producer
The Community
Jennifer Lamping
VP Director of Art Production
Rubin, Postaer and Associates (RPA)
Pilar Law
Gallery Director, Curator
Tania Pirozzi
Art Buyer, Photo Editor
Antoinette Rodriguez
Integrated Producer
Crispin Porter Bogusky
Allyson Torrisi
Deputy Director of Photography
People Magazine
Architects
Steven Burns, FAIA
Los Angeles
Gary Beyrl, AIA
Chicago
Awards Prizes
Please Note: The Judges will award a First, Second, and Third Place in each of the Thirteen Categories, plus a Best of Show. So this year, there will be Forty APA Award Winners!
(Please check back for updates as we add more valuable prizes, here)
Our Partners
We would like to thank all of our partners for supporting our mission, and our community.
Featured Partner:
Supporting Partners:
Agency Access
Adobe
Blazing Editions
ImageRights
Think Tank
PhotoShelter
ARRI
Best of Show
Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan with 1 TB of storage - which is $19.99 per month, or $239.88 per year
Best of Show
24x36” print + standard backing combo = $365.00 value
IMAGERIGHTS
1st : 1 year of ImageRights Ascent ($588 value) + 2 US Copyright Registrations
2nd : 1 year of ImageRights Launch ($348 value) + 1 US Copyright Registration
3rd : 1 year of ImageRights Pilot ($293 value)
THINK TANK
2 Years Pro Photoshelter Account to Best of Show winner
1 Year Pro PhotoShelter Account to each of the 13 First place winners
ARRI
2 weeks ARRI lighting loaner (SkyPanel S60-C, SkyPanel S30-C and L-7) certificate for the following categories:
Beauty/Fashion
Celebrity/Musicians
Food/Still Life
Portrait
Images featured above, from the 2018 APA Awards
Top row, left to right: © Art Streiber, © Paul Turang, © Doug Menuez
Second row, left to right: © Fernando Decillis, © Jim Hildreth, © Stephen Hamilton
Third row, left to right: © Martin Klimek, © Martijn Oort, © Garen DiBartolomeo
