APA NY - 4th Annual Exhibition & Competition - Call for Entries

Image by Amelia Sagone Rattew from 2024 NY exhibition

Show Your Finest Work

APA's New York chapter invites all photographers to submit their finest work to the 4th Annual APA NY Juried Photography Show

• This one-week, open-gallery event, to be held January 26 – February 1, 2026,  at SOHO PHOTO GALLERY (located in Chelsea, NYC)
• All the photos featured on the gallery walls at this special event will be selected by NY Curator, Amanda Hajjar.
• What kinds of work should you submit? All kinds! You can submit personal work or assignment work; commercial or fine art; reportage, fashion, street photography, still life, landscape, macro or portraits; fantasy or reality; digital or old-school alternative processes; color or black & white; animal, vegetable or mineral; you name it (including any photographic genre we forgot to mention), and if it’s your best work, we want to see it.
• There are two categories: Single Image Entries and Series Entries.
• The promotional effort for this event will include: Feature on the APA NY website, a social media and PR campaign, a fully illustrated show catalogue, and an Opening Reception to bring the industry professionals who buy photographs and hire photographers to see the exhibit.  The gallery will be open to the public during the exhibition week. 

Meet the Curator: Amanda Hajjar

Amanda Hajjar is a curator based in the New York City area with over fifteen years of experience in the art and design field. She currently serves as Project Lead and Curator at the American Federation of Arts, where she develops and produces traveling exhibitions for museums across the country. Previously, she was the Founding Artistic Director of Fotografiska New York, leading the museum’s launch and establishing its exhibition program. Earlier in her career, she was an Artist Liaison at Gagosian, collaborating with artists and estates—including the Richard Avedon Foundation—and managed more than fifty exhibitions and contributed to six exhibition catalogues.

About APA

APA’s mission is to advocate, educate and elevate the professional photographic community. American Photographic Artists (APA) is an organization dedicated to the success of professional photographers. Our organization’s foundation is built upon creating a diverse and inclusive photographic community that supports all photographers at every level in their careers and champions the rights of image-makers worldwide.

To achieve our mission, our goals are to establish, endorse, and promote professional practices, standards, and ethics in the photographic community; to mentor, motivate, educate and inspire in the pursuit of excellence. APA strives to provide the tools and connections that photographers need to run a successful business.

APA New York is the Northeast regional chapter of American Photographic Artists (APA) which also includes Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

ABOUT SOHO PHOTO GALLERY 
Competition and Exhibition at the renowned Soho Photo Gallery. Soho Photo Gallery was founded in 1971 by a group of New York Times photojournalists and avant-garde photographers, as a co-op gallery, which it remains to this day. It is New York City’s longest-running co-op gallery.

Submission Guidelines

1. Only digital images are accepted through our online submission process. The original image does not need to be digital in origin, it must only be submitted in digital form for our purposes.
2. Image files must be named by you, but once submitted will be assigned an arbitrary ID for the “blind” judging.
3. A single image entry is one image. You may submit multiple single images at the same time, but each is considered to be a single entry.
4. A series is defined as up to 4 images that are part of the same story or body of work.
5. While there is no limit to the number of single entries submitted, we recommend uploading no more than 10 images at a time (Check out before submitting additional images).
6. There is no restriction on when the entry image was created.
7. No AI-generated images permitted; photos must be created by a human using a camera (we understand that retouching tools use AI components). Please respect the spirit of the requirement. 
8. Anyone joining APA in order to access the member rate is expected to remain a member for a minimum of one year. 

Upload Guidelines (file prep)

1. All files must be jpegs with a file size limit of 2MB.
2. File naming–do not use special characters like ©, @, #, é, ü
3. Please do not watermark your images with your name. That will interfere with jurying.
4. Image size 1200 pixels on the long side.
5. Please prep your image for placement on the web (this will convert your image to the sRGB color space at 72ppi).
6. Images should not have visible identifying text/symbols (that are not in the photo)

Important: File Naming Conventions

For Single Image Entries: Your Last Name-Your First Name-Image Title.
Example Fie Name: Jones-Jane-Red-Window.jpg

For Series Entries: Your Last Name-Your First Name-Image Title-Series-XofY.
Example File Name: Jones-Jane-Ballerina-Series-1of4

Do not include special symbols ©, @, #, ü in your file name.
Entries are assigned an arbitrary ID for “blind” judging.
The juror does not see the file names, but having your name on your file helps us locate your photos later.

Entry Fees

Single Image Entry:

• APA Members: $25 per image
• Non-Members: $50 per image

Series Entry (a series of 2 to 4 images):

• APA Members: $25 for each image
• Non-Members: $50 for each image

The competition is open to all photographers. You do not need to be a member of APA but members save on submissions to all our competitions.
Please visit our Join page for more information. There are five membership levels (starting at just $50 a year or a plan at just $12 a month), so there is bound to be one just right for your needs.
All memberships are annual, with monthly payment options available on most plans. 

Exhibiting Your Winning Image(s)

• Your work will be juried from the digital files you submit.
• You may enter as many single images, or as many series, as you like.
• The juror/curator for this competition may select all or part of a Series Entry.
• By submitting your work for jurying, you commit to exhibiting whichever image(s) the Juror chooses. The decision of the Juror, as to which photographs go in the show, is final.
• APA reserves the right to publish the winning photographs on our website and social media to publicize the show, and in a printed catalogue. The Copyright is always retained by the photographer.
• If your work is selected, you will need to provide us with a high-resolution version for printing in the catalogue in a timely way. 
• If selected, you will have the option of participating in the gallery exhibition. This will require either providing a printed, framed photo on a specific date, or sending a digital file to be printed & framed for a flat fee. Details tbd. 

Important Dates

• Deadline for submissions: December 1, 2025 by Midnight
• Exhibition: January 26 – February 1, 2026 SOHO PHOTO GALLERY
• Opening Reception: January 29, 2026
• Details forthcoming for exhibiting winning images/prints

Categories

• Single Image
• Series