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MUMBAI: Mumbai-based Media Foundation of India today announced the MFI National Press Photo Contest 2011 for professional photojournalists to showcase contemporary photo-journalism.
MFI has invited entries from staff and freelance photojournalists working with print and new media entities in six categories. The categories include General News, Spot News, Daily Life, Sports, Arts and Culture. Photo stories which narrate a story pictorially through a sequence of 12 pictures would be showcased in a separate category for Best Photo Stories. Photographs shot between the 2010 calendar year from Jan 1, 2010 to Dec 31, 2010 would be eligible for participation. The contest is not open to amateur photographers and is primarily meant for photojournalists working in the media industry.
The jury consists of award-winning photojournalists Pablo Bartholomew, and Arko Datta, both of whom have been decorated with the World Press Photo of the Year awards by the Amsterdam-based World Press Photo, arguably the world?s largest and prestigious photo contest.
Bartholomew won the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year for an image of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, while Datta, who now runs the Udaan School of Photography in Mumbai, won the prize for an image of the Indonesian Tsunami that hit the southern coast of India.
Kevin Frayer, who works with Associated Press, is the third member of the jury. He covered the Israel-Palestine conflict extensively and won a World Press Photo prize for his conflict pictures in 2009 before moving to New Delhi as the Chief Photographer for South Asia. Along with colleagues, Frayer was also a finalist for Pulitzer Prize for news photography.
The Picture of the Year prize at the MFI National Press Photo Contest would include a cheque of Rs 75,000 and a trophy. The three prizes in each of the six categories would be worth Rs 50,000, Rs 30,000, and Rs 20,000 and a trophy each. A glittering award ceremony would be held towards March end at a prominent Mumbai landmark. A photo book containing the winning images would be published at the ceremony. A photo-exhibition of the winning pictures would also be on display at the awards ceremony.
?The idea is to evaluate, showcase and celebrate contemporary photojournalism and provide a platform for photojournalists to participate and interact. Since, the deadline for the contest is very short,we urge photo-journalists to fill up the entry forms on MFI?s website, and select their entries immediately,? said Secretary, Media Foundation of India, a non-profit trust founded by four media professionals as a new platform for media-related and cultural activities.
The contest does not have any entry fee. The entries for the contest could be either sent by email according to given specifications or couriered in a CD to our office. The deadline for the MFI National Press Photo Contest is February 10, 2010. An online entry and registration form of the contest is available on the MFI website: http://mfi.org.in.
