Canon ProfiFoto Award

The “Canon ProfiFoto Award” enables young photographers to breathe life into their ideas. Twice a year, the winners of the ongoing competition get the chance to pick prices of their choice from Canon with a total amount of 10.000 Euro. The other cooperation partners of this competition are the picture agency Laif and the online art market Whitewall. Entry guidelines see at the bottom.

The Canon Profifoto Award 12/1 goes to Jasmine Feuer, Elisa Anna Sahner, Julia Bauch, Jewgeni Roppel and Kai Löffelbein.

A total of 142 participants submitted photographic projects, which are still to be realized or finalized, for the funding priye worth 10,000 euros in total. The vast majority came from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but individual applicants from countries including Mongolia, India and Belarus underline the international significance of the established competition for the best "pictures in the head", which has been held twice a year since 2006. The participants included not only students, but also many fully trained photographers and photo designers as well as assistants, trainees and career changers. The average age of the applicants was 26.

In her award-winning photographic work, Jasmine Feuer, photo designer, deals with the traces of coal mining that can still be seen in the Ruhr region. In her project "Having it all", Elisa Anna Sahner, who, like Jasmine Feuer, is a graduate of Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, explores the consequences of permanent sensory overload for members of her generation. Jewgeni Roppel, a student at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and Arts, impressed the jury with his photographic approach to life in a kibbutz as an alternative community and way of life. Julia Bauch, a graduate of the ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Enschede, visualizes the animalistic character traits of humans in cooperation with graphic designer Frauke Engler by showing them in a surreal way in their "natural" environment. Kai Löffelbein, a student at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts, has documented the recycling of electronic waste in Africa in his UNICEF award-winning work. With the help of the >Canon Profifoto Award<, he now wants to photographically record how the electronic waste gets there.

This time, the >Canon Profifoto Award< jury included freelance curator and photographer Juliane Rückriem, Peter Bitzer from laif, Michael Ebert from Visum, Gunnar Wagner from WhiteWall, photographer Thomas Kellner, Oliver Rausch (Fotoakademie-Koeln), Guido Krebs from Canon and ProfiFoto editor-in-chief Thomas Gerwers, who will present the finalized projects in his renowned photographer magazine. All winning projects will be exhibited at photokina in September.

Canon Profifoto Award Jury 2012

This year's >Canon Profifoto Award< jury consisted of freelance curator and photographer Juliane Rückriem, Peter Bitzer from laif, Michael Ebert from Visum, Gunnar Wagner from WhiteWall, photographer Thomas Kellner, Oliver Rausch (Fotoakademie-Koeln), Guido Krebs from Canon and ProfiFoto editor-in-chief Thomas Gerwers, who will present the finalized projects in his renowned photographer magazine. All winning projects will be exhibited at photokina in September.

Entry conditions:

The “Canon ProfiFoto Award” supports photography projects which still have to be implemented, extended or finished, for example, dissertations, term papers or freelance work. The competition is open to all who have finished or are about to finish their training in photography or photo design and who are professional photographers or work in related professions. The maximum application age is 30 years. The “Canon ProfiFoto Award” is presented twice a year by an independent specialist jury whose decision is final. There is no right of appeal. Samples of the applicants’ work will be published in an online gallery under and will be visible to the public as a showcase for young professional photographers. The concepts behind this work will only be available to the jury, and will be treated in strict confidence.
 

How to apply

Applications for the award may only be submitted online on the website. Documents required:

An informal project description or concept (not more than 3,000 characters)
Five to max. 10 photographs as samples of work (format: JPEG, max. 1,024 KB, max. 2,048 pixels wide, only RGB colour space)

Entrants may only submit the concept for one photography project in each round of the competition. The award-winning photography projects must be realised within eight weeks of obtaining the equipment and/or photo material. Exceptions may only be made in agreement with the organisers.

Applications can be made by registering in the “Canon ProfiFoto Award” gallery.
 

Prizes

In each round of the competition, a specialist jury will give an award to five concepts for planned photography projects; these will be implemented with the assistance of Canon equipment and/or expendables (ink, paper etc.) amounting to 2,000 Euros each. The winners shall choose these according to their needs. The basis for calculating materials' prices is the currently valid price list for matching Canon products.

Besides receiving material support for their award-winning concepts, the winners will also have the opportunity to publish their photography projects in ProfiFoto and the online gallery. The winners may also choose to market the picture rights to the winning works to the renowned picture agency Laif.