Terms and conditions

30th Luis Valtueña Award Open Call 2026

Introduction

Médicos del Mundo Spain announces the 30th Luis Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Award, aimed at recognising and disseminating the best photographic series that singularly demonstrate social inequities, injustices and/or human rights abuses, as well as the situations that either foster or fight against them.

By giving this award the name of the photographer and international humanitarian activist Luis Valtueña, we pay tribute to his memory, as well as to that of the three other activists of the association -Flors Sirera, Manuel Madrazo and Mercedes Navarro- who were murdered in Rwanda (1997) and in Bosnia (1995) while carrying out their duties as humanitarian aid workers.

We also wish to highlight the human values represented by these individuals. The organisation supports documentary photography and photojournalism as a means of raising public awareness of social issues, while also promoting citizen mobilisation and contributing to the eradication of injustice, the world's worst disease.

Schedule

Wednesday, 30 July 2026: Call opens for entries.
Sunday, 11 October 2026 at 23:59 (GMT+1): Call closes for entries.
October 2026: Correction period for errors.
November 2026: Jury's decision.
2027: Award ceremony, exhibition opening and catalogue publication.

Entrants

Participation is open to photographers — professional or otherwise — as well as to collectives of two or more members, of any nationality, of legal age, and with a documentary and/or photojournalistic approach, in accordance with the terms set out in these rules.

The competition is not open to Médicos del Mundo España staff or their relatives up to the first degree of consanguinity, nor to jury members or the technical team directly linked to the management of the competition, nor their family members up to the first degree of consanguinity.

Entry to the competition is free of charge.

The photographs submitted must tell a story related to one of the following themes: health, humanitarian action, international cooperation, emergencies, social exclusion, migration, refuge, conflict, inequality, or human rights violations.

Special attention will be paid to stories that receive little visibility or public coverage, in order to contribute to their dissemination and reflection.

Entry forms

Each participant (individual or collective) may submit only one entry to this call.

Entries must be submitted exclusively in digital format via the Picter platform, following the on-screen instructions carefully: app.picter.com/contests

Each entrant must submit the following documentation:

Personal and contact details.
A biography.
A photographic series of between 5 (minimum) and 10 (maximum) images, in colour or black and white.
An explanatory text about the project.
Captions for each image. Each caption must describe the image it accompanies; under no circumstances may two captions within the same series be identical.

Important: the author's name must not appear in the project description, in the captions, or in the file names. Entries will be judged anonymously, using the blind jury method.

Submission requirements

Participant(s) must be the sole author(s) of the images submitted, with full and unlimited rights over the work.
At least 50% of the series must have been produced between 2025 and 2026. Series that have already been submitted to previous editions of the Luis Valtueña Award are not eligible.
All entries must be uploaded to the platform in the order in which they are to be viewed by the jury. Image files must be named with the series title followed by its sequence number (e.g., title_01, title_02), and must not display the photographer's name or logo.
Images must be saved in digital JPEG format (.jpg), with a minimum of 3,000 pixels on the longest side. sRGB colour, or greyscale gamma 2.2, is recommended. Full EXIF metadata must be retained in all images.
Each file must not exceed 3 MB.
Only single-frame photographs will be accepted. Photomontages and multiple exposures will be excluded from the competition.
Digital adjustments for technical correction (exposure, contrast, colour balance, black-and-white conversion, noise reduction, or cropping) are permitted, provided they do not alter the documentary content captured. Adding, removing, replacing or otherwise modifying elements present in the photographed scene is not permitted.
Images generated wholly or partly by artificial intelligence will not be accepted, nor will images in which AI tools have created or added elements that were not present at the time the photograph was taken. A photograph captures light on a sensor or film; it is a record of a physical moment.
Where there is reasonable doubt about the authenticity or processing of an image, the organisation reserves the right to request the original RAW file, unedited negative, or other technical documentation.

Winning entrants must be prepared to submit their images in high resolution (300 dpi) for the purposes of printing exhibition copies and for use in the media.

Submission deadline

The call for entries runs from Wednesday, 29 July 2026 until Sunday, 11 October 2026 at 23:59 (GMT+1). Entries cannot be submitted after this date and time.

If an entry contains errors that can be corrected, Médicos del Mundo will notify the participant, who will then have two working days from that notification to make the correction. Anyone who fails to correct the errors within that period will be permanently excluded from the competition.

Judging

A pre-selection committee from Médicos del Mundo will review all entries and select those most suitable to be presented to the jury, in compliance with these rules. The jury members will nonetheless have access to the documentation of all entries submitted.

An international jury, made up of leading photography professionals, humanitarian workers, and representatives of Médicos del Mundo, will select the four winning series in November 2026.

The jury's decision will be taken by a simple majority of its members and will be final. The award may be declared void for any given prize if no candidature is judged to be of an adequate standard. All entries will be judged anonymously, using the blind jury method.

Winning entrants will be notified directly of the jury's decision, by phone and by email, according to the details provided in the entry form. The results will then be announced on the Luis Valtueña Award and Médicos del Mundo websites and social media profiles, and a press release will be sent to the media.

Prizes and benefits

The total prize fund for the 2026 Luis Valtueña Award is €12,000 (gross), distributed as follows:

First prize and overall winner of the Luis Valtueña Award: €6,000.
Second prize: €2,000.
Third prize: €2,000.
Fourth prize: €2,000.
Special prize: €1,500, awarded by the Donostia Human Rights Film Festival, recognising a single photograph — chosen from among the four winning series — which will become the official image of the festival's 2027 edition. This decision will be made jointly by the Luis Valtueña Award jury and representatives of the Human Rights Film Festival.

(Cash prizes are gross amounts, to which the corresponding withholding will be applied depending on the taxation of the beneficiary's country of residence.)

In addition to the cash prizes, the four winning series will be published in the official catalogue of this edition and will form part of the Luis Valtueña Award's travelling exhibition, touring photography festivals, galleries and cultural centres across Spain, with a special presence at the Asturias International Photojournalism Meeting.

Médicos del Mundo will cover the travel and accommodation (two consecutive nights) of the winning entrants to attend the award ceremony and the opening of the exhibition in Madrid in 2027. Winners must be available, to the extent of their means, to attend media appointments and to take part in guided tours of the exhibition on the opening day, and may be invited to participate in educational or awareness-raising activities organised within the framework of the Luis Valtueña Award. Médicos del Mundo is committed to promoting the winning images and their authors widely for at least one year through press releases, meetings with the media, and ad-hoc dissemination materials, among other means.

Tax obligations

All taxes levied on the prize are to be borne by the beneficiary, in accordance with current Spanish regulations. The prize will be subject to withholding of Personal Income Tax (IRPF) or Non-Resident Income Tax (IRNR), as applicable; Médicos del Mundo shall withhold this amount where required.

The recipient of the prize is accountable for any other tax liabilities resulting from receiving the prize. Médicos del Mundo is exonerated of any responsibility in this regard.

Acceptance of the terms and conditions

Participation in the 30th Luis Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Award implies full acceptance of these terms and conditions, as well as the explicit renunciation of any subsequent claim.

Médicos del Mundo reserves the right to postpone, shorten, extend, modify, suspend or cancel the competition if necessary, without any liability for the organisers, who will in any case give formal notice.

Copyright

Participants retain the intellectual property rights over their work. Each participant guarantees that they are the sole owner and author of the series submitted, with full and unlimited rights over it.

The authors of the selected series grant Médicos del Mundo, the International Network of Médicos del Mundo, and the Donostia Human Rights Film Festival a non-exclusive, worldwide licence to use the images for communication, promotion, exhibitions, publications and activities related to the award — always crediting the authorship — until the images become public property. This includes the rights of reproduction, distribution, public communication and transformation, in any format or medium, known or unknown at present, for purposes such as exhibitions, catalogues, brochures, posters, press releases, newsletters, and the websites and social media profiles of Médicos del Mundo and the Luis Valtueña Award.

Winning entrants expressly authorise Médicos del Mundo and its International Network to assign these rights to third parties where necessary to fulfil the association's founding objectives, and undertake to sign any agreements required for this purpose.

Third-party rights

Participants guarantee that they hold the necessary rights to the images submitted, and that they have obtained the appropriate consent whenever identifiable individuals appear in them, including, where applicable, the express consent of a parent or guardian for any minors depicted.

Participants are responsible for complying with applicable regulations on intellectual property, data protection, and the right to one's own image, and shall hold Médicos del Mundo harmless from any claims arising from a breach of these guarantees.

Photo credit

Médicos del Mundo agrees to respect copyright and will always credit the author's name on all images used. However, failure to provide credit will not be considered a breach, provided that Médicos del Mundo makes every reasonable effort to rectify the error within a reasonable period of the date of notification.

Data protection

These terms and conditions are governed by Spanish law. In accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and Organic Law 3/2018 on Personal Data Protection, participants are informed that Médicos del Mundo is responsible for handling the personal data provided in their application, including email addresses.

Personal data will be processed solely to manage participation, communications, prize awards, and the resolution of the competition. Médicos del Mundo will also verify that entrants meet the requirements set out in these terms and will use the data to contact winners if applicable. Data will be kept until the end of the competition, and thereafter (name and email only) to inform entrants of future calls, unless the entrant objects.

Entrants may exercise their rights of access, rectification, opposition, erasure, restriction of processing, portability and objection to automated decision-making at any time, by writing to Médicos del Mundo, C/ Conde de Vilches 15, 28028 Madrid, Spain, or by emailing rgpd@medicosdelmundo.org, attaching proof of identity.

Further details on Médicos del Mundo's Privacy Policy are available at: https://www.medicosdelmundo.org/politica-de-privacidad

Queries regarding translation

In the event of any uncertainty regarding the interpretation of these terms, due to potential differences in meaning between languages, Médicos del Mundo will apply the interpretation that best matches the Spanish-language version.

Any questions?

Please feel free to contact us.

+34 91 543 60 33

premioluisvaltuena@medicosdelmundo.org

C/ Conde de Vilches, 15, 28028 Madrid, Spain

https://premioluisvaltuena.org/