We are honored to announce the 80th annual Pictures of the Year International competition.

We are hosting virtual judging for this year’s competition. The judges will begin reviewing entries on their own and meet to discuss and select the winners. We will livestream the judges’ discussions. Go to www.poy.org for the contest details and schedule.

We believe that by hosting a transparent, juried competition in which photographers and editors share their own humanity through honest discussion of journalistic work, POY builds public trust in journalism and the people who practice it.

What winners receive

$1,000 cash & Tiffany crystal trophy:

International Photographer of the Year
Local Photographer of the Year
World Understanding Award
Community Awareness Award
Environmental Vision Award

Tiffany crystal trophy:

Sports Photographer of the Year
Documentary Storyteller of the Year
Online Storytelling Project of the Year
Visual Editor of the Year

Angus McDougall Excellence in Editing Award:

Winner receives a sterling silver trophy for one year and tuition to the Missouri Photo Workshop

Individual category winners:

1st— Engraved plaque
2nd, 3rd, Finalist & Award of Excellence — Certificate award

Instead of awarding 2nd or 3rd place, we are recognizing finalists in addition to 1st place and award of excellence.

How to enter

Pay the entry fee of US$50 at https://poy.org.
Receive a reference code in your receipt.
Enter the code at Picter and enter POY.

15 Submissions Allowed per Person

A maximum of 15 submissions can be entered in any combination of categories
A single submission is one entry, one project or one portfolio. It is defined as:
One picture in a single-picture category.
One picture story (5-10 photographs).
One project (12-40 photographs) in the premiere categories (10-20 images for cat. 34)
One portfolio in the Angus McDougal Excellence in Editing, Documentary Storyteller, Photographer or Visual Editor of the Year categories.

File specifications

File naming

Your files are automatically renamed when you submit. It is not necessary to rename your files.

Entry specifications

File type: .JPG
Image Size: 3,000 pixels minimum on the longer side.
Resolution: 300 dpi, minimum.

Print editing entries

WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCEPT PDF FILES. PLEASE CONVERT TO JPG FILES
Please submit each page as a separate .jpg file. A double truck (two facing pages) should be submitted as a single .jpg file.

Picture story sequence

The order or sequence of images you create will be preserved. You can change the sequence after you upload the images. POY staff cannot change the order of the pictures.
For the portfolio categories #27, #28 and #29, create a title slide (white text, black background). Put the title and story summary in the IPTC title and caption fields. Place the slide at the beginning of each story.

Video and URL entries

Submit a thumbnail image and a single URL via an active link.
Do not upload video files.
Include required usernames and passwords.

Required IPTC fields:

Document Title is the image title
Author is the photographer's name
Description is the caption
Location Information include city (or nearest city), state/province, country
Capture Date verify the date.Images outside eligible dates range may be rejected.

POY Entry Standards and Ethics

Photographs entered must have been taken or published for the first time between Jan. 1, and Dec. 31, 2022.

Entries should be true representations of a news scene or candid moment. Documentary photographs cannot be posed, set up or staged. Portraits may be posed.

POY follows the National Press Photographers Association Code of Ethics. All captions and story summaries should meet journalistic standards for accuracy and publication requirements. Link to code of ethics: https://nppa.org/code-ethics

First-time publication is defined as being published by a media organization in print or online. Personal web sites or social media accounts do not qualify.

ENTRY TIP! Heavily edited images turn off judges. Color images should replicate what the human eye experiences. Flagrant pre- or post-production effects that use excessive tonal aberrations, textures, vignettes, color saturation or other manipulations may be disqualified.

POY accepts two photographic modes: color and black & white. Black & white images should be bi-tonal and display a full grayscale range of 256 intensities from black to white. Black & white image files that artificially impose a color shift, such as sepia or cyan tones, may be disqualified.

Entries must not be digitally manipulated or altered through post-production processing. Routine post-production processing of images for exposure correction, white balance and color toning is acceptable. Adding, altering, or removing elements is not permitted. Excessive saturation or desaturation is also not allowed.

Photos from smartphone cameras are eligible. However, the use of software capture filters that apply excessive tonal aberrations, textures, vignettes, or other artistic manipulations will be disqualified.

Diptychs and triptychs are not eligible. Digitally manufactured photo illustrations, double exposures, in-camera multiple exposures, added masks, borders, backgrounds, text, handwritten notes, or other artistic effects are all prohibited.

Film edges are allowed if the original photograph was shot on film (negative or transparency), or Polaroid and the border is the true nature of the medium.

All photographs entered in the still photography categories must be taken by a single photographer.

Picture Captions

ENTRY TIP! Captions are read in the final rounds of each category. Well-written captions with relevant details strengthen your entry and stand apart from entries with weak captions.

Each photograph must include a caption embedded in the .jpg file's IPTC metadata description field that meets journalistic standards for accuracy and ready-for-publication requirements.

**Please verify that capture dates are correct, so you remain eligible. **Each caption should include a date, or an approximation of the date. For example, "The photo was taken on Feb. 4, 2022," or "The photo was taken in February 2022."

Captions that are inaccurate or falsely represent the picture content may be disqualified.

Do not include your name in the caption.

IPTC data may be embedded into images using Photoshop, Photo Mechanic, Lightroom, Bridge and other image editing programs. Picter will automatically display the data.

Picture Story Submissions

POY staff reviews every entry in advance of judging. We will contact photographers whose images seem to conflict with these standards and provide them with the opportunity to resubmit the photograph before judging begins. Once judging begins, judges have the discretion to disqualify entries that they think over manipulate the image.

ENTRY TIP! Judges often review the category rules when looking at images. Consider your category decisions carefully. Judges cannot move entries.

A single photograph may be submitted only once among the single-picture categories.

A single photograph may be entered as a single photograph and included as part of one picture story.

A picture story consists of 5--10 photos and counts as one entry. Do not re-edit photos from the same story and then submit it as a different story.

Images submitted into single-photo categories cannot be copies, scans, or a photograph of other photographs or documents. A photograph of a photograph can serve as a detail image in a larger picture story or project, but they may not comprise a majority of the story.

POY will request the original RAW or JPG image files from a random selection of photographs voted to final places by the jury, plus any images that the jury members or POY staff request. POY will examine and verify each of these selected files for authenticity. Any photographs that do not meet these standards will be disqualified.

ENTRY TIP! Picture Story entries should have a clearly defined structure with each image contributing unique information. In the final rounds, the judges often focus on the quality of the edit. Eliminate weak and redundant images.

Portfolio Submissions

All premier categories are open to everyone.

For portfolio categories, create a title slide (white text on black background). It is important to include the story title and story description in the IPTC document title and caption fields of the slide. Place the slide at the beginning of each story.

**ENTRY TIP! **Be mindful that the title slide provides important context for the jury. Keep it short!

Picture stories in portfolios are not limited to 10 images.

All photographs must include captions. You are encouraged to use the caption field to expand on story details as they pertain to the individual image.

The majority of photos in the portfolio must have been taken during 2022 or the entire project must have been first published in 2022 (Exception: World Understanding Award has no time restrictions).

Single images within a portfolio should not be repeated in a picture story in the same portfolio.

POY staff will not separate a portfolio and enter the images into individual categories. If you want to enter work from your portfolio into single or picture story categories, you must upload separate entries into those categories.

About POY

POY is a program of the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri. It is one of four programs in the POY family which includes College Photographer of the Year, POY Latin America and POY Asia.

The mission of POY is to build public trust in photojournalism, honor excellence in its practice, come together as an inclusive community and create educational opportunities by preserving an inspiring visual record of history.

For 80 years, the POY competitions have created a curated visual archive of history. It has been the source for scholarly research that ranges from simple quotes to entire master’s projects and PhD dissertations. Not only is it critical for people to see the news and issues that shape our world, but it is also necessary to preserve access to these eye-witness accounts.

At its heart, POY is an educational program. Connecting students and the public to the curated work in POY shares the value of photojournalism and allows people to interpret the news and historic events through an empathetic lens. For those who work directly with POY, it can be a transformative experience. In all our efforts we hold to the guiding principle set forth by POY founder Cliff Edom, “Show truth with a camera.”