General Eligibility

READ THESE RULES COMPLETELY! Failure to follow every rule will disqualify your entry. Entrants are not required to be WHNPA student members but are highly encouraged to apply immediately after entering.

• Entrants are not required to be WHNPA student members but are highly encouraged to apply immediately after entering.

• Winning students will have their full-time student status verified by the WHNPA board. 

• Before winners will be announced, finalists must have an advisor (faculty mentor) confirm the student's full-time student status at the time the work was created or published. Entrants will be asked to provide contact information for how the committee can reach an advisor on the day of judging. Judging happens on a weekend, so encourage you to list a faculty member that will answer their phone on a Saturday. 

• Entries can be edited until the contest deadline. 

• Payments will be made via the Picter site. 

• All contest information and updates will be available on the WHNPA website.

• This contest honors visual journalism. All work entered in this contest must be considered journalism and adhere to the WHNPA Code of Ethics.

• Entries do not need to have been published except where noted.

• The Still and Video Student photographer of the Year winners are expected to produce a video about their winning work to be shown at the Eyes of History® gala in September 2025.

Code of Ethics

The White House News Photographers Association, a professional organization dedicated to the support of photojournalism and to ensure the rights of its members in the performance of their duties, strongly believes in the public’s natural and legal right to freedom in searching for the truth and the right to be accurately and completely informed about the world in which we live. We believe that there is a direct linkage between the survival of a democratic society and an accurate and free press. To that end, we believe that the public journal is a public trust and that all connected with it are to the full measure of their responsibility trustees for the public. We believe that motion and still pictures are an indispensable means of informing people about their world. We strongly urge and expect our members to maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct in serving the public interest. To that end, all WHNPA members must aspire to the following code of ethics:

1. A healthy democracy depends on a free and accurate press.
2. The public journal is a public trust and those who work in it are trustees for the public.
3. The practice of photojournalism is worthy of the highest dedication and professionalism of those who enter into it as a life’s work.
4. Truthfulness, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good photojournalism. To publish distortions of the truth is indefensible.
5. Photojournalists should publish images and works only if he or she holds in his or her heart to be true.
6. Our images and words shall be objective and published for the public good. We shall be stoutly independent of power and of material or monetary influence.
7. It is our duty to encourage, assist and educate all members of our profession, and those who aspire to it, so that the quality of photojournalism may always be raised to higher standards.
8. In the pursuit of our profession, we shall always be mindful of our duty to the common good of society, sensitive to matters of privacy and the grief of others, and to discharge that duty so that when our work is done, we shall have endeavored to lift the level of human ideals and achievement higher than we found it.

Submitting payment serves as a digital signature to the contest, I agree to the following terms and conditions:

• I am the sole owner of copyright in the Content submitted, (hereinafter the "Content") and I have, or if I am not the sole owner of copyright in the Content that I shall obtain (prior to any WHNPA award and upon notification of a pending award by WHNPA) the authority and legal capacity to enter into this agreement and to grant the rights herein stated in and to the Content.

• The Content originates with me and is not copied from another person or work.

• The Content when used by WHNPA in accordance with this agreement will not violate the rights, (including but not limited rights of copyright, moral right, publicity, privacy, trademark, or any other rights) of any person or party.

• I am an active or life WHNPA member in good standing, or I have submitted an application for active membership and have never been a WHNPA member in the past.

• The Content was created or initially published within the rules of the contests and that I was a WHNPA member at the time the Content was created or initially published.

• The Content was not previously entered in this contest.

• I shall retain copyright in the Content, or my employer shall retain copyright in the Content if it is work made for hire.

• I hereby grant to WHNPA and those acting under WHNPA's permission only the non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty free, fully paid up, irrevocable, sub-licensable, assignable, permission, in all existing and future media (including, without limitation, WHNPA authorized Internet and or social media), to use the Content for and in connection with the WHNPA Awards or other WHNPA Book, WHNPA Exhibitions, WHNPA Educational and Editorial Activities, WHNPA Advertising and WHNPA Promotions, WHNPA Sponsored or Authored Publications and Activities, and for all purposes that are ancillary to, related to, or that directly arise out of the foregoing.

• As a condition precedent to my being offered, and to my receipt of, any WHNPA award I warrant and represent that I shall disclose to WHNPA any rights granted by me herein which may be owned by my employer or another party and that I will provide to WHNPA, in writing, and within seven (7) days of WHNPA's request, TIME BEING OF THE ESSENCE, and at my own expense, such further assurances and documentation as may be legally required, and any that may be requested of WHNPA, to give full force and effect to the permissions granted by me herein, including without limitation any affirmation, confirmation, and verification of such grant as WHNPA may require or request of my employer or any other rights owner.

• In default of my identification of the rights owner and or my provision of such affirmation, confirmation, and verification in a form acceptable to WHNPA, such acceptability to be determined solely by WHNPA in its sole and absolute discretion, WHNPA may without waiver of any other or additional remedy, decline to make an award, cancel an award, or retract an award without any obligation to or liability to the proposed award recipient.

• I agree to indemnify, protect, defend and hold harmless WHNPA and its officers, directors, members, employees, and agents) for and from any and all actions, claims, demands, and proceedings and for any and all costs (including legal fees, investigatory fees, and court costs) that arise out of or in connection with any actual breach by me, default by me, or non-frivolous claim that there is a breach or default by me, of the warranties and representations and agreements I have made herein.