Alexia Grant

Professional rules

The professional Alexia Grant recipient will receive $15,000 for the production of the proposed project. See the student rules for information about the student competition.

Introduction to the Professional Competition Rules

The Alexia Foundation offers the professional grant to enable a photographer to have the financial ability to produce a substantial picture story that furthers the Foundation’s goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding.

Eligibility

• Any photographer may apply for this grant. Proposals that have received grants or awards exceeding $1,000 in the previous calendar year are not eligible.
• This award is for an individual photographer. Collaborative applications are not accepted.

Judging Criteria

The Alexia Grant was not established with the single purpose of rewarding the best photographers — this is not a portfolio competition. The grant will be awarded to a photojournalist who can further cultural understanding and world peace by conceiving and writing a concise, focused, and meaningful story proposal, and who can demonstrate the ability to visually execute that story with compelling images. There is no mathematical formula for determining grantees, but the proposal and photography must both be considered of the highest quality.

Professional applications will be judged in two rounds. First, members of the Alexia Board and its executive advisors will review portfolios and move those demonstrating strong visual skills to a second round. In that round, judges that are industry leaders first read and rank the story proposals for all those portfolios brought forward. If no judge thinks the proposal is worth considering, the portfolio is not reviewed in the second round. A winner is chosen based on the judges’ determination of the combination of the strongest proposal and photography.

Application Procedure

There is no application form for this grant. An application shall be composed of the following:

1. A proposal of not more than 750 words for a photo story, picture essay, or photo-documentary project that explains your idea for a set of pictures that will promote world peace and cultural understanding. These may include projects already in progress. Anything over 750 words will be cut. Judges will only see the first 750 words.
   • Do not put your name or other identifying information on your proposal. We judge the applications anonymously.
   • Only one application per person each year.
2. A summary of the main idea of your project consisting of no more than 25 words.
3. A portfolio consisting of no more than twenty pictures, including captions. Must include at least one picture story.
4. A resume. Be sure to include your phone numbers and address. Also include names and phone numbers of three references on the resume. Do not send letters of recommendation.
5. Professional grant applicants who are staff photographers must provide written permission from their employer granting them a leave of absence of approximately 3 months over the course of a year to allow time to complete their project. It is not necessary for this time to be a single block. While all other application elements will be submitted online, this permission letter should be mailed to:Tom Kennedy, The Alexia Competition,
   Professional division,
   S.I. Newhouse School of Communications,
   215 University Place,
   Syracuse NY 13244-2100

Portfolio Format and Requirements

Applications must be submitted through our online application process. (If you find it impossible to make digital entries, contact me in writing or email and we will find a way to get your entry into our system.

Your portfolio must not have more than 20 photographs.

Deadline

Applications must be received by 5 p.m. EST, January 18, 2011.

http://www.alexiafoundation.org/