What happens when a photograph leaves your hard drive and ends up in a gallery in New York, Los Angeles or Bangkok with your name on the wall next to it? The International Photography Awards 2026 (IPA 2026) is designed for exactly that kind of leap, bringing professional, non-professional and student photographers into one of the most established global competitions in the medium. For this 23rd edition, the organizers announce a total of $60,000 in prizes, including major cash awards for IPA Photographer of the Year and Discovery of the Year, along with category prizes and a curated traveling exhibition.
IPA 2026 is officially open for submissions, with a 10% Early Bird discount on entry fees available until January 31, 2026. Entries are split into three levels of expertise and then funneled into genre-based categories such as advertising, analog and film, architecture, book, editorial and press, events, fine art, nature, people, sports and a special category. Fees start at $40 for a single image for professionals, with lower rates for non-professionals and students and discounted add-on categories.
Top winners receive up to $10,000 in cash, trophies, publication in the IPA Annual Book of Photography and inclusion in the IPA Best of Show exhibition that travels through the House of Lucie galleries worldwide. For photographers browsing Deartline beyond the usual photo challenges online, the International Photography Awards 2026 is a structured, career-minded competition that offers clear categories, defined rewards and a visible route onto the international photography stage.
Contents
Prizes
IPA 2026 combines a significant prize fund with long-term visibility. The structure is layered, from overall titles to category-level awards that sit across both professional and non-professional divisions.
International Photographer of the Year (Professional)
The top award in the professional division is International Photographer of the Year. The winner receives:
- IPA Trophy at the IPA Awards Gala
- $10,000 cash prize
Their work is exhibited in the curated IPA Best of Show exhibition, screened at the awards ceremony and at House of Lucie galleries around the world and published in the IPA Annual Book of Photography.
The winner is also promoted through IPA press releases and newsletters that reach a large international audience.
Discovery of the Year (Non-Professional / Student)
The Discovery of the Year title recognizes the strongest work from the non-professional and student division. The winner receives:
- IPA Trophy
- $5,000 cash prize
The winning work is shown in the Best of Show exhibition, screened at the gala, featured in the IPA Annual Book and promoted through IPA communication channels.
Professional Category Winners
There are 11 professional category winners, each receiving a $1,000 cash prize.
They also receive two tickets to attend the IPA Awards Gala as finalists for the International Photographer of the Year title, a $500 travel allowance, an IPA Trophy at the Best of Show opening, inclusion in the curated exhibition, publication in the annual book and global promotion through IPA media and partner outlets.
Non-Professional and Student Category Winners
In the non-professional and student categories, 11 category winners each receive a $500 cash prize, two tickets to the IPA Awards Gala as finalists for the Discovery of the Year award, the IPA Trophy at the Best of Show opening, exhibition in the curated Best of Show, publication in the annual book and the same promotional support as the professional winners.
Additional Recognition and Exposure
Across both divisions, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners and Honorable Mentions receive digital winner certificates and winner seals that can be used in portfolios, websites and communication with clients. Selected photographs appear in the Best of Show traveling exhibition that visits House of Lucie spaces in multiple cities. Images may also be used in IPA campaigns and partner publications, always with proper credit.
This places IPA alongside other photography competitions with cash prizes that combine financial rewards with long-term visibility.
Related Photo Contests
Categories
IPA 2026 organizes entries into a set of clear submission categories that are shared across professional, non-professional and student levels.
- Advertising: Commercial imagery created to market or promote a product, service or person. This includes automotive, beauty, brand campaigns, fashion, food, music, product and self-promotion work.
- Analog / Film: Photography created with non-digital capture methods, including fine art, portrait and landscape photography work produced on film.
- Architecture: Interior and exterior views of buildings and structures, from bridges and cityscapes to more abstract studies of lines, shapes and architectural details.
- Book: Projects presented as photography books. Entries must be submitted as a series, with several images representing the publication, typically including the cover and key interior spreads.
- Editorial / Press: Story-driven work created for magazines, newspapers or news platforms, often overlapping with photojournalism photography contests in tone and subject.
- Event: Photography centered on live happenings, including festivals, concerts, cultural or social events where timing and atmosphere are crucial.
- Fine Art: Concept-driven projects where the photographer’s personal vision and aesthetic choices take priority over documentary intent.
- Nature: Images of the natural world, which can include landscapes, details of land, water and sky and work that overlaps with wildlife photography contests.
- People: Portraits and human-centered stories ranging from formal studio images to more candid, narrative photographs.
- Sports: Action-oriented work that captures competition, movement and the atmosphere around sporting events.
- Special: A flexible category for projects that do not fit neatly into the other areas, often hosting more experimental or mixed-genre approaches.
Each of these categories is mirrored across the professional and non-professional or student levels. This structure allows emerging photographers to enter the same thematic fields as established names while still being judged within an appropriate experience band.
Dates and Entry Fees
The International Photography Awards 2026 is open for entries and highlights a clearly defined early discount period. The public information focuses on the start of submissions and the Early Bird deadline. The final deadline for the contest is not yet known.
| Early Bird discount | 10% off entry fees until January 31, 2026 |
| Final submission deadline | To be confirmed on the official International Photography Awards website |
Entry fees for the regular IPA competition are structured by level of expertise.
| Professional | Non-Professional | Student | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single Image | $40 | $30 | $20 |
| Series (2-9 images) | $65 | $55 | $35 |
Entering an image into additional categories comes with a 20% discount.
How to Enter
To enter International Photography Awards 2026 (IPA 2026), photographers first create or log into an IPA account through the contest website. They complete an online submission form with their credit name, entry title, a short description and the category or categories they want to enter. After saving these details they are taken to an upload page where the image files are submitted.
Digital files must be JPEGs in sRGB color space, between 1,000 and 4,000 pixels on the longest side, with a maximum file size of 4 MB and file names that use only standard English letters without spaces or special characters. For series entries, between 2 and 10 images are uploaded and arranged in order, with the first image being the strongest of the set. Once the uploads are complete, entrants pay the appropriate fees and can later review their Entry History in the member section to confirm that everything has been correctly submitted.
About the Jury
The International Photography Awards jury brings together a large and changing panel of photography professionals drawn from around the world. The Head of Jury, Susan Baraz, oversees a group of jurors that includes curators, gallery directors, photo editors and other figures with deep experience in photography.
Each year IPA also appoints a guest curator for the Best of Show exhibition. Recent editions have featured curators from the House of Lucie network and major festivals, such as the artistic director of Photopolis Festival in Athens. The jurors review submissions on a dedicated online platform, scoring each entry on originality, creativity, execution, overall impact and relevance to its category. Photographer identities are hidden during this process to keep the voting impartial and focused purely on the work.
Why Enter International Photography Awards 2026?
For many photographers IPA functions less like a one-off contest and more like a bridge into the wider ecosystem around the Lucie Foundation. A strong entry can move from an online submission form to a New York gala, a traveling exhibition in House of Lucie galleries and a permanent page in the annual IPA book. That pathway is clear and concrete.
Entry levels are split into professional, non-professional and student, which means that a long-time commercial photographer and someone submitting a first personal series are not competing in the same division. Within each level, work is further organized into genre-based categories such as advertising, analog, architecture, fine art or sports photography. That makes it easier to show images to a jury that understands the visual language of each specific field.
The prize structure is also straightforward. There is real money on the table, with $10,000 for the top professional award, $5,000 for the leading non-professional or student and multiple category prizes that add up across both divisions, along with travel support for category winners who attend the gala. On top of the cash, the winners’ work is promoted through IPA channels and partner publications, and a curated selection appears in the Best of Show exhibition that travels internationally. This combination of recognition and visibility is why IPA photo awards 2026 sits naturally alongside other best photo contests that Deartline follows year after year.
Rules and Copyright
This section about the rules and image rights of the International Photography Awards 2026 (IPA 2026) has been generated automatically. If you are interested in participating in this contest we suggest you review the complete rules provided by the contest.
Rules
The competition is open to any living photographer who is at least 18 years old, regardless of country of residence. Entrants choose whether to submit as professional, non-professional or student based on their experience and situation. Professionals are those who earn some or all of their income from photography, have work published or belong to professional photography organizations. Students may be enrolled in any subject, not only photography.
All submissions are made online as digital image files. Prints are not accepted at the judging stage. Files must be JPEGs in sRGB color space, between 1,000 and 4,000 pixels on the longest side and no larger than 4 MB, with file names that use only letters from the English alphabet and no spaces or special characters. A series consists of at least 2 and no more than 10 photographs that share a common title and concept. The first image in a series should be the strongest, since the set is judged as a whole.
Entries are only considered complete once the corresponding entry fee has been paid. Fees are non-refundable. If a submission remains unpaid or the images have not been properly uploaded by the time the competition closes, it will not be sent to the jury. After payment, entries and category choices cannot be altered, so it is important to check everything before confirming.
The jury reviews eligible entries on a dedicated judging platform over several weeks. Each image or series is rated on originality, creativity, quality of execution, overall impact and relevance to the chosen category. The identity of the photographers is hidden from the judges during this process so that decisions are made only on the basis of the work. Combined scores determine rankings, category winners and the overall titles.
Copyright and Image Usage
Copyright and ownership of all submitted images remain with the photographers. Whenever IPA uses an image, the photograph is credited to its author. Entrants grant IPA a limited right to use selected images in connection with the competition and its promotion. This can include exhibitions, the annual book, online galleries, contest advertising and use by media sponsors. These uses can be in print or digital form and do not generate additional fees beyond the contest prizes.
Images may be shown in the IPA Best of Show traveling exhibition, which tours various House of Lucie galleries and related venues. Prints produced for this exhibition can be stored by IPA and used in future retrospective shows, again with appropriate credit. If IPA or its partners wish to use an image for purposes that go beyond promoting the competition itself the photographer is contacted and has the option to decline. IPA may remove and disqualify images that clearly violate the rules, although photographers remain responsible for ensuring that their submissions comply with copyright law and the competition terms.
For more information and to participate in the contest, visit: the official website.
