2014 Sony World Photography Awards Outstanding Contribution to Photography - Mary Ellen Mark

This year's Sony World Photography Awards Outstanding Contribution to Photography award is being made to documentary photographer, Mary Ellen Mark. Mark is renowned for her documentary images, often shot in black and white, and for the bond that she oftens develops with her subjects, returning to visit them long after her initial assignment is complete. Starting as a freelance, she often worked on film sets, but the four decades of her career has encompassed a great deal of travel photography. Much of her work reflects her humanism and her desire to capture and relate the stories of people living on the margins of society.

On being informed of her award, Mark commented: 'I feel very grateful to have received the Sony World Photography Awards’ Outstanding Contribution to Photography accolade. I follow a list of very prestigious people – they are among my favourite photographers.'

Astrid Merget, Creative Director of the World Photography Organisation, said of the award: 'Mary Ellen equates nothing short of excellence and we are honoured to present this award to her. Having spoken to dozens of her peers and critics, it is clear that Mary Ellen has made a permanent mark on our industry. She is fiercely committed and consistent in her work and is bound to show us a great deal more in the coming years.'

Mary Ellen Mark will receive her award on Wednesday 30 April at the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony. On the same night, the winners of the awards’ professional categories and the overall L’Iris d’Or / Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year will be announced.

Examples of Mark's work will be exhibited alongside the winning and shortlisted images of the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards at Somerset House, London, from 1 to 18 May 2014. Tickets for the exhibition can be booked via the World Photography Organisation's website.

Life Through a Contact Lens photography competition

Throughout 2014, online contact lens retailer GetLenses.co.uk is running a series of quarterly photography competitions that celebrate the wonder of vision and the eye. Winners are being rewarded with £500 of vouchers to spend on photography equipment at Amazon UK. Not bad! This quarter, the judges are looking for images that resemble an eye, from water swirling down a plughole to whirls of cloud in the sky. Submissions must be made by email to competition@getlenses.co.uk by 16 May 2014.

More details on the GetLenses website!

Full terms and conditions can be seen on the GetLenses website.

February's winning image: Tree Reflection by Neil Robertson in Denny

Getty Images Grants applications open today, with awards for editorial and creative photographers

Getty Images is celebrating the ten year anniversary of its grants programme by offering a range of awards to photojournalists, portrait photographers, and non-profits working in collaboration with photographers to get their projects off the ground. There are five awards of $10,000 each being made available to photojournalists looking to pursue projects of both personal and journalistic significance as part of the Editorial Photography grants.

Previous recipients have included Paolo Marchetti, for his project Fever, which explored the re-emergence of European fascism and Lynsey Addario for the 2008 Darfur project.

2008 Editorial Grant Recipient Lynsey Addario “Darfur”- Ismael Adam Abdullah, who is among the last dozen people from the Zagawa tribe in Muhajariya, reaches for some sugar from one of the UNAMID soldiers in the early morning next to the UNAMID base where they are staying in Muhajariya, in South Darfur. Photo by Lynsey Addario.

Furthermore, a $10,000 Lean In-inspired grant will be awarded to a photojournalist looking to bring to light a significant but under-reported story focused on girls or women who've brought positive change to their communities or personal lives.

These awards will be judged by a panel including David Furst, International Picture Editor, The New York Times; Teru Kuwayama, Photo Community Manager, Facebook; Sarah Leen, Director of Photography, National Geographic Magazine; Jean-Francois Leroy, Director General, Visa pour l’Image; and Amy Yenkin, Director, Documentary Photography Project, Open Society Foundations.

Applications close on 15 May 2014, with more details available here.

Two grants worth $20,000 each will be awarded under the Creative Grants programme, allowing non-profits who do not currently have the resources to work with photographers or videographers to further their causes, but recognise their value, to do so. There's also a Lean-In inspired grant for this programme, which will be shared by a photographer and creative agency whose joint proposal is to develop imagery for a nonprofit they choose to support which focuses on issues related to empowering women, girls, their families, and communities.

Finally, the Contour award will offer $10,000 to support an up-and-coming portrait photographer. She or he must have fewer than five years' experience in the field, and the award will be based on their existing portraiture work. The judging panel for this will be chaired by Terry O'Neill and include Cheryl Newman, Director of Photography, Telegraph Magazine; Stuart Smith, Designer; and Michael Hirschl, Director of Creative Delivery, BergHind Joseph Agency.

2013 Contour by Getty Images Portrait Prize Recipient Maja Daniels “Mady and Monette.”

More information, including terms and conditions and entry details, are available on the Getty Images InFocus blog.

400 images shortlisted for the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year competition

From over 6,000 entries, 400 potential winners have been selected for the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year competition and among them there's a welter of images from photographers aged under 17. Youngsters were able to enter their photos into three age categories—under 10, 11 to 14, and 15 to 17—and provided that they featured food, they were fair game for the competition. Now that the entries have been shortlisted, the judges, who include Yotam Ottolenghi and Jay Rayner, will whittle down their lists further. Overall winners can be selected to receive their awards on 23 April and be exhibited at the Mall Galleries in London between Thursday 24 and Sunday 27 April 2014.

Winners from the young people's categories will be presented with vouchers to put towards new camera kit!

You can take a look at all of the shortlisted young people's photos, together with the adult short-listed images, on the special Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Shortlisted Gallery.

Only in England - now at the National Media Museum, Bradford

After its brilliantly successful run as the debut exhibition hosted at Media Space in the Science Museum, Only in England, Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr, is now open at the National Media Museum in Bradford. Running from 28 March until 29 June 2014, it gives anyone who didn't manage to make it to London an opportunity to take in an exhibition that feels quintessentially English. The exhibition features 50 vintage prints as well as 50 previously unseen images from the Tony Ray-Jones archive, held by the National Media Museum. It was Martin Parr who helped to select these new prints from a selection of over 2,700 contact sheets and negatives. Martin Parr's works includes 50 rarely seen early black and white photographs from his series The Non-Conformists.

I enjoyed my morning moseying around the exhibition in London and while I did find it a little unwieldy to navigate, the photos were charming. My particular favourite, the image that made me smile and say 'Yep, only in England!' was Glyndebourne, 1967. All dressed up for the opera and having a champagne picnic with cows in the background? Of course it's Glyndebourne.

Opening times and visiting details are available on the National Media Museum's website. But the good news is that entry is free.

Oh, and if you'd like a little taster, we have an exlusive video of Martin Parr taking a look at some of Tony Ray-Jones' postcard collection!

What could you buy for the price of a moon-walking Hasselblad?

By now we all probably know that a Hasselblad 500 that made it to the moon as part of the 1971 Apollo 15 mission, and came back again, has sold for €660,000 (after auction fees) to Terukazu Fujisawa, founder of Japanese retail chain Yodobashi Camera. So that's equivalent to £550,000, US$910,000, or AU$997,000, give or take. This got me wondering, what else could I buy for £550,000, photographic or otherwise?

Let's start with a Hasselblad, to put things into context. I've found a Hasselblad H5D-50, with either a 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm or 50-110mm lens retailing for £25,500. You could buy 21-and-half of those for what it cost to get the Hasselblad 500 that went to the moon.

Or, if you're looking for a top flight Nikon, the new D4S is £5,200. You could buy almost 106 of those for one moon-jaunting Hasselblad. Pair a D4S with an 800mm lens that costs about £14,000 and you've spent £19,200. That's a 28:1 ratio. (Or 39 800mm lenses alone.) If you're looking for something more entry level, a Canon 700D with a 50mm ƒ/1.8 costs in the region of £580. So that's 948 of those. Or it's 611 Fujifilm X100S.

Away from cameras, the average price of a yearling at Tattersalls' October 2013 was 207,501 guineas. What with a guinea being £1.05, you're looking at just about two baby race horses there. If you need somewhere to train your racehorses, there's a 14-box yard with a trainer's house selling for £550,000 in Newmarket right now. Or you could go for a one-bedroomed flat in central London.

At a recent auction of Impressionist paintings at Sotherby's in London, quite a few lots went for sums in the region of £550,000, so you could always try looking for a Bonnard or a Sisley if they take your fancy.

There's plenty of things you can spend your £550,000 on if you missed out on the moon-walking Hasselblad.

Scandal and drama at the Youth World Photography Awards as a winner is disqualified

Here's a life lesson: if you think that you can get away with submitting an image to an age-restricted photography competition, a competition in which you're subsequently named as a winner, when you're actually older than you're supposed to be, you should probably think again. The chances are that you'll be found out. Then you'll be stripped of your prize and you'll be plastered across the Intergoogles for all the wrong reasons. This is precisely what happened to Borhan Mardani, who was named as the winner of the Culture category of the Youth Sony World Photography Awards on Tuesday.

Mardani, it turns out, wasn't 19 when he took his 'winning' image, as he stated in his written declaration. Now that he's been found out, his prize has been removed from him and instead awarded to 19 year old Anastasia Zhetvina, from Russia, for her image Young talents.

Anastasia will now join Paulina Metzscher and Turjoy Chowdhury, the two other Youth finalists, in winning a Sony A5000 and the chance to be named Youth Photographer of the Year and flown to London to celebrate at the Sony World Photography Awards' party at the end of April.

BBC Wildlife Magazine's Camera-trap Photo of the Year competition is open

Anyone who uses camera-traps to create images of wild animals, or uses camera-traps as part of their research into wild animals, the BBC, its Wildlife Magazine, and sponsors Lowepro, have a competition for you. It's the 2014 BBC Wildlife Magazine Camera-trap Photo of the Year competition.

The competition has been designed with both field researchers and amateurs in mind. It's split into two divisions: Camera-trap Research Project of the Year and Camera-trap Photo of the Year, each with three categories. It's rather pleasing to see photography as a tool, as well as the gorgeous images that it's capable of creating, being honoured simultaneously.

Camera-trap Research Project of the Year

This division is open exclusively to research projects that make use of camera-traps. Images can be submitted to one of three categories:

• New behaviour: Images taken during the course of research that show behaviour never before recorded
• New reach: Images taken during research that show a species never photographed before outside its known range
• Rare species: Images taken during research that show a species that is rarely seen or never photographed in the wild

The winners of each of these categories will go forward to be judged for the title of Camera-trap Research Project of the Year and a £3,000 prize.

The judges will be selecting their winner based on the quality of the research and the importance of the images to the piece of research.

Camera-trap Photo of the Year

If you're not trying to track rare species of frog in South America or look for socialisation traits in South East Asian primates, but just like photographing the badgers in your garden, you've still a chance to put your images up for judging into one of these three categories:

• Animal portraits: like any good portrait, images should capture the character or spirit of their subject
• Animal Behaviour: A compelling image that shows interesting or unusual behaviour
• British Wildlife: Amazing images that capture the spirit and behaviour of British wildlife

The winners of these categories will see their images published in the December 2014 issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine and on the BBC Wildlife Magazine website, www.discoverwildlife.com and will receive a Lowepro Flipside Sport 15L camera pack, worth £122. Then they'll go on to compete for the title Camera-trap Photographer of the Year.

The closing date for entries is 30 June 2014, and all photos must be submitted online. As always, please do read the rules and terms and conditions before submitting any photos. You can find those, together with entry details, on the Discover Wildlife website.

Sony World Photography Awards' Youth competition winners announced

Update! 17:28, Thursday 20 March 2014: Bohran Mardani, who was originally named as the winner of the Youth Culture category, was found not to be 19 nineteen years old when he took his image, as he claimed. He has subequently been disqualified and Anastasia Zhetvina, 19 years old and from Russia, named as winner for her image Young talents. This post has been updated to reflect this. The Sony World Photography Awards' Youth competition is open to anyone under the age of 20. There are three categories to which they can submit their photos—culture, environment, and portraiture—and one winner is selected from each. Those three talented young people are each presented with a Sony A5000 as a prize, and one of them will be named as the Youth Photographer of the Year. She or he will be flown to London, to the awards ceremony, to receive the award and see their image exhibited at Somerset House. And this year's winners?

Winners - the Sony World Photography Awards Open Competition

In the run-up to the gala awards ceremony in London at the end of April, the ten category winners of the Sony World Photography Awards Open division have been announced, selected from over 70,000 entries made by amateur photographers. Each of them wins a new Sony A6000 camera and they're up with a chance of winning the $5,000 prize that accompanies the title Overall Open Photographer of the Year.

• Architecture – Holger Schmidtke, Germany
• Arts and Culture – Valerie Prudon, Australia
• Enhanced – Kylli Sparre, Estonia
• Low Light - Vlad Eftenie, Romania
• Nature & Wildlife – Gert van den Bosch, Netherlands
• Panoramic – Ivan Pedretti, Italy
• People - Arup Ghosh, India
• Smile - Alpay Erdem, Turkey
• Split Second - Hairul Azizi Harun, Malaysia
• Travel - Li Chen, China

As well as their new cameras, all of them will have their images exhibited at Somerset House, London between 1 and 18 May 2014, and the winner of the Overall Open Photographer of the Year title will be flown to London to collect her or his prize at the ceremony.

Nigel Atherton, the jury chair commented: 'Nigel Atherton, Jury Chair, comments: 'Photography is a language that transcends national borders and cultures, race, gender and social background....No two of this year’s Open category winners are from the same country but all share the ability to visually interpret the world around them in a unique and captivating way. The winning and shortlisted images demonstrate this gift with aplomb.'

The art of scientific photography at the Cambridge Science Festival

The Cambridge Science Festival opens on Monday and as part of its incredibly diverse and packed programme, it has teamed up with the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) and Dr Stefanie Reichelt, a scientist at the University of Cambridge's Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, to focus on the science of photography and the promotion of scientific photography. They're providing a range of talks, lectures, demonstrations and exhibitions, with something that should appeal to everyone. Saturday 15 March will be devoted to the subject of imaging and imagery. It starts with a talk asking just how many megapixels you really need and precisely how many do you really get and ends with a talk about developing the imaging tools of tomorrow. This goes via talks on colour vision, high- speed photography, medical imaging and images, 3D and stereo imaging, and whole lot more. The Camper Obscura will also be on-site that weekend. Yes, as its name suggests, its a camera obscura in a camper van.

As well that day devoted to photography, there are other events related to images taking place over the course of the festival: the life sciences poster and image exhibition, the Inspiring images: engineering captured on camera exhibition, and a digital recreation of the earliest known colour photographic technique and an exploration of what happens when you collect the different elements of the colour spectrum separately.

All of the details of all of the events are available on the Cambridge Science Festival website. Specific details about the photography-oriented events is here. You don't need to book and the talks are free, but it is requested that you register for the morning or the afternoon session.

Maybe I'll see you there?

Student Focus finalists of the Sony World Photography Awards announced

After the finalists of the Sony World Photography Awards open and professional categories were announced last week, this week the ten Student Focus finalists have been unveiled. The Student Focus competition aims to support both up-and-coming photographers and the institutions where they study. It isn't just about the prizes—new cameras for all of the finalists and €35,000 of equipment for the winning student's university—but about the workshops, tutorials, and networks that it brings to them. This year, Student Focus entrants were asked to submit a single image conforming to the brief 'Tomorrow's news'. Ten of those have been selected to go through to the final and complete a second assignment.

• Argentina – Nadia Navarro, Al Aire
• Bangladesh - Rahul Talukder, Pathshala South Asia Media Institute
• China - Li Dandan, Nanjing University of the Arts
• Denmark – Tor Birk Trads, Danish School of Media
• New Zealand - Chloe Riddell, University of Auckland
• Romania - Sebastian Vacariuc, Babes-Bolyai University
• South Africa – Russell Bruns, Rhodes University
• South Africa – Tara Mette, Stellenbosch Academy of Design & Photography
• United Kingdom – Scarlet Evans, Central St Martins
• USA - Jordan VanSise, Marylhurst University

Next up: compile a series of images titled Self-portraits. They've all been awarded brand new Sony A7s for making it this far, and they must use them to create the self-portrait series.

All of the finalists, together with their university tutors, will be flown to the awards ceremony in London in April and their work will be exhibited at Somerset House along with the other awards' finalists.

Finalists of the 2014 National Geographic Traveller Photography Competition announced

Six stunning photos have been selected as the finalists in the 2014 National Geographic Traveller Photography competition. The winner is due to be unvelied on Saturday, at the Telegraph Outdoor Adventure and Travel show. One photo from each of the six categories—action, city, iconic, modern, natural, and people—has been selected to vie for the overall title, bringing together images of beautiful birds and famous clippers.

Pat Riddell, National Geographic Traveller's editor, was delighted by the number and quality of entries to the competition, which opened in September: 'Once again, we've had a great response to our annual photography competition, and the creativity and photographic quality has been fantastic. Thank you to all those who entered.'

2014 Sony World Photography Awards shortlist announced

The shortlist for the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards has been announced, having been narrowed down from some 139,000 submissions by photographers from 166 countries. This year the winning entries, together with the grand prize of L'Iris d'Or will be announced on 30 April at an awards ceremony in London. All of the winning images will be on display at Somerset House from 1 to 18 May. To give you a taste of what's on offer, here's a selection of the shortlisted photos, from the Professional, Open, and Youth categories.

Bailey's Stardust at the NPG

Bailey's Stardust, an exhibition of over 250 of David Bailey's portraits, opens today at the National Portrait Gallery, London, where it takes up virtually all of the ground floor.

Organised thematically rather than chronologically, the exhibition is based on the notion of stardust: we all begin as dust and we all return to dust. Lesser known portraits will feature alongside some of Bailey's most iconic work, juxtaposing fame, fortune, and glamour with famine, poverty, and despair. The Rolling Stones, London's East End, Papua New Guinea, and East Africa in 1985: it's all there.

Bailey will be making new silver gelatin prints of his black-and-white portraits especially for the exhibition, showing off photographers, actors, writers, musicians, filmmakers, fashion icons, designers, models, artists, and people encountered on his travels.

The exhibition, sponsored by Hugo Boss, runs from 6 Fenruary to 1 June 2014 at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

The Photography Show - a quick run-down

When Mary Walker announced that after 20 years co-ordinating Focus on Imaging she thought it time for a change, it was Future Publishing that stepped into the breach to fill the photographic trade show spectacle-type hole in our lives. Future's called their incarnation of mayhem, madness, cameras, and consumerism The Photography Show. The Photography Show is running from 1 to 4 March 2014, opening at 10:00 each day and shutting up shop at 18:00 on the first two days and 17:00 on days three and four, held in halls 11 and 12 of Birmingham's NEC.

Should you want a few highlights of which companies will be setting up a stand, rather than having to wade through the entire list, I've pulled together one for you!

3 Legged Thing Adobe British Institute of Professional Photography Calumet Canon Carl Zeiss CaseLogic Daymen (they'll be exhibiting Lowepro and Joby products) Fujifilm Future (obviously) Giotto's Gitzo Hasselblad Hoya Kenko Kenro Lastolite Manfrotto Nikon Olympus Panasonic Ricoh Samsung Samyang Sigma Slik SmugMug Tamron Tokina Velbon

and The Ilex Press. Seeing as they publish my books, they also twisted my arm to go along for a day and hang around to talk Composition, Surreal, and Social.

Of course, these are the edited highlights. There's a great deal more on offer, from specialist insurance providers, a wealth of photo book printers, colour calibration firms, and, well, pretty much anything pertaining to photography. If you want all the details, its on the Photography Show's website.

The ZSL Animal Photography Prize 2014 is now open!

The Zoological Society of London's Animal Photography Prize is now in its third year and open for entries. Seeing as you have to pay to submit your photos to the adult competition, we'll focus on the under-18s competition, which is free to enter. There are six categories and young photographers can enter one image into each. Each image needs to be different and they must relate clearly to the category into which they've been submitted. The categories are: The Perfect Moment, which rewards the patience needed to capture a stunning shot; Last Chance to See?, a focus on threatened habitats and endangered species; Weird & Wonderful looks for EDGE species, amazing adaptations, and unexpected surprises; Size Matters covers photos from the massive to the microscopic; The Birds and the Bees is for avians and invertebrates; and Deep & Meaningful is devoted to anything aquatic.

The judging panel includes television presenter Kate Humble and ornithologist Bill Oddie. The photographers of the images that they deem to be best in catoegory (one for each), will receive two complimentary tickets to the presentation ceremony and preview evening in London, a personalised certificate, and £250 in prize money.

The young person whose image is awarded the 'Judges Choice' for overall winner will receive a certificate and an additional £500 in prize money.

To be eligible to enter the young person's competition, you need to be under 18 years of age on the competition's closing date: 1 April 2014.

All of the details are on the ZSL website, and as always we advise you to check out the terms and conditions.

The winner of the Well Done U short film competition

In early October, we featured a short film competition called Well Done U: the quest for a well made two minute film, suitable for all. That is, it needed to conform to the British Board of Film Classification's U certificate criteria. The competition was being run by the Kermode and Mayo Film Review Show, hosted on BBC Radio 5 Live. Last week, after receiving hundreds of entries, they announced the winner. The honour of a formal BBFC certification for the film and a trophy went to Philip Chidell for his short, Pong.

The winner is great, but the runners' up films are super, too, and worth a look.

Share joy with #Flickr12Days

What does joy mean to you? The people over at Flickr would like to know. And in return for sharing your holiday images of joy, you could win up to £3,100. (Or US $5,000.)

From today, the 12 December, you can enter as many images as you have portraying festive joy to the #Flickr12Days competition. Every day the judging panel will look for one photo that's creative, original, and conveys the sense of the season. Out of the 12 daily winners, who'll each claim a £310 prize, a grand prize winner will also be selected. She or he will be awarded £3,100 and the the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing their image summarised holiday joy.

Entering isn't hard: you need to share your photo on Flickr, publicly, and it needs #Flickr12Days in its title. The Flickereenos have provided step-by-step instructions, too, and as always, please do check the terms and conditions to make sure you're not signing away your soul or similar. You'll find those here.

Get snapping, and enjoy!

The 50th anniversary Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is now open!

Entries to the fiftieth anniversary Wildlife Photographer of Year are now being accepted! You have until midday (GMT) on 27 February 2014 to make your submissions. If you're an adult, you'll need to pay a £30 entrance fee. Entry for under-17s is, however, free. Whether you're aiming for the adult or Young competition there are ten 'single image' categories: mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, invertebrates, plants and fungi, underwater species, the earth’s environments, the world in our hands, black and white, and natural design. You can submit a maximum of 20 images if you're an adult and ten if you're under 17 years old. There are also four adult special awards, including a time-lapse feature, and one special report competition for young people.

The young people's special interactive award, WILD-I, is probably the competition that I find the most exciting. They're being asked to submit one report captured on a mobile device that comprises six images, a 150-word report, and up to 90 seconds of moving footage. The judges are looking for personal or newsworthy features about the natural world that have been captured on a mobile device, are well-researched, tell the story innovatively, and of course are high quality. The feature can explore anything from conservation efforts to documenting habitat destruction. I suppose it appeals to my love of projects.

There are some fantastic prizes on offer, especially in the young people's competition. The over all Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year, who'll be chosen from the age category winners, receives £1,000, a trophy, and a two-day field workshop with an experienced photographer to explore technical and creative development. Anyone who wins their age category (the competition is divided into three: 10 and under, 11 to 14, and 15 to 17) receives £500, a medal, a trip to London for the awards ceremony, a year's subscription to BBC Wildlife magazine, and a one-day workshop.

The WILD-I winner will bag £750, a medal, a trip to London for the awards ceremony, a year's subscription to BBC Wildlife magazine, a Natural History Museum field assignment, and a one-day workshop. Anyone who makes the finals in their age group takes home a certificate, a year's subcription to BBC Wildlife Magazine, and a one-day workshop from their trip to London for the awards ceremony.

There are quite strict rules on what subject matter is admissible or not for this competition, so please do read through everything carefullly. All of the details are on the Natural History Museum's website.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition usually produces a cracking exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, so I'm really looking forward to your entries!