Student rules

Introduction to the Student Competition Rules

The Alexia Foundation offers help to provide the financial ability for students to improve their knowledge and skills of photojournalism and to increase their own knowledge and understanding of other cultures.

New This Year:

The first and second place prizes for undergraduate and graduate students has changed. The Alexia Foundation is now offering, in collaboration with MediaStorm and Momenta, funding for an internship with MediaStorm and participation in an international and domestic Momenta Photo Workshop to the first and second prize winners respectively. See below for more details.

The Foundation also provides cash grants to enable student photographers to have the financial ability to produce a picture story that furthers the Foundation's goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding.

Student Awards

If, for any reason, either the 1st or 2nd place winners cannot accept any portion of their awards, these awards may be offered to winners of the Awards of Excellence at the discretion of the competition administrators.

Eligibility

Applicants must be duly enrolled full-time students in an accredited college or university in the U.S. or abroad in a degree program at the time of application. Graduate and undergraduate students are eligible. No student who has completed more than three internships or a year of fulltime professional experience is eligible.

Judging Criteria

The Alexia Competition was not created with the purpose of rewarding the best picture takers -- this is not a portfolio competition. The awards will go to students who can further cultural understanding by conceiving concise, focused, and meaningful story proposals. There is no mathematical formula for determining the winners, but the story proposal is the most important part of the application. All proposals are read and ranked by the judges before any portfolios are reviewed. You are encouraged to have your application reviewed and proofread for accuracy, clarity and conciseness. You may confer with your teachers on topic selection and proposal writing.

You are also encouraged to consider stories that explore cultural understanding in or near you local community. While we do not discourage proposals on foreign topics, the judges give no extra weight to foreign topics, and indeed, think that you are more likely to complete a story near home than one abroad.

When evaluating your portfolio, the judges consider your technical ability, your ability to work with your subjects and your style. The winning entries will be those that provide strong story proposals with portfolios that exhibit the photographic ability to execute a story at a high level.

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 of at least 10 and not more than 20 photographs. You must include at least one picture story, consisting of no more than 10 photographs. You may submit up to three picture stories, as long as the total number of photographs does not exceed 20. You may include single images. The photos do not have to, but may, pertain to your proposed story. All photographs not related to your story proposal must have been taken within the past two years. There is no time limit on pictures that relate to your story proposal.
4. A resume. Be sure to include your phone numbers and address. Also include names and phone numbers of three references on the resume. One should be your academic adviser. Do not send letters of recommendation.

Deadline

Applications must be received by 12 a.m. EST, February 2, 2012.

To Enter

Use the Alexia competition entry site to submit your application. We will begin accepting applications on December 5, 2011. Entries are due by 12 a.m. EST, February 2, 2012. Be prepared with text files of your 750 word proposal and your resume, and have digital photo files formatted as medium-quality JPEG images at no more than 1024x768 pixels for landscape, or 768x1024 pixels for verticals (72dpi preferred). Each image must have a caption. We read captions from file info, or you can insert captions during the entry process.

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

If you have questions

If you are uncertain about any of these requirements, please contact Tom Kennedy at 315-443-7388 or by e-mail at trkenned@syr.edu. (E-mail is preferred.)

Or by mail to:
Tom Kennedy
The Alexia Competition
Professional division
S.I. Newhouse School of Communications
215 University Place
Syracuse NY 13244-2100.

Requirements on Winners

Recipients of any awards agree that credit to the Alexia Foundation be given on publication of the funded works. Alexia Grant recipient are obligated to provide to the Alexia Foundation a set of 11" X 14" exhibition prints of their completed picture story with captions and a CD with digital files of each photo within six months of receiving their award. (More time can be arranged but if that is necessary, please contact Tom Kennedy at 315-443-7388 or by e-mail at info@alexiafoundation.org.)

Grant of Rights

All applicants acknowledge and agree that effective with the awarding of each Alexia Grant, the Foundation shall have a perpetual non-exclusive royalty-free license to copy, publish, distribute and display, in any medium and in any publication, venue or program sponsored or authorized by the Foundation for the advancement of its mission and goals, any and all photographs submitted with each winning application. Each applicant warrants and represents that every photograph submitted with such applicant's Alexia Grant entry is his/her own original work and that he/she has the unrestricted right to grant to the Foundation the license described below.

Alexia Grants will be awarded subject to these additional terms:

• The license granted herein by the recipient to the Foundation for use of photographs submitted with the recipient's Alexia Grant application shall be extended in all its terms to all works created by the recipient in the course of any project funded by the recipient's Alexia Grant.
• Each recipient shall be deemed to have consented to the use of his/her name, portrait, and/or picture by the Foundation in promotional and public relations materials or for any other purpose related to the Alexia Grant program or the Foundation.
• Each recipient shall agree to reasonable requests by the Foundation to present such recipient's work and/or represent the Foundation at photography workshops, seminars and/or conventions, provided that any necessary expense associated with such presentations is paid by the Foundation.
• Each recipient shall be responsible for determining his or her own tax liability arising from acceptance of the Alexia Grant, and for satisfaction of any such liability.