HIPA 2017 Photo Contest

The HIPA (Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award, held in Dubai) has announced the sixth installment of this large photo contest. As with the previous episodes of this competition, there is once again a incredible amount prize money, but this time there is also a remarkable selection of categories. In many photo contests digital manipulation is not, or only sparingly, allowed. Often you cannot do more than some color and contrast corrections in raw, and you can eliminate a blemish caused by dust on the sensor. But real digital manipulations, in which the original image is changed substantially, are not allowed at many photo contests. The HIPA 2017 has introduced a special category for digitally manipulated images, because digital manipulation ‘is an art form in itself, according to the organizers.

The main category, which again this year has a first prize of $ 25,000 falls (and which is also attracted to the Grand Prize of $ 120,000) has the theme “The Challenge”. In addition, there are four categories, each with a first prize of $ 15,000: the aforementioned category ‘Digital Manipulation’, ‘General’ (split into color and black & white) and ‘Portfolio’ (a photo story). Besides the first prize there are in each category also cash prizes for the runner-up 2 to 5.

A second major change in the competition is the submission date. Previously the submissions closed on December 31, but this year the submission date closes all on October 13, 2016. For more information and full contest terms, go to www.hipa.ae.