Sunday, May 24, 2009


Google Photography Prize

http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/photographyprize/img/logo.gif

The Google Photography Prize is a global competition for students to create themes for iGoogle. Run in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery London, the Google Photography Prize is open to students across the world.

We have opened up iGoogle, our personalised homepage, as the digital canvas for your creativity. We invite you to submit your compelling photography and bring your art online to a global audience.

How it works

Enter your portfolio of five digital photos that together will make up the iGoogle theme.

We will also be running a leader board for the university/college with the most entrants for everyone to see, so tell your friends to enter to see your university at the top.

  • The shortlist: 36 shortlisted entries will be turned into iGoogle themes, shown on Google and put to public vote.
  • The finalists: 6 finalists will be exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery London, and reviewed by our independent jury.
  • The winner: 1 winner will receive a £5,000 ($7500 USD) bursary and an invite to spend a day with Martin Parr.

Deadline

Submit your entry on this website by 31st May.

How to enter

The photographs you submit for the theme may be an extension of your current work, or something completely new. It could reflect information that's important to you, or express your wish make the online world more beautiful or interesting. Each of your five photographs will display at different points in the day as the iGoogle theme changes dynamically over time. Your theme, with its five different states, will together form a portrait of your work and your aesthetic. There is no theme for entries, and we are interested in photographs from all disciplines, from portrait to fashion, documentary to abstract.

Rules

  • There is a limit of one entry per person.
  • Each entrant must submit five different images in the correct format as specified below.
  • All entrants must be higher education students, and use their academic email address to enter.
  • All entries must be submitted by 31st May.
  • All entries must abide by our Terms and Conditions.

Format

The images you submit will be turned into an iGoogle theme. The public vote and the judges will see the images as an iGoogle theme. We need to receive your images in the right format: this is really important, otherwise they will not work as a theme.

The iGoogle theme will look like this:

iGoogle

The themes span the top of the page, so you need to submit an image with a width of 1000px and a height of 175px.

The iGoogle logo search bar and links will cover some of the artwork, so you should avoid having the main subjects in these areas so that they are not obscured. Bear in mind that the position and size of iGoogle logo, searchbar and links will vary slightly between browsers, so exact position on artwork cannot be guaranteed.

You can use this Adobe Photoshop™ file to format your work correctly.

If you are selected as 1 of the 6 finalists we will be projecting your work at the the Saatchi Gallery London. To do this we will require high resolution versions of your photographs so please hold on to the original files.

Judging criteria

The entries will be judged according to the following criteria:

  • the technical, creative and artistic qualities of each of the five photographs that make up an Entry;
  • the coherence of the five photographs together as a theme; and
  • how creatively and originally the Student has engaged with the iGoogle format.

Tips

Don't forget to check out the iGoogle themes from famous artists that have already attempted the challenge at the iGoogle artists gallery. If you traditionally take portrait photographs, or a lot of the work in your portfolio is not in the current format then why not try one of these tips from some of our current theme creators to make the most of your images and the iGoogle format:

  • Yves Behar/fuseproject's Earth-light highlights the dynamic abilities of themes, as a daylight curve moves across a world map.
  • John Maeda's Simplicity is Complex consists of large tiles, without having a distinct center image.
  • Mark Frauenfelder's Adventures in Lollipopland shows how you can tile your images to fit different screen resolutions.
  • Troy Lee's Supermoto Mayhem uses a solid background color instead of tiling.
The Prizes

36 shortlisted entries will be turned into iGoogle themes, shown on Google and put to public vote.

6 finalists will be exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery London, and reviewed by our independent jury. The finalists will be invited to the private view of the exhibition on 23rd June 2009 (with travel and accommodation included).

1 winner will receive a £5,000 ($7500 USD) bursary and an invite to spend a day with Martin Parr.

See Competition Terms & Conditions for full details of the prizes.

The Jury