Submissions are invited for Where We Are: A Photo Essay Contest for Exploring Community by New York Times. The last date of submission is January 15, 2025.
About NYT
The New York Times (NYT) is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. The New York Times covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the Times serves as one of the country’s newspapers of record. As of 2023, The New York Times is the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, with 296,330 print subscribers.
Contest Details
Inspired by the immersive New York Times series “Where We Are,” which focuses on young people and the spaces where they create community, we invite students to work alone or with others to make photo essays about the communities that interest them.
You can document any kind of offline community you like and feature people of any age.
Your photo essay must include:
- Six to eight photographs.
- A description of no more than 75 words for each image.
- A brief introduction of upto 300 words.
- At least one quote from a community member.
Contest Rules
- Find, interview and photograph any offline community of your choice.
- This contest is open to students ages 13 to19 in middle or high school anywhere in the world.
- Your work must be original for this contest.
Prize
Having your work published on The Learning Network and being eligible to be chosen to have your work published in the print editions of The New York Times.
How to Submit?
Interested students can submit online via this link.
Submission Deadline
The last date of submission is January 15, 2025.
Contact
Email: LNFeedback[at]nytimes[dot]com
FAQs
What is a photo essay? How does it differ from just a collection of photos?
A photo essay tells a story through a series of images. These images work together and build on each other to explore a theme of some kind. The photo essays in the Where We Are series, for instance, focus on the themes of community and coming-of-age, but each through a different lens.
What, exactly, is a “community”?
Oxford Languages defines community as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” But for the purposes of this contest we suggest you narrow your lens a bit, and think of community as a group of people who meaningfully interact offline in some way.
