Third Annual Juried Student Documentary Photography Contest

All undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the Moody College of Communication are permitted to submit entries, including all graduating seniors, part-time undergraduate students, and any students who have taken Moody courses in the last year. 

Requirements for submission:

• ​All photographs must be original and must have been captured using a digital DSLR or mirrorless camera between January 1, 2024 and the contest deadline February 10, 2025.   Photographs made prior to January 1, 2024 OR submitted to last year’s contest are ineligible. Photographs made using cell phone cameras are ineligible.
• Only 5 photographs may be submitted per student. Each photograph MUST have an AP style photo caption embedded in the photo file information.
• Any category of journalism and documentary photography will be accepted (spot news, portraiture, sports, feature photography, slice of life, pictorial and social issue documentary etc)
• Total folder size for each contestant should not exceed 25 MB uncompressed.

Step 1. Select and organize choosing single stand-alone images with diverse subject matter and aesthetic approach.  

Step 2. Open your images using Lightroom, Photoshop, Photomechanic or other software that allows you to write AP style caption information so that it is embedded in the IPTC metadata add your captions and make sure that you convert raw files or tiff files to .Jpeg files following specs below

• File type: .JPEG only  
• Image size: 3000 pixels minimum on the longer side.
• Image aspect ratio should be 3:2, the normal default for a DSLR if you crop an image you must crop it set this same aspect ratio.   Our photo matts cannot accommodate custom crops.

We recommend a Jpeg compression setting between 10-11 and not less than 9 (for Adobe Lightroom users, 100 on the compression slider is preferred, minimum is 90) 

• Resolutions 300 dpi minimum

 Do not upsize or interpolate your submissions. They will be unprintable.

Step 3. Name your still image files as follows

• 1st entry: Lastname_1.jpeg
• 2nd entry: Lastname_2.jpeg
• 3rd entry: Lastname_3.jpeg
• 4th entry: Lastname_4.jpeg
• 5th entry: Lastname_5.jpeg

Step 4. Once you have no more than 5 photographs captioned and named place them in a folder with your full name. Then compress the folder into a zip file and you are ready to upload using the box upload button.

REMINDER: Box will not accept your folder unless it is compressed into a zip file. Remember that the total size of your folder before you compress it should not exceed 100MB

All images must comply with NPPA ethics standards

The Annual Student Documentary Photography exhibition is a journalistic competition. Digital alteration, use of AI or deceptive modification of entry materials is strictly prohibited.  Except for portraiture, staging and re-creations are prohibited.

 AP style captions MUST be included with the images or the submission will be disqualified. Please do not include your name in the photo caption field.

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Single images will be selected for the exhibition based upon qualities that contribute to technical excellence including: effective use of light, use of depth of field, use of arrested or blurred motion, intentional focus, composition and vantage point.  

In addition images should strive to convey humanistic visual evidence and storytelling through capture of human emotion, effective expression of place, authentic human interaction or environmental portraiture, disruption of conventional tropes or stereotypes and effective use of AP style captions to provide context.

After selecting 20 outstanding images for the show the juror will also select

• A Best in Show scholarship winner:  $500.00
• Two Honorable Mention scholarships: $250.00

Pu Ying Huang is a UT Austin alumna who leads The Texas Tribune's photo team and is based in central Texas. Pu started working for the Tribune as a freelancer in 2017, chronicling Hurricane Harvey’s catastrophic flooding in Houston. Soon after, Pu moved to Bogotá, Colombia, where she honed her Spanish and created a moving body of work on the plight of migrants who have fled the decadelong economic and political crisis in Venezuela. During the tumultuous year of 2020, Pu photographed an encampment of asylum-seekers in Matamoros, Mexico, and protests in Houston that followed the murder of George Floyd. Her work has appeared in many outlets, including Reuters, Al Jazeera English, VICE, ProPublica, NBC News and NPR.

Deadline for Submissions: February 10, 2025

Accepted Exhibition Notification: March 1, 2025

Deadline for Accepted Exhibition Files: March 8, 2025