Student Focus

Student Focus is the global education programme created by WPO. Student Focus offers an international platform to support and connect the next generation of photographers. Throughout the year Student Focus also engages with academic institutions and organises talks, forums, exhibitions, symposiums, portfolio sessions and of course the largest programme of them all - the annual Student Focus competition. The 2014 competition is now open for entries! Click here for details on entering and join this growing network of students worldwide...

Above images: © Natalie Bothur

What's it like to be a Student Focus Finalist?

"Winning the first prize in the Student Focus competition really honoured me," says 2013 Overall Student Focus Winner Natalia Wiernik. "I'm really happy that my works can reach such a wide group of people. We really had a great time in London."

"It was great, wonderful, miraculous, marvelous, phenomenal, superb," says Wiernik's professor Agata Pankiewicz.

See this year's winning series here.

All finalists and their professors were flown to London by WPO for the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony and accompanying exhibition, talks, portfolio reviews and more.
See the Student Focus Highlights Gallery here.

With over 200 international institutions already participating, become part of the Student Focus community and join this rapidly growing global programme.

Are you a Tutor who would like to register your Academic Institution:

Your institution should teach a programme a formalised photography course/credit/module/foundation which is taught at higher educational level.

Are you a student aged 18 - 30 who would you like to nominate your Academic Institution:

Nominate Your Institution

To find out if your Academic Institution is already participating, see the list here.

THE COMPETITION:

The annual Student Focus competition is open to photography students between the ages of 18 - 30. Each year a new brief is chosen and students must shoot and select one photograph which best fulfills this brief. The chosen image is then submitted to the competition by the tutor.

From the submissions, a special WPO jury will select a shortlist of 10 images. The student photographers of these images will then be given a final brief from which the jury will select one winning institution. The winner will be announced at the annual Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony.

EDUCATORS:

Born out of discussion with 19 of Europe's leading photography professors alongside Virginia Morrison, Executive Director of Society for Photography Education, and photographer Tom Ang, the World Photography Organisation, in association with Sony, present a thought-provoking white paper on the future of photography education.

Click here for more information.