Awards
New for 2023, Photo|Frome is pleased to offer Student Awards and an Open Book Call, both with prizes.
Student Awards
Photo|Frome is proud to launch our first Student Awards, with prizes sponsored by MPB, the largest global platform to buy, sell and trade used photo and video gear.
The Student Awards welcome projects of all genre and styles of photography, and any photographic processes that reflect the 2023 theme Decolonising Environments.
This explores the complex and often conflicting relationships between human communities, places, and the natural world. Encompassing a range of styles, subjects and genres, Photo|Frome invites photographers and audiences to contribute to discussions around the social and environmental impacts of longstanding political, cultural, and economic ideas about our world.
Two winners and one highly commended student will receive vouchers from the Student Awards sponsor MPB to spend on pre-loved photography or videography equipment on mpb.com. There is a first prize of a £500 voucher, a second prize of a £250 voucher, and a pre-degree winning student prize of a £250 voucher.
The overall winner, second prize winner, and the pre-degree student winner will be exhibited at Rook Lane Chapel, in the Café, for the duration of Photo|Frome 2023, alongside major national and international photographers. The exact format of presentation will be decided depending on the work submitted. All winners and runners-up will also be featured on the Photo|Frome website, mailings, and social media posts.
There is no fee to submit your work.
Awards will go to those who are working on photographic series and projects, not individual images.
Projects should all have been made, or significantly developed in 2022-23.
All entrants must be enrolled on a UK-based full- or part-time art and design programme in the academic year 2022-23.
All levels of study are welcome. There is a specific award for a student on a pre-degree level course.
The festival curatorial team will work with the winners on an individual basis to agree the number of images from the project, size and finish. We want the exact production methods to be appropriate for the work, and provide a good representation of the broader project or body of work. The award winners will need to work collaboratively and constructively with the festival curatorial team and outcomes will also be dependent on budgetary constraints as well as wall space at the exhibition venue.
Video / Audio-visual projects will be considered.
Photobooks cannot be considered for this award (please submit books to the Photo|Frome Book Award 2023 – see below).
MPB vouchers cannot be exchanged for cash.
Winners will be notified via email and must submit high-resolution files within the timeframe below. Failure to submit these and cooperate with the festival team will result in the award and prize being revoked.
Submission deadline 10 April.
Shortlisted photographers notified 24 April.
Winners notified 2 May.
High resolution files supplied to Photo|Frome by 8 May.
Festival Opening and Student Awards presentation 24 June.
Festival closes 12 July
Deadline is Monday, 10 April
Judges
Ian Howorth is a documentary photographer, based in Brighton, whose work deals with themes of identity and culture. He sold out his first book Arcadia in 2019 and will publish his second book in 2023, both through Sentanta Books. Ian is also In-house Photographer and Senior Content Producer for MPB, creating the product imagery used for advertising, social media and print.
Pelumi Odubanjo is a curator, researcher, and writer based in London. Her interests in contemporary art are cross-disciplinary, with a specific focus on contemporary photographic practices which informs both her work as a curator and researcher. Pelumi works with artists, archives, and cultural artefacts to create and explore dialogues across a global African diaspora to disentangle our understanding of archival practices.
Her writing on contemporary photography, art, and culture has appeared in Magnum Photos, New Contemporaries, Splash&Grab, Artillery Magazine, Photoworks, and Photo Fringe amongst others. Pelumi has worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Serpentine Galleries and has curated at festivals and institutions such as Photo50 for the London Art Fair, 2023; Photo Oxford, 2021; the Tate Exchange at Tate Modern, 2020; Brighton Photo Fringe, 2020; and the Black Cultural Archives, 2020.
Michelle Sank was born in South Africa and settled in the UK in 1987. She cites this background as informing her interest in sub-cultures and the exploration of contemporary social issues. Michelle’s photographs have been exhibited extensively in the UK, Europe, Australia and Mexico, South Africa and the U.S.A. Her imagery is held in the permanent collections of Allan Servais, Brussels, Open Eye Gallery Archive, Liverpool, Societe Jersiaise and Guernsey Museum, Channel Islands, Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, RAMM, Exeter and The Museum of Youth Culture, UK.
Michelle has won awards in numerous prestigious competitions including the Taylor Wessing Prize and the British Journal of Photography. She was a winner in The Portrait of Britain 2020 and Photo Review international, and is a recipient of the Rapid Response Fund, The Contemporary Arts Society for “Breathe” made during Covid for exhibition at The Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.
Mick Yates has been a photographer all of his life. He believes that life is always in motion, every moment creates a sense of place or personality. Having travelled and worked all over the world, his photography is informed by the view that we are more the same than we are different – yet differences reveal stories. Details matter. In 1999, Mick and his wife Ingrid founded a program building schools in the Khmer Rouge Reconciliation Areas of Cambodia, and he was a Trustee of Save the Children (USA). After decades in global business, working on 6 continents, Mick is now focused on photography.
He has published photobooks, and been both an exhibitor and a curator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS), and has an MA in Photography. He also holds an MSc in Consulting and Coaching for Change. Currently, Mick is a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds, Interdisciplinary Ethics Applied, working on both photographic ethics and data privacy. Mick is Chair of PhotoFrome CIC, and lead curator of the festival.
Open Book Call
As part of this year’s festival there will be a free to enter exhibition of photobooks, zines and printed publications. Submissions can be commercially published, unpublished, zines, dummies, or artists books – there are no restrictions in terms of format as long as they fit broadly within the idea of a photobook or a photo-zine.
Photo|Frome is looking forward to showcasing a range of work – local and international, diverse in subject matter, by students and professionals – that demonstrates the possibilities and potential of the photobook format.
Entries will be reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges, and will be exhibited at Frome Library throughout the festival (24 June to 12 July 2023).
The exhibition is open to photobooks concerned with any subject. There will be a cash award for the strongest submission that connects with the festival theme ‘Decolonising Environments’ and an Honourable Mention for diligence and innovation in sustainable photobook production and/or publishing.
Exposure: selected publications will be part of a public exhibition at Frome Library that will be seen by specialist audiences as well as enjoyed by the broader community.
Posterity: Photo|Frome aims to put all submissions into permanent library collections.
£500 cash award for the winning photobook.
An Honourable Mention for the publication that demonstrates diligence and innovation in sustainable photobook production and / or publishing.
Selected submissions will be featured on the Photo|Frome Instagram account and festival website.
Is there a fee? There is no fee to enter the award.
What happens to my book after the festival? We cannot return any books by post. Books that are not collected after the exhibition will be accessioned to the libraries of our partner colleges and will be used for educational purposes.
If you wish to collect your book, you will be able to do this after the festival from Frome Library, between 17 July – 4 August.
Can I sell copies of my book? Displayed books will not be available for sale. But your social media link and a link to where your work can be purchased will be available at the exhibition and online.
Can I submit more than one piece of work? Yes. You will need to complete a new online submission form for each entry.
Will everything that’s submitted be exhibited? The Photo|Frome curatorial team may choose not to exhibit submissions that are not deemed suitable for exhibition. Bearing in mind the public nature of the venue, it may not be possible to share all submissions. Photo|Frome will notify by email all photographers whose work features in the exhibition.
Can I submit an eBook? This year we are only able to receive and exhibit printed, hard-copy books and zines.
When should it have been made? There are no restrictions upon when you made or published your submission(s).
How do I submit? Please complete the online submission form by 15 May and post your book(s) (or deliver in person) to:
Photo|Frome Books. Frome Library. Justice Lane Frome BA11 1BE UK
Do not forget to address to ‘Photo|Frome Books’! Please write your name and the name of the book on the back of the packaging. Please use fully recyclable packaging.
15 May: Submission deadline. (You must complete the online submission form and post your book by this date.)
25 June: Exhibition Opens (Please see Frome Library opening times)
2 July: Book Award and Honourable Mention announced
15 July: Book Exhibition Ends
17 July – 4 August: Collect books
Deadline is Monday, 15 May
Judges
Tamsin Green is a visual artist and architect based in London with a passion for continuous learning, reflection and knowledge sharing. In 2021 she established manual.editions as a platform to publish her handmade books in an environmentally conscious way. Through her search for a more sustainable practice the ‘Sustainable Photobook Publishing (SPP) network’ was born, which she now hosts through manual.editions.
Amak Mahmoodian‘s work questions notions of identity and home, bridging a space between personal and political. Through her journey she explores the effects of exile and distance on memory, dreams and daily life. Working with images, poems, archives and videos, she looks for the lyrical reality frames in the photographs. Amak was born in Shiraz, Iran and lives in Bristol.
Christiane Monarchi is a founding co-editor of Hapax Magazine, which commissions photographic artists and curators to make new work specifically for this publication. She also founded the online platform Photomonitor, which published more than 1,400 features about photography online 2011-2022. Christiane served as Chair of the Board of Directors at Photofusion, London for four years, and currently serves on the steering committee of Fast Forward, Women in Photography and as a trustee of The Hyman Foundation.
Colin Pantall is a writer, lecturer and photographer based in Bath. He writes for a range of publications including Blind Magazine, Magnum Photos, The British Journal of Photography, and Source Magazine. Colin’s photography focusses on domestic environments and the family. He teaches on the Falmouth University Photography MA and runs independent workshops linking contemporary photography to global, historical, and theoretical perspectives.