MPB Student Awards
Photo|Frome is pleased to again announce our Student Awards, supported by MPB – the largest global platform to buy, sell and trade used photo and video gear.
The MPB Student Awards welcomes projects of all genre and styles of photography, and any photographic processes, that reflect the 2025 theme: inEquality. Submissions may be a single photograph or a series which may have been taken over time. Images can be taken on any camera, including phones or non-lens based approaches. FREE to enter – deadline 20 January 2025.
The awards are open to any student currently enrolled in a UK-based education programme.
Judges are 1000 Words Editor In Chief, Tim Clark; MPB Content Marketing Manager, Amy Moore; curator and writer, Pelumi Odubanjo; and Photo|Frome Student Awards 2023 winner, Amin Yousefi. The panel is chaired by Mick Yates, Photo|Frome’s lead curator. (Full bios below.)
MPB is offering a range of valuable prizes:
- First prize is a £500 MPB voucher
- Second prize is a £250 MPB voucher
- A pre-degree winning prize of a £250 MPB voucher
- Two runner-up MPB vouchers of £125 each
Photo|Frome CIC will also offer a Frome Community £250 cash prize.
Winners and honourable mentions will be printed by Photo|Frome and exhibited at the April 2025 festival. Selected work will be featured in Photo|Frome online streams.
This year’s theme inEquality is informed by facts, and we hope it will encourage a wide range of distinctive and creative entries complementing the work of major international and national artists exhibiting across the festival.
- Despite rising living standards, economic inequality remains stark, with the wealthiest 1% owning about 45% of global wealth, compared to 33% in 1995.
- The UK gender pay gap was still over 13% in 2024.
- Life expectancy varies by 10 years between rich and poor areas of England.
- Globally, 108 million people today are displaced by conflict, compared to 33 million in the 1990s.
- In 2022, about 30 million were displaced by climate events, with the World Bank estimating that 200 million could be forced to migrate by 2050, fuelling immigration concerns.
- The Economist notes a continual decline in democracy across the globe. Though around half of the world’s population live in a democracy of some sort, only 8% reside in a full democracy, and almost 40% live in autocratic regimes.
Check out the winners, runners up and honourable mentions from the 2023 Student Awards .
Sophie Collins, Chief Marketing Officer, MPB commented:
“We are excited to continue our support for the Photo|Frome Student Awards, a platform that encourages and champions the next generation of photographers. This year’s theme, inEquality, resonates deeply with us at MPB, as we are committed to creating a more inclusive and accessible visual storytelling community.
“We look forward to seeing how students interpret this theme through their unique perspectives and diverse photographic skills, and are pleased to offer prizes that will enable the winners to expand their kit bags and help grow their creative journey.”
BE INSPIRED AND DON’T MISS THE DEADLINE OF 20 JANUARY!
- Valuable prizes of MPB vouchers.
- Have your work printed and displayed to a significant public audience.
- Be featured on Photo|Frome’s social media streams.
Is there a fee?
There is no fee to submit your work.
Who can enter?
The awards are open to any student currently enrolled in a UK-based education programme.
Copyright
All photographers retain full copyright in their own work, though grant Photo|Frome a non-exclusive licence to use submitted items as we judge appropriate in the execution of our programmes, including cropping to fit formats as appropriate.
Entries assume your agreement to our statement on artist rights.
Can I sell my work?
No. But contact details, website, and social media, etc, can be shared if alongside printed work at the exhibition if requested.
Can I submit more than one entry?
You may only submit one entry for consideration.
T&C / Data Protection
Please see Photo|Frome’s terms & conditions statement. Entrant’s email address will automatically be added to our mailing list unless we are specifically requested not to do so. Please also see Photo|Frome’s policy on the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence).
The submissions should be in JPG format, and take the form of a single image or short series (max 5). Initial submissions are with JPG files at 300 DPI and maximum of 2400px on the long side.
Each series will be reviewed as one entry, and should work as a group, thematically and aesthetically. Each entry should be accompanied by no more than 100 words about the work from the photographer.
Each image should be titled surname-photo title-location-year taken (e.g. Yates-Angkor-UnfinishedStories-2018). The order that any series is to be presented should clearly be indicated.
Judging is by the announced team. Decisions are final, and correspondence will be limited to winners, runners up and commended artists.
MPB Student Awards announced w/c 17 November.
Submissions close 20 January 2025.
Winners notified w/c 3 February 2025.
Winner hi-res, printable files submitted by 17 February 2025. Missing this deadline will mean winners will not be printed and exhibited.
The Photo|Frome team will install the work for exhibition during the festival (5–27 April 2025).
Deadline Monday, 20 January, 2025
ENTRIES CLOSED
Judges
Amy Moore is an experienced photographer, presenter, and producer who has spent over 12 years immersed in the photography world. She’s known for her warm and inclusive style, capturing everything from lifestyle moments to the beauty of nature, often using natural light to create images that tell authentic stories.
Beyond her photography work, Amy has shared her expertise through hundreds of videos on photography techniques and camera gear, offering guidance for photographers of all levels. She also serves as a judge for photography competitions, where she brings her passion for storytelling, her eye for detail, and her appreciation of diverse perspectives.
@amymoore_photo
MPB YouTube
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.
@pelumiodubanjo
Pelumi Odubanjo
Amin Yousefi won Photo|Frome’s inaugural Student Awards in 2023. He was born in 1996 in Abadan, Iran, and is a London-based writer, researcher, and image-based artist. He holds a Master’s degree in Documentary Photography from the University of Westminster. A native of Abadan in the province of Khuzestan, Iran’s most oil-rich region, and the scene of a bloody war with neighbouring Iraq, Amin produces work that examines the event of photography through the socio-political aspect of the medium. His primary concern lies in the implications of the archive, exploring violence against protests in the Middle East enacted and how the act of photography can conceptually mirror the structures of these relationships.
Amin’s work has been featured in several exhibitions and awards, including being named a 2024 Foam Talent Award winner. His project ‘Eyes Dazzle as They Search for the Truth’ was selected as a finalist for the 2022 Carte Blanche Awards at Paris Photo and was later exhibited with Ag Galerie at the 2023 Unseen Art Fair in Amsterdam. His work has also been showcased at the 2024 Belfast Photo Festival, the 2024 Athens Photo Festival, and the 2024 Kranj Photo Festival.
@aminyosefi
Amin Yousefi