The W. Eugene Smith Fund, the humanistic photography fund based in New York, USA, has announced it is establishing an annual Student Grant in photography. Open to all collegiate-level students (any student registered for a full-time degree, diploma or certificate program is eligible, on both undergraduate and graduate levels) in any field of study, the new grant encourages students to share photographs which promote social change, embrace new image-sharing technologies, and seeks to integrate the tradition of photography and social change with contemporary practice.
The annual $4,000 Grant can be used by the recipient to complete a work-in-progress. Students can apply online at SmithFund.org/StudentGrant. Applicants will be required to pay a $1.00 fee (U.S.) and include a copy of their student ID card to qualify.
“The Smith Fund is truly excited to add a new student grant for outstanding documentary photography in the name of W. Eugene Smith,” explains Lauren Wendle, president of the Smith Fund. “The grant provides a special category for collegiate-level students to submit their documentary photography and tell their stories.”
“The student grant was created to encourage students to utilize the photographic medium as a form of humanistic observation and social activism,” explains Stephen Frailey, Chair of the BFA Photography and Video Department at SVA in New York City, and Smith Fund board member who initiated the Student Grant. “In our self-absorbed culture, it is particularly important to renew the commitment to foster cultural dialogue through photography, and to embrace new technologies, image dissemination, and protocols borrowed from other aspects of our visual culture.”
Photographers, students, and other industry professionals interested in submitting applications for the 2018 grants (or interested in learning more about the grants and fellowship), should visit SmithFund.org. The deadline for submitting applications to all grants is May 31, 2018.
