Rules 2021

01. CONTEST

The cultural association dotART, based in Trieste, Italy, is organising the 12^th edition of URBAN Photo Awards contest.

02. THEMES AND SECTIONS

The contest is open to everybody and organised into four sections:

• Single Photos
• Projects & Portfolios
• URBAN Book Award
• Bruce Gilden Special Prize (new!)

Contestants can participate in more than one section at the same time. The general theme of the contest is Urban Life: Urban Photography. The theme delves into modernity through all kinds of photography set in the fabric of the city. At the heart of the contest is the City, the urban environment and the humanity living there: the everyday life of big cities and small towns, the contrasts and the contradictions between the city and the countryside, the aesthetic views, the architectural geometries, fragments of colour breaking up the greyness of the city. Real, immediate images, able to recount the City and its stories.

» SECTION #1 » SINGLE PHOTOS

This section is dedicated to single photos, which have to fall within one of the following thematic areas:

» New Buildings – Matrix4Design Prize
Prize offered by our partner Matrix4Design.
Photos representing some of the symbols of architecture that have helped change the look of the city over the past ten years. If you wish to enter, you will only have to add the category New Buildings (Matrix4Design prize) to the Single Photos running in the category SPACES. Pictures will be judged by Matrix4Design editor Andrea Boni , who will select a shortlist of the best photos and the Winner. Please add in the title the building’s name, the architect (if you know him/her) and the city.

» “Trieste Science+Fiction Festival” Prize
Prize offered by our partner Trieste Science + Fiction Festival.
Artistic photographs freely inspired by science fiction in our daily life. Space for creativity, post-production, photo editing, mixed media: alien planets, visions from the future, technological cities, spaceships, robots, parallel universes, time travel, everything related to science fiction imagery and the science fiction that our reality offers. If you wish to enter, you will only have to add the category Science+Fiction (Trieste Science+Fiction Festival Prize) to the Single Photos competing in the CREATIVE category. Pictures will be judged by Daniele Trani, Lorenzo del Porto and Daniele Braida, who will select the shortlist and the winning photo.

» SECTION #2 » PROJECTS & PORTFOLIOS

Contestants can submit sets of photos, linked to each other by a common trait. The sets can be in the form of photographic projects, thematic portfolios, series, reportages and storyboards (sequences of images telling a story).

» SECTION #3 » URBAN BOOK AWARD

URBAN Book Award is a new section, dedicated to extended projects, inspired by the theme Urban Life: Urban Photography. Authors can here compete with drafts of their own photographic books, in pdf format. The goal is to give the winning photographer the possibility to produce and promote their own authorial project internationally. It will be published as a paper book by dotART / URBAN and officially presented during the festival Trieste Photo Days 2021.
The new section URBAN Book Award is designed for photographers that feel the limit of 12 photos set for the Projects & Portfolio section as a restraint, and would like to submit extended projects (or larger versions of the same projects already competing in the Projects & Portfolio section).

» SECTION # 4 » BRUCE GILDEN SPECIAL PRIZE

Special section in honor of the president of the jury Bruce Gilden and his characteristic street photography. The section is open to street photography Projects / Portfolios / Series destined to be part of a prestigious photographic volume edited by Bruce Gilden himself. The volume will contain 7-8 portfolios selected by him, along with one of his unpublished projects, and will be presented in preview at Trieste Photo Days 2021. The selected projects will also be exhibited in a group exhibition, also as part of the festival.

03. ENTERING

The contest will start on March 1, 2021, and will end at midnight on May 31, 2021 CET.
To enter the contest, you will just have to fill in the online form in the User Area, to upload files and pay the submission fee. Users already registered in the past years can log in with the same data.

In the User Area you can upload, check, add or delete your Photos and/or Projects & Portfolios / Books, modify the titles and descriptions and manage the payment.

04. JURY

Entries will be selected by dotART and presented anonymously to a prestigious jury, chaired by Bruce Gilden. The other members of the jury will be soon defined.
The jury and dotART have the right to award more than one photo realised by the same author and to assign it to a different section if necessary. The decisions made by the jury are final.

05. TIMELINE

1 March – 31 May 2021
Registration open for Single Photos, Projects & Portfolios, Books

By the end of June 2021
The names of the Selected Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked). The photographers will have the chance to participate in summer exhibitions and previews as well.

By the middle of July 2021
The names of the Semi-finalist Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 100 single photos, 50 projects & portfolios and 20 Book Award volumes will be selected.

By the end of July 2021
The names of the Finalist Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 40 single photos, 20 projects & portfolios and 5 Book Award volumes will be selected.

By the middle of September 2021
The names of the Winner Photographs will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 12 single photos, 3 projects & portfolios and 1 Book Award volume (in this case, the winner).

Saturday 24 October 2021
The final ranking will be announced during Trieste Photo Days festival. The final ranking will then be published on URBAN website and Facebook page.

06. PRIZES AND RANKING

The total prize value is € 23,000. Prizes are divided as follows:

» SECTION #1 » SINGLE PHOTOS

» SECTION #2 » PROJECTS & PORTFOLIOS

» SECTION #3 » URBAN Book Award

» SECTION # 4 » BRUCE GILDEN SPECIAL AWARD

» URBAN 2021 BEST AUTHOR

* the invitation is valid only on October 29 and 30, 2021, for those who attend the prize-giving ceremony during the festival. Prize cannot be combined or redeemed otherwiseis.

07. PRIZES OFFERED BY OUR PARTNERS

» Exhibition in Poreč Museum, Croatia (€ 1,000 value)
1 ranked project from the “Projects & Portfolios” section – selected directly by the curators of the museum – will be displayed in Zavičajni muzej Poreštine, in Porec, Istria (Croatia), at the end of July 2021 (tourist peak averaging 120,000 people in the summer time). Moreover, the Museum will release an official certificate of exhibition. The selected author will also be awarded with a free 2 nights stay in Trieste to attend URBAN’s Award Ceremony at Trieste Photo Days 2021 festival.

» Exhibition in “Sartorio” Museum, Trieste, Italy (€ 2,000 value)
4 Semifinalists projects will be selected by a special jury and exhibited in October 2021 at the prestigious Civic Museum “Sartorio” of Trieste, during Trieste Photo Days festival. All selected authors will also be awarded with a free 2 nights stay in Trieste to attend URBAN’s Award Ceremony at Trieste Photo Days 2021 festival.

08. PRIZES: WINNERS EXHIBIT AND AWARD CEREMONY

The highest placing works with be published on the competition’s website and will be displayed in a collective exhibit on October 2021, in Trieste during Trieste Photo Days 2021 festival. The printing of the photos will be the responsibility of dotART. Some of the entered photos may in addition be selected for exhibits in Italy and abroad.

09. PRIZES: PUBLICATION

» URBAN website
A large selection of the ranked pictures will be published on the gallery page of this website.

» “URBAN unveils the City and its secrets – Vol. 07” photo book
The highest placing works will be admitted to the selection to realize the seventh edition of Urban unveils the City and its secrets. The photo book, edited in September, will be presented during Trieste Photo Days festival the last weekend of October, and distributed by Urban/dotART cultural association.

» Publication onmedia partner’s websites and magazines
TBA.

10. EXHIBIT / PREVIEWS

The best ranked pictures (usually, 30% of the Selected photos – see Art. 5) could be chosen for “travelling” exhibitions around the world in the context of dotART’s events (Trieste Photo Fringe / Photo Days Tour).

11. PAYMENT

You can pay in the User Area. We accept these payment methods:

• PayPal to paypal@dotart.it or www.paypal.me/dotart.
• Bank transfer to dotART – IBAN IT43F0306909606100000010209 / BIC/SWIFT Code: BCITITMM (please add text: “Urban 2021”. IMPORTANT: include the email used in the upload form)
• Payment by hand at dotART, Via S. Francesco 6 – 2nd floor, Trieste, Italy – by appointment (info@dotart.it or Tel. +39 040 3720617)

If you wish to pay by bank transfer you can make a single payment specifying “Contribution to Urban Photo Contest 2021 + section1 + Name + Email”.

12. COPYRIGHT

Each photographer maintains moral and intellectual property rights on their submitted works. Each author grants the dotART association the non-exclusive right to use the winning/selected images to promote/advertise the association’s non-profit activities, subject to official communication to the author (whose name will always be attributed to the work).

13. ACCEPTANCE OF THE RULES / MODEL RELEASE

By entering the competition, the Author accepts the present rules and declares that he/she is the owner of the intellectual property rights and of the rights of use of the submitted image and of any necessary release notes. Documentation of rights ownership must be presented to dotART upon request.

14. RIGHT TO CANCEL OR TO SUSPEND THE COMPETITION

If for any reason the Competition cannot be run as planned, due to infection by computer virus, bugs, worms, trojan horses, denial of service attacks, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other cause that corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of this Competition, dotART reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual(s) seen to have tampered with the entry process and/or to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Competition. If dotART elects to cancel or terminate the Competition, it will not retain any rights to the submitted photographs and it will return all entry fees.
dotART is not responsible for the cancellation or modification of the prizes offered by the partners.

01. CONTEST

The cultural association dotART, based in Trieste, Italy, is organising the 12^th edition of URBAN Photo Awards contest.

02. THEMES AND SECTIONS

The contest is open to everybody and organised into four sections:

• Single Photos
• Projects & Portfolios
• URBAN Book Award
• Bruce Gilden Special Prize (new!)

Contestants can participate in more than one section at the same time. The general theme of the contest is Urban Life: Urban Photography. The theme delves into modernity through all kinds of photography set in the fabric of the city. At the heart of the contest is the City, the urban environment and the humanity living there: the everyday life of big cities and small towns, the contrasts and the contradictions between the city and the countryside, the aesthetic views, the architectural geometries, fragments of colour breaking up the greyness of the city. Real, immediate images, able to recount the City and its stories.

» SECTION #1 » SINGLE PHOTOS

This section is dedicated to single photos, which have to fall within one of the following thematic areas:

» New Buildings – Matrix4Design Prize
Prize offered by our partner Matrix4Design.
Photos representing some of the symbols of architecture that have helped change the look of the city over the past ten years. If you wish to enter, you will only have to add the category New Buildings (Matrix4Design prize) to the Single Photos running in the category SPACES. Pictures will be judged by Matrix4Design editor Andrea Boni , who will select a shortlist of the best photos and the Winner. Please add in the title the building’s name, the architect (if you know him/her) and the city.

» “Trieste Science+Fiction Festival” Prize
Prize offered by our partner Trieste Science + Fiction Festival.
Artistic photographs freely inspired by science fiction in our daily life. Space for creativity, post-production, photo editing, mixed media: alien planets, visions from the future, technological cities, spaceships, robots, parallel universes, time travel, everything related to science fiction imagery and the science fiction that our reality offers. If you wish to enter, you will only have to add the category Science+Fiction (Trieste Science+Fiction Festival Prize) to the Single Photos competing in the CREATIVE category. Pictures will be judged by Daniele Trani, Lorenzo del Porto and Daniele Braida, who will select the shortlist and the winning photo.

» SECTION #2 » PROJECTS & PORTFOLIOS

Contestants can submit sets of photos, linked to each other by a common trait. The sets can be in the form of photographic projects, thematic portfolios, series, reportages and storyboards (sequences of images telling a story).

» SECTION #3 » URBAN BOOK AWARD

URBAN Book Award is a new section, dedicated to extended projects, inspired by the theme Urban Life: Urban Photography. Authors can here compete with drafts of their own photographic books, in pdf format. The goal is to give the winning photographer the possibility to produce and promote their own authorial project internationally. It will be published as a paper book by dotART / URBAN and officially presented during the festival Trieste Photo Days 2021.
The new section URBAN Book Award is designed for photographers that feel the limit of 12 photos set for the Projects & Portfolio section as a restraint, and would like to submit extended projects (or larger versions of the same projects already competing in the Projects & Portfolio section).

» SECTION # 4 » BRUCE GILDEN SPECIAL PRIZE

Special section in honor of the president of the jury Bruce Gilden and his characteristic street photography. The section is open to street photography Projects / Portfolios / Series destined to be part of a prestigious photographic volume edited by Bruce Gilden himself. The volume will contain 7-8 portfolios selected by him, along with one of his unpublished projects, and will be presented in preview at Trieste Photo Days 2021. The selected projects will also be exhibited in a group exhibition, also as part of the festival.

03. ENTERING

The contest will start on March 1, 2021, and will end at midnight on May 31, 2021 CET.
To enter the contest, you will just have to fill in the online form in the User Area, to upload files and pay the submission fee. Users already registered in the past years can log in with the same data.

In the User Area you can upload, check, add or delete your Photos and/or Projects & Portfolios / Books, modify the titles and descriptions and manage the payment.

04. JURY

Entries will be selected by dotART and presented anonymously to a prestigious jury, chaired by Bruce Gilden. The other members of the jury will be soon defined.
The jury and dotART have the right to award more than one photo realised by the same author and to assign it to a different section if necessary. The decisions made by the jury are final.

05. TIMELINE

1 March – 31 May 2021
Registration open for Single Photos, Projects & Portfolios, Books

By the end of June 2021
The names of the Selected Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked). The photographers will have the chance to participate in summer exhibitions and previews as well.

By the middle of July 2021
The names of the Semi-finalist Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 100 single photos, 50 projects & portfolios and 20 Book Award volumes will be selected.

By the end of July 2021
The names of the Finalist Photographers will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 40 single photos, 20 projects & portfolios and 5 Book Award volumes will be selected.

By the middle of September 2021
The names of the Winner Photographs will be published on the website in alphabetical order (not ranked): around 12 single photos, 3 projects & portfolios and 1 Book Award volume (in this case, the winner).

Saturday 24 October 2021
The final ranking will be announced during Trieste Photo Days festival. The final ranking will then be published on URBAN website and Facebook page.

06. PRIZES AND RANKING

The total prize value is € 23,000. Prizes are divided as follows:

» SECTION #1 » SINGLE PHOTOS

» SECTION #2 » PROJECTS & PORTFOLIOS

» SECTION #3 » URBAN Book Award

» SECTION # 4 » BRUCE GILDEN SPECIAL AWARD

» URBAN 2021 BEST AUTHOR

* the invitation is valid only on October 29 and 30, 2021, for those who attend the prize-giving ceremony during the festival. Prize cannot be combined or redeemed otherwiseis.

07. PRIZES OFFERED BY OUR PARTNERS

» Exhibition in Poreč Museum, Croatia (€ 1,000 value)
1 ranked project from the “Projects & Portfolios” section – selected directly by the curators of the museum – will be displayed in Zavičajni muzej Poreštine, in Porec, Istria (Croatia), at the end of July 2021 (tourist peak averaging 120,000 people in the summer time). Moreover, the Museum will release an official certificate of exhibition. The selected author will also be awarded with a free 2 nights stay in Trieste to attend URBAN’s Award Ceremony at Trieste Photo Days 2021 festival.

» Exhibition in “Sartorio” Museum, Trieste, Italy (€ 2,000 value)
4 Semifinalists projects will be selected by a special jury and exhibited in October 2021 at the prestigious Civic Museum “Sartorio” of Trieste, during Trieste Photo Days festival. All selected authors will also be awarded with a free 2 nights stay in Trieste to attend URBAN’s Award Ceremony at Trieste Photo Days 2021 festival.

08. PRIZES: WINNERS EXHIBIT AND AWARD CEREMONY

The highest placing works with be published on the competition’s website and will be displayed in a collective exhibit on October 2021, in Trieste during Trieste Photo Days 2021 festival. The printing of the photos will be the responsibility of dotART. Some of the entered photos may in addition be selected for exhibits in Italy and abroad.

09. PRIZES: PUBLICATION

» URBAN website
A large selection of the ranked pictures will be published on the gallery page of this website.

» “URBAN unveils the City and its secrets – Vol. 07” photo book
The highest placing works will be admitted to the selection to realize the seventh edition of Urban unveils the City and its secrets. The photo book, edited in September, will be presented during Trieste Photo Days festival the last weekend of October, and distributed by Urban/dotART cultural association.

» Publication onmedia partner’s websites and magazines
TBA.

10. EXHIBIT / PREVIEWS

The best ranked pictures (usually, 30% of the Selected photos – see Art. 5) could be chosen for “travelling” exhibitions around the world in the context of dotART’s events (Trieste Photo Fringe / Photo Days Tour).

11. PAYMENT

You can pay in the User Area. We accept these payment methods:

• PayPal to paypal@dotart.it or www.paypal.me/dotart.
• Bank transfer to dotART – IBAN IT43F0306909606100000010209 / BIC/SWIFT Code: BCITITMM (please add text: “Urban 2021”. IMPORTANT: include the email used in the upload form)
• Payment by hand at dotART, Via S. Francesco 6 – 2nd floor, Trieste, Italy – by appointment (info@dotart.it or Tel. +39 040 3720617)

If you wish to pay by bank transfer you can make a single payment specifying “Contribution to Urban Photo Contest 2021 + section1 + Name + Email”.

12. COPYRIGHT

Each photographer maintains moral and intellectual property rights on their submitted works. Each author grants the dotART association the non-exclusive right to use the winning/selected images to promote/advertise the association’s non-profit activities, subject to official communication to the author (whose name will always be attributed to the work).

13. ACCEPTANCE OF THE RULES / MODEL RELEASE

By entering the competition, the Author accepts the present rules and declares that he/she is the owner of the intellectual property rights and of the rights of use of the submitted image and of any necessary release notes. Documentation of rights ownership must be presented to dotART upon request.

14. RIGHT TO CANCEL OR TO SUSPEND THE COMPETITION

If for any reason the Competition cannot be run as planned, due to infection by computer virus, bugs, worms, trojan horses, denial of service attacks, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other cause that corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of this Competition, dotART reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual(s) seen to have tampered with the entry process and/or to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Competition. If dotART elects to cancel or terminate the Competition, it will not retain any rights to the submitted photographs and it will return all entry fees.
dotART is not responsible for the cancellation or modification of the prizes offered by the partners.