Photography Scholarships are available from organizations and businesses to promote and financially assist well deserving students so they can achieve their career goals and positively affect the industry. Typically, with Photography Scholarships, you must showcase your work by sending in a portfolio, usually thematic, with an essay describing the images or answering any specific questions asked on the application. If you’re knowledgeable about photography and have a talent for capturing superior images than most, then applying to a few of these Photographic Scholarships might help ease the burden of high tuition payments. Additionally, winning scholarships will look good on resume’s to Photography Internships during college. Below are a few Photography Scholarships that might help pay for classes.
Golden Key International Honour Society
This organization will provide a $1,000 scholarship through their Golden Key Visual and Performing Arts Achievement Award to registered members. Becoming a member to Golden Key is by invitation only to students, sophomore and up, who perform in the top 15% academically at their college or university. There are tons of photography scholarships from specific colleges that you can apply for, yet performing in the top 15% (or maintaining a 3.7 GPA ) will open up the door to more scholarships so it’s definitely worthwhile getting into this organization. They ask that you send a portfolio (no more than 8 pieces) of photographic images or artwork uploaded to the site for consideration by the selection committee. They also accept performing art entries (dance, musical, vocal, etc) for consideration. Just upload a video or audio file of your performance making sure it’s no longer than 10 minutes to the website . They’ll only allow one entry per applicant for each category by March 1st.
Sigma Scholarship Contest
This Photography Scholarship comes from the Sigma Corporation of America (a maker of digital cameras, lenses, flashes and photographic accessories). They’ll award $5,000 to the winning applicant plus a $1,000 gift card for Sigma merchandise. This is open to all high school seniors pursuing photo-related degrees or certificates after graduating. They require an essay between 300 and 800 words and a selection of three to five thematic photographic images. The images should be creative, high quality and original with an essay giving an overview of the images while at the same time exhibiting your depth in knowledge of photography. After submitting your work, they offer the public to vote on who they think should win the contest.
Other Photography Scholarships
Another scholarship comes from the James Alan Cox Foundation . This is open to all high school and college students with separate awards for each. High school students selected will receive digital cameras and college or technical students will be awarded $2,500 toward their educational expenses. The Janie Moore Green Grant awards eligible students $1,000 toward education expenses of photographic-related fields. This grant comes from the North American Nature Photography Association which also offers its own set of scholarships (worth $1,500 to $2,500), but a $25 application fee is required from each applicant. The National Press Photographers Foundation offers a few different Photography Scholarships, mostly memorial awards, to college students who meet their criteria. This organization is dedicated to outstanding individuals pursuing careers in photojournalism by providing scholarships and fellowships with the help of tax deductible donations.
