UCSC’s inaugural “Envisioning Health For All” student photography competition invites students from across campus to represent global and community health topics in ways that are also aimed to prompt reflection on achieving visions of health for all in communities both local and global. All UCSC undergraduates and graduate students are eligible and encouraged to participate and submit up to three photographs for consideration.
Each photograph should be submitted as an individual entry via the submission form. However, if your submission is part of a photo-series of up to three photos, please submit one form for all of them. Photo series are intended to be viewed together.
Students submitting winning photographs will receive a $500 cash prize.
Students will retain ownership of their photograph, however the Global and Community Health Program and UC Santa Cruz reserve the right to use submitted photographs in their promotional materials.
Deadline for submission is Friday, May 3rd, 2024.
Ethical Guidelines
When photographing people, you should:
⚠️ Obtain verbal consent from the person or people you wish to depict before you take the photograph.
⚠️ If you are taking pictures of children, obtain the verbal consent from their parents or guardians; if they are not present to consent, do not take the photo.
⚠️ Be especially careful when taking pictures of people who are receiving health care — respect their privacy, follow the photography rules of their health care facility.
⚠️ Potential participants of photos should be informed in advance, how photos will be used. They can cancel their participation at any time and if photos were taken, they would need to be destroyed.
✅ Respect the person you are depicting and treat that person with dignity. Be sure to show them your image to ensure they are comfortable with it.
✅ Be mindful of whether or not you are representing the person accurately and/or the community accurately.
✅ Be mindful of your intent in taking the photograph (e.g., are you taking it to document a situation, raise public awareness, capture something beautiful, tell a story, etc.)
❌ Do not take pictures of people, including children, when they are unclothed out of respect for their privacy.
❌ Do not take pictures of people when they are unconscious because they cannot provide their consent.
Please review some of the following video interviews to learn from UCSC’s Arts and Humanities experts about some of the opportunities and pitfalls to be thinking about as you create your photographs.
- Professor & Dean Alinder: On contextualizing photography & historicizing the right to the camera
- Professor Jim Clifford: On photography with people
- Professor Ricardo Gomez: On photography as a cue for personal story telling
- Professor Kat Gutierrez: On co-creative photography and the archive
- Dr. Rachel Nelson: On photography as a technology of domination and regulation
- Professor Dimitris Papadopoulos: On Photographic constructionism
- Professor Max Tomba: On the lessons of Walter Benjamin for photographic democratization
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can enter the competition?
All UCSC undergraduates and graduate students are eligible and encouraged to participate and submit up to three photographs for consideration.
How do I submit my photo(s)?
- Each contestant may submit up to three photos, by Friday, May 3rd, 2024.
- Students should submit their photographs as JPG files. Please upload your photo(s) via the submission form, in JPEG format. The image on the longest edge should be a minimum of 3000 pixels and a maximum of 6000 pixels.
- Older photos taken during any time in the past five years can be submitted, as well as new work designed specifically for this competition.
- Submissions must be made via the online submission form. Each photo will require a separate submission form. However, if you are submitting a photo series of up to three photos, please use one form only. Photo series are intended to be viewed together.
- As part of the submission form, you must also write a brief (100-300 word) caption to accompany each photo (or the three photos as a group). Ideal captions are comprised of two parts: (a) a short description of the subject of your image or art; and (b) a narrative reflection that summarizes the story that the photo helps tell.
- If there are identifiable subjects in your photos, you must acknowledge that you acquired their verbal consent as part of your submission.
What are the prizes?
A panel of esteemed judges will review the submissions in the Spring quarter 2024 at a special exhibition event in the UCSC library on Thursday, May 23, 2024. The 5 winners will receive $500 each.
What type of photographs can I submit?
- Submissions can be candid and documentary in style, posed and co-creative with the subjects they depict, or they can also be more abstract and aimed to amplify impressions or bioethical ideas. They can focus on community health issues in our local region, or more global topics, or some more complex mixture of both. In all cases, they should prompt careful reflection on either the obstacles to achieving visions of health for all or the possibilities.
- Photographs will be judged on their technical and artistic merits as well as their ability to effectively record and reflect on the opportunities and obstacles to envisioning health for all. Any size, media, color or black and white formats are welcome.
- Possible questions for inspiration:
- What does health look like to you?
- What is a critical health or health justice concern for you?
- How do health inequalities appear in the community or landscape?
- What or who influences the challenges to health you are focusing on?
- How can community and global health improvements best be envisioned?
- What does wellbeing, healing, resilience, repair or health justice look like to you?
What are the judging criteria for the competition?
Winning photographs will be selected by a panel of judges. Photographs will be judged on their technical, ethical and artistic merits as well as their ability to effectively convey a message that prompts careful reflection on either the obstacles to achieving visions of health for all or the possibilities.
What rights to my photograph(s) do I retain?
Students will retain ownership of their photograph, however the Global and Community Health Program and UC Santa Cruz reserve the right to use submitted photographs in their promotional materials.
I have a question not listed here, Who can I contact?
For more information, contact Heather Gardner at hagardne@ucsc.edu.
When is the submission deadline?
- The submission deadline for the 2024 contest is Friday, May 3rd, 2024.
Envisioning Health For All: The Global and Community Health Photography Contest
How to Apply
