Photography grants for women photographers: funding, panel and how to apply

What photography grants for women funded, and how applications were judged

The grant was a small, self-funded, non-profit initiative open to international female and non-binary photographers, and it was awarded on two things: the strength of the visual portfolio, and the artist statement submitted with it. There was no interview stage and no requirement to be represented, which made it accessible to photographers without a gallery or an agency behind them.

Applications were reviewed by an independent panel of industry specialists drawn from a cross-section of disciplines and sectors — curators, editors, commissioners, art buyers and gallerists. That breadth is deliberate and it changes what wins: a panel of picture editors rewards a different kind of edit from a panel of curators, and a mixed panel tends to reward work that survives both readings.

The practical answer to how to apply was short: submit the portfolio, submit the statement, pay the fee, wait. The award was a minimum contribution of £1,000. Submissions carried an £8 application fee, with all of that funding going into the grant total rather than towards running costs, and discretionary fee waivers were available confidentially on request. The structure explains the size: this was a completion award assembled largely from the applicants themselves, not an institutional prize.

How to apply: the terms applicants agreed to

• Projects must have been started and shot within the previous five years.
• The work must be the applicant's own.
• The photography should follow a code of ethics, as set out by Photographers Without Borders.
• Professional or semi-professional photographers were recommended to apply.
• Late submissions were not accepted, and applications submitted without payment were not considered.
• The panel did not enter into correspondence about decisions or provide feedback on applications, and its decision was final.

Anyone working out how to apply to an award of this kind should read the conditions before the criteria: most photography grants disqualify more applications on a stated condition than on the quality of the work. The five-year rule is the one that most often disqualifies otherwise strong applications here. It exists because the grant funded completion rather than retrospection: a project shot fifteen years ago and never finished is a different proposition from one still in progress, and the award was designed for the second.

The 2021 panel that decided the documentary funding

The last published panel is a fair illustration of the mix the award aimed for — an editor, an artist and educator, a museum curator and a gallery curator, between them covering editorial, academic, institutional and exhibition readings of the same portfolio.

Max Fergusonphotographer, writer and curator

Founding editor of Splash & Grab, photo editor of Granta, director of photography at Port, and a freelance photo editor at the Financial Times Weekend Magazine. He lectures on the photojournalism and documentary photography courses at the London College of Communication.

Adama Delphine Fawunduartist and co-founder of MFON

Co-editor of MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora and assistant professor of visual arts at Columbia University. Her work is held by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Norton Museum of Art, the David C. Driskell Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo.

Karen Hellmancurator, J. Paul Getty Museum

Assistant curator in the department of photographs at the Getty in Los Angeles. Editor of Real/Ideal: Photography in Mid-Nineteenth-Century France, author of The Window in Photographs and co-author of Landscape in Photographs.

Mariama Attahcurator, Open Eye Gallery

A curator, writer and lecturer with a particular interest in overlooked visual histories. Previously assistant editor of Foam and curator of Photoworks, where she developed the Brighton Photo Biennial programme and was commissioning editor of the Photoworks Annual.