SNAP YOUR SOLUTION!
Quick facts:
We'll start accepting contest entries Tuesday, May 10th at noon Central Time. All submissions must be received by 11:59 PM Central on October, 10, 2022.
To be eligible to win, you must be between the ages of 8-18.
To enter: Send your name, age, contact information, photo, and short essay of 150-300 words describing your image and its significance to info@kidizenship.com.
Contests will be judged in two age categories 8-12 and 13-18. 1st prize in each contest & category: $1000 | 2nd: $750 | 3rd: $500.
Images submitted should be JPEG, no smaller than 1MB and no larger than 5MB.
Please make sure to check our guidelines at the bottom of this page!
Kidizenship Contest #5 : SNAP YOUR SOLUTION!
What do you picture when you think of civic action?
Maybe it’s someone testifying at a town hall, standing up in front of a packed crowd to fight for something they believe in. Or maybe you imagine yourself giving a speech in your student council election, laying out your plans to improve your school. You might picture something as simple as helping an elderly neighbor cross the street.
For as long as cameras have existed, Americans have used them to document what civic action looks like AT THE GRASSROOTS. Some of our great national treasures are images of people engaging with their communities and making a difference in our democracy. These photos capture our country at its highs and its lows, highlighting our moments of unity as well as times of disarray.
Some photos capture moments of national pride as Americans band together in the face of a great threat. There’s the photo of former President George Bush rallying the nation after 9/11, giving a speech atop a pile of rubble with his arm around a first responder. It echoes another great American photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, of soldiers raising the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.
Photos can also preserve moments of American bravery: Orville Wright taking flight on the sandy beaches of Kitty Hawk. The sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists in a Black power salute from the winner’s podium at the 1968 Olympics.
Not every Iconic American photo captures something to be proud of; the camera can also show us at our worst. In July 1863, Timothy H. O’Sullivan photographed some of the 50,000-odd soldiers killed in the Battle of Gettysburg, his picture an endless horizon of American bodies, strewn across a grassy field. More recently, photos documented white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, carrying tiki torches to light the night as they spewed racist, hateful chants at their fellow Americans. These photos show what can happen in the absence of civics, the hate and horror that have always existed in the country and that civically minded Americans work to overcome.
Documenting civic action is a form of community engagement in itself. These photos have the power to commemorate civic engagement while inspiring the viewer to do the same in their own towns and schools. And here’s some good news: It’s never been easier to take a picture. Millions of Americans already carry phones with cameras in their pockets.
Kidizenship wants to see how you see civics playing out in your community! Snap Your Solution, our national photojournalism contest, will launch on May 9th and run through the summer. We’re inviting students ages 8 to 18 to submit a digital photo that best represents positive civic action in your community. Maybe it’s an artist painting a new mural, people participating in a town hall meeting, officials voting in your state legislature, volunteers working at a local food pantry, or even neighbors gathering to help each other out — wherever you see our democracy in action, snap a photo and send it our way along with a short description of 150 to 300 words about your picture.
Finalists will be announced on Oct. 10, and winners on Oct. 12.
And don’t forget: we’re offering prizes! First-place winners in each age group will receive $1000, second-place winners will receive $750, and third-place winners get $500. Winners will have the option to either keep their prize money or donate it to an organization of their choice.
These submissions will show us YOUR America, revealing important truths about the progress you're seeing — and helping to create — in your communities.
Snap Your Solution will accept submissions from May 9 through October 10. We have an amazing panel of expert photojournalists lined up to judge submissions, including Katherine Pomerantz, Director of Photography at TIME magazine, Sarahbeth Maney, a New York Times photojournalist in the Washington D.C. bureau. Joining the judges slate will be the official White House photographers from the two most recent presidential administrations: Shealah Craighead, who photographed President Trump over his four years in office, and Pete Souza, who documented Barack Obama’s eight years in office.
We can’t wait to see what you see.
Contest Rules
Please read these rules (the Rules) before submitting your photo(s) to Kidizenship’s Contest (the Contest). By participating in the Contest, you understand, acknowledge and unconditionally agree to abide by the following Rules:
CONTESTANT ELIGIBILITY
1. The Contest is open to amateur and aspiring photographers who reside in the United States.
2. Contestants must be between the ages of 8 and 18 years. Contestants under 18 years of age require the permission of a parent or guardian.
3. Employees of Kidizenship, and its subsidiaries and affiliates, and their immediate family
members (spouse, parent, child, sibling and their respective spouses, regardless of where they live) or persons living in the same households of such employees, whether or not related, are not eligible.
4. No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the Contest.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR PHOTOS
1. The Contest is open for online submissions only, through the Contest page available on Kidizenship.com.
2. Submissions will not be accepted once the deadline passes.
3. Photos submitted must be no more than 2000 pixels on each side. Photos should be no larger than 5MB. Photos must be in JPEG format.
4. You may submit up to three photos; each submission must be sent individually via email to info@kidizenship.com. No contestant is eligible to win more than one prize, even if she submits multiple photos.
5. You must provide a unique title for each photo submitted, along with a short essay of 150-300 words describing the significance of the photo.
6. Basic editing, including minor color enhancement, the use of light filters, and cropping of photos is acceptable, provided any such editing does not affect the authenticity and/or genuineness of the photos.
7. Advanced editing used to create illusions, deceptions and/or manipulations, and the adding and removing of significant elements within the frame is prohibited.
8. Any submission that is hateful, discriminatory, or advocates violence is strictly prohibited and will be immediately discarded. Kidizenship reserves the right to assess and disregard any submitted photo at its discretion.
9. Contestants who submit any such photos may be permanently banned, subject to Kidizenship’s discretion, from participating in any future contests.
THE JUDGING
1. Kidizenship shall appoint a panel of four judges for the Contest external to the organization who have experience in professional photojournalism.
2. The judging panel shall assess and determine the winning photos. The results and the winners will be announced on social media channels and the website.
3. The decisions of Kidizenship’s judging panel will be final and binding on all contestants.
4. Kidizenship reserves the right to call for original JPEG or RAW files with unchanged metadata for the purpose of authentication. A photo may be disregarded if this information cannot be provided.
THE PRIZES
1. Prizes will be awarded as follows:
a) Contestants will be eligible for prizes in two categories, ages 8-12 and ages 13-18. In each age group, $1000 will be awarded for first prize, $750 for second prize, $500 for third prize; contestants who tie for an award will divide the prize amounts evenly.
b) Contestants who do not win a prize will be paid a licensing fee of $100 for any photo that is
submitted to Kidizenship and published on its websites (kidizenship.com and watchusrise.com) and/or on the publishing platforms of its Partners.
2. Any federal, state and/or local taxes, fees and/or surcharges (including income tax) on any prize that may be awarded to you under the Contest will be solely paid by you.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
1. Kidizenship respects artists’ copyrights and copyrights shall remain vested with the contestant.
2. Winning contestants hereby grant Kidizenship a non-exclusive license to promote each submission in all media, including, but not limited to, the social media accounts of Kidizenship, Contest Judges and Partners and on the organization’s websites (Kidizenship.com and WatchUsRise.com). Kidizenship may also display the submissions at educational exhibitions organized by Kidizenship and in materials in print and online promoting Kidizenship and future youth civics contests. Kidizenship may sub-license the winning submissions to the press for reproduction in connection with the Contest. Winning submissions may be published on the platforms and social media channels of Kidizenship’s partners (eg. YMCA.org).
3. Kidizenship will not publish any submitted photo on any social media channel or any other media of any kind including but not limited to broadcast and print without the contestant’s consent. Consent shall be presumed by the contestant’s acceptance of a $100 licensing fee for any photo that is published by Kidizenship on its platforms (kidizenship.com and watchusrise.com) and/or the publishing platforms of its partners.
4. Submitted photos must be original, created and/or taken by the contestant. They must not contain any materials owned or controlled by a third party for which you have not obtained a license, must not infringe on the copyright, trademark, moral rights, rights of privacy/publicity or intellectual property rights of any person or entity.
5. The contestant will be credited wherever the photo is used.