The Alexia Foundation provides educational opportunities and cash grants to help students produce picture stories that further the Foundation's goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding. You are encouraged to consider stories that explore cultural understanding in or near you local community. While they do not discourage proposals on foreign topics, the judges give no extra weight to foreign topics, and indeed, think that you are more likely to complete a story near home than one abroad. They welcome proposals for still photography projects or for multimedia projects.
The Alexia Competition was not created with the purpose of rewarding the best picture takers - this is not a portfolio competition. The awards will go to students who can further cultural understanding by conceiving concise, focused, and meaningful story proposals. There is no mathematical formula for determining the winners, but the story proposal is the most important part of the application. All proposals are read and ranked by the judges before any portfolios are reviewed. When evaluating your portfolio, the judges consider your technical ability, your ability to work with your subjects and your style. The winning entries will be those that provide strong story proposals with portfolios that exhibit the photographic ability to execute a story at a high level.
Specific Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must be duly enrolled full-time students in an accredited college or university in the U.S. or abroad in a degree program at the time of application. Graduate and undergraduate students are eligible. No student who has completed more than three internships or a year of full-time professional experience is eligible.