POYi Competition
POYi’s worldwide competition sets the gold standard for excellence in documentary photography, photojournalism, visual editing, and online multimedia. Each year, more than 48,000 entered works are submitted to the contest by photojournalists from 71 nations who document the news events, social issues, and cultural trends. During three weeks of judging in February, a panel of 12 pr
estigious visual journalists serves as jury members during review at the University of Missouri. Category topics range from General News, to Sports, to Portrait, and to Issue Reporting in more than 40 categories. Premier categories honor Photographer of the Year portfolios and in-depth documentary projects. As an educational model, POYi conducts the contest in a transparent, open-judging format. The three-week review is set in a public forum, with live webcasting, that encourages discussion of the entries and the opportunity to hear both praise and criticism by the jury panel. Education & Awards Programs
POYi provides educational and career-development symposiums for photojournalists. Lectures, workshops, one-on-one mentoring, portfolio reviews target an in-depth study of visual journalism. In the past few years, POYi has held seminars in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, New Orleans, and San Francisco, among others. Visions of Excellence
POYi develops exhibitions in both print and digital formats that are displayed in public venues such as galleries, museums, libraries, and schools. The exhibitions extend the reach of photojournalists and offer the public a reflection of the news events, social issues, and cultural trends of the year. POYi also creates themed exhibition culled from the POYi Archive on topics such as the Presidency, the Olympics, and the African American experience. Among the larger venues, POYi exhibits have been displayed in the Newseum in Washington, D.C., the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, the International Photo Festival in Korea, the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, and the Louisiana State Museum for PhotoNOLA in New Orleans. Emerging Vision Incentive
POYi conducts an annual Emerging Vision Incentive program that provides $10,000 in funding for aspiring or early-career photojournalists to produce in-depth documentary projects that target a specific social issue facing our world. POYi Archive
The POYi Archive contains more then 38,000 photographs recognized as the best in photojournalism since 1944. The collection is a six-decade historical visual resource for many academic disciplines including history, the arts, anthropology, political science, journalism, and the social sciences. The archive database is accessible online for public education and research for class projects on history, culture, and lifestyle trends. Pictures of the Year International Archive depicts a range of topics of historical and social significance from the flag-raising at Iwo Jima to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Famous photographs in the collection are: Robert Jackson’s 1963 photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald as he is shot by Jack Ruby, Eddie Adams’ 1968 photograph of a Viet Cong prisoner being executed in the streets of Saigon, the 1948 photo of a victorious Harry Truman holding a newspaper that ironically reads “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Eisenhower receiving news that General MacArthur has been relieved of his command. Ellis Island immigrants. John F. Kennedy, Jr. saluting his father’s casket. The assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Student confrontations in the ‘60s. Segregation in the South. Classic images of the space program. The POYi Archive is a visual record that is unprecedented. The online images are presented as low-resolution photographs to respect the copyrights of the original photographers and/or news organizations. Individuals or organizations interested in republishing any of the images displayed on the POYi Archive website are urged to contact either the original photographer or the news organization.
