The professional photographers’ competition launched earlier this month by the African Union (AU) and European Union Mission to the AU is entering its final weeks.
Professional photographers from across Africa are invited to share their visions of beauty on the continent.
The deadline is 15th December.
Christophe Boulierac, press officer for the EU delegation to the African Union tells VOA the photo contest, entitled “African Beauty in all its States,” is part of the European Union contribution to the theme of the January African heads of state summit, which is "Towards Greater Unity and Integration through Shared Values.”
“This photo contest takes place in the context of the Africa-Europe Strategy Partnership, and what we are trying to do is promote an image of Africa, and the theme of this contest is “African Beauty in all its States.” We would like these photographers to send us photographs from their idea of beauty that is different from the cliché.”
Boulierac said the photographs should be able to provide an original angle and illustrate beauty in a modern Africa.
“As I told you, we have nothing against cliché, but Africa is not about beautiful landscape and beautiful nature. It’s also about beautiful initiatives of people, the people who are trying to help their communities, the people who are trying to contribute to the development of their communities and of their countries. It could a fashion designer; it could be some association in a city of Africa that is training children in a computer class. There is a lot happening in Africa and this is what we would like to promote,” Boulierac said.
He said contest participants must be professional photographers living and working permanently in Africa.
“This is important for us that the photographers live permanently in Africa because we would like to have this conception of beauty expressed by professional photographers – European or African – who live permanently in Africa,” Boulierac said.
Boulierac said the contest is limited to professional photographers living and working in Africa because the organizers also want to help African professional photographers.
He said five finalists will be selected one from each of the five regions of Africa – North, South, East, West and Central – and an overall grand prize winner will be selected.
“The winner will receive a prize worth 3,000 Euros, actually photographic equipment worth 3,000 Euros, and each of the four winners will receive 1,000 Euros each. On top of that, we will buy plane tickets for the five professional photographers to Addis Ababa, and we would like organize a three or four-day photographic workshop with them, and this workshop will aim at helping them in their daily practice of photography. It’s not always easy to be a professional photographer in Africa,” Boulierac said.
He said the winning photos will also be displayed at an exhibition during the 16th AU Summit in January.
