Your Open Call questions

Street and documentary photography, in the widest sense: street observation, documentary practice, portraiture, political witness. You submit your own photographs, from one to fifteen images. Every photograph is in the running for the cash prize, and from nine images your set can also enter for the book, read as a single body of work.

You make one entry, from one to fifteen photographs. By default each image stands on its own, with its own caption, and every photograph is in the running for the cash prize. If you feel your photographs work together as a project, from nine images you can candidate them for the book: you turn on that option in the submission page, and your entry is then read as a single body of work. When you do, the per-image captions make way for a project title and a short statement, and your set enters for a fully funded Eyeshot book. You upload your photographs, review them, and pay only at the end.

No. Once an entry is submitted it is final, and photographs cannot be replaced, added, or removed. A call stays open for months and the jury reads what was sent, so this is what keeps every entry on the same terms. If your work develops while a call is open, you can enter the newer photographs as a further submission with the usual fee.

JPEG files, with the long edge at least 2500 pixels and up to 5 MB each, in the sRGB colour profile. You upload your photographs and review them before you send. Print-resolution originals are requested only from the finalists, later on.

Every entry must be made with a camera. AI-generated or synthetic images are not accepted, and generative tools that invent or replace parts of an image, such as generative fill or AI upscalers, are not allowed. Ordinary adjustments to tone and colour are fine, but you may not add, move, or remove people or objects from the frame, and the photograph must show the scene as you saw it.

Yes. Work that has already been published, exhibited, printed in a book, or entered in other competitions is welcome. What matters is the quality and coherence of the work; the only condition is that the photographs are your own.

The Open Call is open to photographers of any age (under 18 with a parent or guardian’s consent), nationality, and career stage, working in street or documentary photography. Emerging and established photographers are equally welcome. No previous publication is required.

The fee depends on how many photographs you enter and on where you live: from 18 euro for a single image up to 60 euro for fifteen, at the standard rate. Fees are reduced by country to keep the call open to everyone, students take part for free, and a hardship waiver is available. Your fee is shown clearly before you pay, and payment comes only at the end. Once your entry is submitted, the fee is non-refundable.

To keep the Open Call open to everyone, your fee depends on your country of residence, and it is applied automatically when you enter. Most countries pay the standard fee; the countries below pay a reduced fee, at one third or two thirds of it. As an example, a single image is 18 euro at the standard fee, 12 at two thirds, and 6 at one third.

Fee reduced to one third: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Micronesia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Fee reduced to two thirds: Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Cabo Verde, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gabon, Georgia, Grenada, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Serbia, South Africa, Suriname, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Ukraine, Venezuela.

Standard fee: all other countries.

Yes. Students can submit for free with a valid student ID. The submission form includes a specific entry path for students; you’ll be asked to upload proof of current student status (a valid student card or an enrolment certificate from your institution). The free student route covers one entry per person. A further body of work is entered with the ordinary fee.

Yes. If the fee is out of reach, you can request free participation from within the submission form: choose the hardship path, tell us your situation, and upload a document that supports it. We review each request personally, and if it is approved we email you a single-use code to take part for free.

Each edition is read by an independent jury of seven international voices in street and documentary photography: photographers, editors, and curators. The 2026 jury is on the Open Call 2026 page, and you can see everyone who has read the work across the editions on the Past Jurors page.

Every entry is read by our jury of seven, anonymously, without the author’s name. The work is read for what it is: its visual language, the coherence of a body of work, and its place in street and documentary photography today.

Selection results are announced in October 2026, after the submission window closes. All participants are notified by email; finalists and winners are also announced publicly on the Eyeshot website and on social media.

Single photographs are in the running for cash prizes of one thousand, five hundred, and two hundred and fifty euro. The best bodies of work are offered a book, a monograph produced end to end by Eyeshot, edited, sequenced, printed, distributed, and promoted, at no cost to the author. How many books are made each year depends on the work. And every finalist, single images included, is published in the printed hardcover magazine of the edition.

Each edition becomes a printed hardcover magazine, designed and produced in Italy by Eyeshot. It gathers the awarded works and every finalist, single images and series alike, with an editorial introduction by Marco Savarese. It is part of the Eyeshot magazine collection, sold worldwide.

You keep full copyright. By submitting, you grant Eyeshot a non-exclusive licence to reproduce the selected images for the Open Call: publication in the magazine issue and editorial use on Eyeshot’s website and channels to present the edition. Nothing beyond that.

Yes. You retain all the rights over your photographs. Eyeshot’s use is limited to the editorial context of the Open Call program. You can continue to publish, exhibit, sell, or license your work freely, without restrictions tied to your Open Call participation.

Open Call 2026, the fifth edition, closed on 14 September 2026, at 12:00 noon Rome time (CEST, UTC+2). The jury is reading, and the results are announced by the end of October 2026. The edition is on the Open Call 2026 page. Future editions are announced on the Open Call page and through our newsletter.

An edition runs over a few months. Open Call 2026 opened on 3 July, submissions stayed open until 14 September at noon, Rome time, the jury reads the work through September and October, and the results are announced by the end of October. The printed magazine follows in the months after.

Yes. Professional Reviews can be booked at any time of the year. During the Open Call period, the review is still booked normally, but delivery is postponed until the jury process is complete and winners are announced.

This protects the independence of the Open Call: Marco Savarese sits on the jury each year, and we do not want a Professional Review to influence, or appear to influence, the selection. The delivery date is communicated at booking. See the Professional Review page for full details.