#SEARCAPhotoContest2026

Show us the people and systems that keep Southeast Asia's food nourishing, safe, accessible, resilient, and future-ready.

16 July–30 September 2026

Open to Southeast Asians

20th SEARCA Photo Contest (2026)

Food begins long before it reaches the plate. It moves through fields, waters, gardens, markets, kitchens, storage rooms, transport routes, laboratories, and community spaces. It is grown, handled, protected, moved, sold, prepared, and shared by many hands.

Themed "Food for All, Food for the Future," the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest invites Southeast Asian photographers to capture the people and systems that keep food nourishing, safe, accessible, resilient, and ready for the future.

This 20th edition marks a milestone in SEARCA's visual storytelling on agriculture and rural development. For two decades, the contest has shown the labor, beauty, urgency, and hope of agriculture across the region. This year, it asks a timely question: how do we ensure food for all today while building food systems fit for tomorrow?

What to Capture

For its milestone year, the contest calls on photographers to help tell Southeast Asia's food story—one that is rooted in people, carried by systems, and directed toward a future where safe, nutritious, and sustainable food is within everyone's reach.

Nourishing Families and Communities

Families and communities growing, preparing, and sharing nutritious food

Markets, Movement, and Access

Markets, transport systems, cooperatives, and vendors making food accessible

Safe Food, Healthy Lives

Safe food handling, processing, storage, packaging, and preparation

Innovation for Future Food Security

Innovations that improve how food is produced, processed, distributed, or monitored

Climate-Ready Food Systems

Climate-ready farming, fisheries, and food system practices

Women in Food and Agriculture

Women sustaining food systems as farmers, fishers, processors, vendors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and leaders

To spark inspiration, imagine:

A school garden supplying vegetables for children's meals.
A grandmother and grandchild preparing a traditional nutritious dish.
Women vendors arranging fresh produce in a wet market.
Farmers loading vegetables onto boats, trucks, motorcycles, carts, or bicycles.
A cooperative sorting, packing, or storing harvests for market.
Food handlers washing, checking, packaging, or processing produce safely.

Youth using mobile apps, sensors, drones, or other digital tools in farming.
Hydroponic, greenhouse, urban, or backyard food production systems.
Farmers using water-saving irrigation or climate-resilient crop varieties.
Women leading food enterprises, seed networks, cooperatives, or community gardens.
Families, schools, or communities sharing safe, healthy, locally produced food.

For two decades, SEARCA Photo Contest has shown the labor, beauty, urgency, and hope of agriculture across the region. This year, it asks a timely question: how do we ensure food for all today while building food systems fit for tomorrow?

Join Now

Submit by 30 September 2026

Guidelines and Mechanics

1. Eligibility

The 20th SEARCA Photo Contest is open to all Southeast Asian nationals, except SEARCA staff and their immediate family members.

2. Submission Period and Platform

Entries must be submitted through the official SEARCA Photo Contest website from 16 July to 30 September 2026, 11:59 p.m. (GMT+8).

3. Entry Specifications and Certification

A contestant can submit an unlimited number of entries as long as they meet the photo contest specifications.

Contestants must certify that:

They own the submitted photographs and allow SEARCA to use them, with proper credit, in knowledge products, advocacy materials, publications, exhibits, and digital platforms.
The photographs are original, have not won in previous contests, have not been published elsewhere, and have not been submitted to other contests during the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest period.
The same or similar photos submitted to past SEARCA photo contests will not be resubmitted.
The photos are real photographs and have not been digitally altered, manipulated, composited, or enhanced beyond basic cropping and minor adjustments that do not change the truthfulness of the image.
AI-generated images, AI-composited images, misleading staged images, and heavily manipulated photographs are not eligible.
In case the photograph contains an identifiable child/minor subject, the child's parent/guardian has given consent/permission (written or verbal) to use the photograph for the purposes deemed appropriate by SEARCA.

4. Photo Format Requirements

Entries must be digital, colored, in JPEG format, and at least 3,000 pixels wide for horizontal images or 3,000 pixels tall for vertical images at 300 dpi.

5. Entry Information Details

Each entry must include the following details in English:

Photographer's full name, age range, and sex at birth
Photographer's country of citizenship
Photographer's professional status
Brief description of the photo (maximum of 400 characters)
Sub-theme entered
Place where the photo was taken, including country
Complete date photo was taken

6. Judging Criteria

Photos will be judged based on:

Relevance to the theme and sub-theme	40%
Technical quality	30%
Impact, storytelling, authenticity, and public communication value	30%
TOTAL	100%

7. Evaluation Process

Entries will undergo the following evaluation process:

Initial screening by the SEARCA Photo Contest Secretariat
Shortlisting by selected SEARCA staff and scholars
Final judging by external experts
Selection of the SEARCA Center Director's Choice from among the finalists

8. Winner Notification

Winners will be notified by email. SEARCA may offer the prize to the next winning entry if a winner does not respond within two weeks.

9. Prize Claim Requirements and Remittance Guidelines

Winners will be asked to provide bank details for prize remittance. Certificates will be sent by mail or electronically.

Cash prize remittance will follow SEARCA administrative and financial guidelines.

Prizes and Award

First Prize

USD 1,000 and a Certificate

Second Prize

USD 800 and a Certificate

Third Prize

USD 500 and a Certificate

SEARCA Center Director's Choice

USD 500 and a Certificate

Submit Your Entries

Kindly read our guidelines before submitting your entry.
Fields marked with asterisk (*) are required.

1. Your entry

Browse Image*

Maximum file size: 8 MB; use English letters in filename.

Sub-theme *

View details here

Description*

Place taken*

Date taken*

Camera used*

2. Your profile

Enter your Profile ID

Enter your Profile ID to retrieve your saved information. If this is your first time submitting to 20th SEARCA Photo Contest (2026), please complete the form below. For returning participants, check your email for your Profile ID, sent after your first submission.

Or input your personal information

Name*

Address*

Email*

Online portfolio

Link to samples of your work.

How did you find out about the SEARCA Photo Contest?*

Are you a professional photographer?*

Yes No

Are you considered youth (18–35 years old)?*
Will be used in the judging of Best Youth Photographer award

Yes No

Photo of yourself*

Maximum file size: 500 KB

3. Certification

I certify that*:

I own the submitted photographs and allow SEARCA to use them, with proper credit, in knowledge products, advocacy materials, publications, exhibits, and digital platforms.
The photographs are original, have not won in previous contests, have not been published elsewhere, and have not been submitted to other contests during the 20th SEARCA Photo Contest period.
The same or similar photos submitted to past SEARCA photo contests will not be resubmitted.
The photos are real photographs and have not been digitally altered, manipulated, composited, or enhanced beyond basic cropping and minor adjustments that do not change the truthfulness of the image.
The submitted photographs are eligible for the contest and do not include AI-generated images, AI-composited images, misleading staged images, or heavily manipulated photographs.
In case this photograph contains an identifiable child/minor subject, the child's parent/guardian has given me consent/permission (written or verbal) to use the photograph for the purposes deemed appropriate by SEARCA.

If you encounter any problems, email us at fotos@searca.org.
Note: we do not disclose your personally identifiable information to any person or company except where you have given us permission to do so or if the law requires it. Learn more.