POYi judging begins in the morning. Live streaming returns through Adobe’s system with a lot more hours to be streamed than last year

Link: British Journal of Photography

The 2012 edition of the Sony World Photography Awards is just around the corner – coming to London in April. But, the World Photography Organisation has today announced its shortlisted photographers

The core determinant, for me, is whether objects were moved, people’s faces were changed, images were combined in a way that altered what anyone would have seen in the setting, or if things were removed from the frame

Link: LightBox

The Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund has made an exclusive announcement to LightBox disclosing the winners of its 2012 grants. The fund, which began in 2009, awards the annual prize to photographers from around the world who use their cameras to shed light on underserved issues and communities.

Lauren Greenfield won the prize for best director of a US documentary at the Sundance Film Festival for her film, “The Queen of Versailles.”

Link: Exposures

Thanks to all the photographers who took part in our annual Aperture Portfolio Prize contest this past year. Judges have gone through the submissions and after much deliberation, we’re pleased to announce the five finalists:

Lisa Lindvay

Andrew McConnell

Sarah Palmer

Louie Palu

Brunet Thibault

As I prepared pictures to submit to a contest I could not stop thinking that all these past years the main photo contests chose their winners from among the pictures depicting wars and conflicts. I think that this year will be the same, due to the many bloody events around the world.

British Journal of Photography

Eleven photographers have been selected as the winners of this year Masters Award with Jon Lowenstein and Christian Tagliavini respectively receiving the top honours in the editorial and fine art categories

The deadline for the Best Of Television Photojournalism contest is January 27, and the Best Of Still Photography, Photojournalism Editing, and Web Photojournalism contests’ deadline is February 3.

The National Press Photographers Association today made several significant announcements about its annual Best Of Photojournalism contest, including a reorganization of the competition as visual journalism moves into a new era. Along with a new and easier way to enter, there’s also some category revisions plus some new categories, and winners will be picked using a mixture of online and on-site judging.

Lacoste reportedly objected for political reasons to a project by finalist Larissa Sansour called “Nation Estate,” which was inspired by the recent Palestinian bid for nationhood at the United Nations. Lacoste said in a statement today that Sansour’s work did not fit the contest theme, and denies it excluded her for political reasons.

The 66th annual College Photographer of the Year awards were announced last month, selected from among more than fourteen thousand submissions. What kinds of careers can the talented young winners expect?

The International Street Photography Awards are now accepting submissions from street photographers around the world. Twenty esteemed judges are looking for photographs that display a unique style in this genre that crosses over into portraiture, documentary and fine art photography.

A photographer asked: “If cliches are so bad, why do so many of them win contests?”

Good question.

Single pictures shot in 2011 are eligible, as are picture stories that were finished or first published in this year. The deadline to register is January 6, 2012, while all submissions must be made by January 12, 2012. Winners will be announced on February 10, 2012.

Photographers Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams have been selected as nominees for the 2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, organised by The Photographers’ Gallery

Photographer Andrew Lichtenstein has received a grant of $20,000 from The Aftermath Project, an organization that supports documentary photography that tells post-conflict stories.

National Geographic’s My Montana contest features a pretty standard rights grab. It’s particularly sad to see National Geographic taking advantage of photographers in this way, especially since the organization has been so supportive of photography and photographers since the beginning of the craft