Invitation to submit entries for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award – with even more valuable prizes

Leica Camera AG, Wetzlar, invites professional photographers and newcomers to the profession to submit their work for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2015 and has once again raised the value of the cash prize for the winner in the main category. For the first time, the winner will be presented with a cash prize of 25,000 euros and Leica M-System equipment (a camera and lens) valued at an additional 10,000 euros.

The entry forms and terms and conditions of entry are available now at www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com. Online applications will be accepted between 15 January and 1 March 2015.

In addition to the main category, there is also a newcomer prize for up-and-coming photographers aged 25 and under. The winner here will be presented with a cash prize of 5,000 euros and a Leica rangefinder camera and lens.

The winners will be chosen in a selection process by an international jury of experts. In their assessment of the entries, the jury members pay particular attention to the photographer’s unerring powers of observation and how they express the relationship between man and the environment in vivid form in a portfolio of up to twelve images. The best entries will be presented online from 1 April 2015. The awards will be presented in the course of the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie photographic festival held in Arles, in the south of France, from 6 to 12 July 2015. A special issue of LFI magazine presenting the winners and finalists and numerous illustrations of their works will be published to accompany the awards.

The Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2015 will also see the presentation of an audience award for a winner determined by voting online at www.i-shot-it.com, the online platform for photographic competitions. Voting begins in April 2015. The winner in this category will receive a cash prize of 2,500 euros. A prize draw for non-cash prizes of Leica compact cameras will also be held for all those who participated in the vote.

Leica Camera AG is an internationally operating, premium-segment manufacturer of cameras and sport optics products. The legendary status of the Leica brand is founded on a long tradition of excellence in the construction of lenses. And today, in combination with innovative technologies, Leica products continue to guarantee better pictures in all situations in the worlds of visualisation and perception. Leica Camera AG has its headquarters in Wetzlar, in the state of Hesse in Germany, and a second production site in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal. The company operates branch offices in England, France, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, Italy, Australia and the USA. New and innovative products have been the driving force behind the company’s positive development in recent years.