THE JAMES ALAN COX FOUNDATION FOR STUDENT PHOTOJOURNALISTS

Type of Awards:

• Five (5) Digital Cameras will be awarded to five (5) high school students. (High school applicants should only submit still photographs. The video awards are for college and graduate students only.)
• Five (5) $2,500 scholarships will be awarded to five (5) college or technical school students, payable to their school. Four awards will be for video work while one will be for still photography.
• Starting in 2013, one (1) $2,500 scholarship will be awarded to one (1) graduate student, payable to their school, for video work.

Focus of work and entries: PHOTOJOURNALISM. (Please see the 2018 or previous years’ scholarship recipients to view examples of winning photographs and videos.)  Scholarships will be awarded to those students whose videos or photographs “tell a story”.  This is a fairly broad topic and may include a variety of subject matter and approaches (breaking news, sporting events, etc.) In terms of still photography, the five images you submit may be in the form of stand-alone images or a sequence of images. Please keep in mind that we are not looking for “art” photography.  Again, we are looking for photojournalism – or “stories.”  Your towns and cities are filled with them:  families greeting soldiers returning from war zones, doctors and nurses saving lives, church members helping others while on mission trips, 4th of July and Memorial Day parades with veterans of wars past, fire fighters and policemen performing heroically, heart-warming rescues of family pets, a young person helping an older person cross a street, a resident returning to a home that had been severely damaged by a natural disaster.  Human-interest stories told in photographs can be understood without the need for words.  How does the image make you feel?  Is there humor in the pictures?  Is there movement?  We are asking you to do a lot with this application – write an essay and send us your transcript and recommendations – so please don’t ruin your chances of being considered by submitting pictures taken of flowers, glamour shots or kittens – no matter how adorable they may be.  Good luck!

Scholarship applications must be submitted between July 15, 2019 and Midnight, the Evening of November 15th, 2019.

Scholarships will be announced and awarded in early to mid-December.

Application Requirements and Forms:

Please click on the highlighted lines below to access the various forms. (You may also use this as a checklist for completing your application.)
YOU MUST COMPLETE AND SUBMIT EACH FORM TO BE ELIGIBLE.

• Application Form
• Brief Essay
• Teacher Mentor Form
• 2 Letters of Reference
• School Transcript
• Financial Data
• Portfolio:
  • High school applicants should only submit still photographs. The video awards are for college and graduate students only
  • five (5) digital images for still photography submissions
  • two (2) videos, with a maximum duration of 3 minutes each, for video submissions
• Parental Release Form for high school students (or those under 18)

Important Notes:

• All submissions must be via the internet. We will not accept applications by mail.
• Label all files that will be submitted/e-mailed with the applicant’s name.
• The applicant must be a United States citizen.
• The applicant’s school must be in the United States.
• The scholarship award must be used at the beginning of the next semester.
  Otherwise it will be forfeited and given to an alternate.
• A student may only receive one James Alan Cox Foundation scholarship in a given year.
• Note: Parental approval is required for students under 18. Please see accompanying form.

Digital Entry Rules: Please enter only 5 (five) images. Each image should be jpeg file format with a maximum of 2500 pixels on the longer side and 4 MB file size. Images should be at monitor resolution. Photos submitted must be an honest representation of what happened in front of the camera during exposure. You may, if needed, post-process the images electronically — but only in accordance with good practice. This may include cropping, color correction, etc. Post-processing, however, must preserve the image’s original expression.

Video Entry Rules: Please enter only two (2) videos. Videos should be no more than 20 MB file size. Videos may be in these formats: .mpg, .avi, .mov, .wmv, .mpeg, .mp4, .divx.
Mac users: please make sure all file names have the proper file extensions.

THERE IS NO ENTRY FEE.