The Arab Culture Association announces it is opening the door for entries to its Photo Story Competition “Images of the Coast”, which is part of the activities arranged for ACA’s AlMadina Festival for Culture and the Arts next month. This would be the first edition after the festival’s experimental edition last year.
The Arab Culture Association (ACA) invites anyone who is interested in photography, or storytelling through photos, to submit their entries before the deadline of December 7th. After the judging committee’s evaluation of all the entries, the names of the winners will be announced during the festival, which will take place from December 17th until the 23rd.
The photo story entries should consist of 3 to 5 photos, revolving around the theme of the Palestinian coast, telling stories, or illustrating images happening on the Palestinian coast. Participants should send their submissions with a title and short text to apply@arabca.net, which will be posted on Instagram (arab_c_a). The competition will give out two valuable prizes: the judging committee’s prize “Best Photo Story”, and the “people’s choice” prize with the highest engagements.
This competition is the second of its kind after the “Home Isolation Diaries” Photo Story Competition, which was organized earlier in May 2020, where 53 participants submitted their entries and 5 won.
During the first competition, ACA published guidelines and recommendations from the judges, in order to help participants in the competition. Photographer and member of the judging committee Mohammad Badarneh believes that “producing a photo story requires a variation of the photographed materials from a photography angle, choosing wide and narrow frames, still and moving scenes, in addition to merging light.” Badarneh included that “the accompanying text is crucial and gives an important dimension to the viewer, yet the photo story should be clear and understood without the text.”
Mohammad Jabali, art teacher and member of the judging committee, considers “a successful photo story to be a series of photos and the visual storytelling relationship between them, more so than the quality and beauty of each individual photo. Sometimes we do not pay attention that the background, the objects, and the setting are important components for each story, especially a photo story. A complete story could have all the important components, yet a story is not complete without a connecting thread linking the photo and the story sequence.”
