Pursuing Residencies and Grants
Text and photo by: Annalise Kaylor
One of the challenging parts of being a full-time photographer is that work falls into a few different buckets. You have the work that pays the bills, and then the work that you invest in to hopefully land the better-paying opportunities. Whether your genre of photography is wildlife or otherwise, personal projects and original story ideas are one of the best ways to capture the attention of buyers, editors, gallery owners, designers, and anyone else whose radar upon which you’d like to land.
When you’re a working photographer, one of the biggest challenges is finding the time to hammer out a personal project. It’s easy to choose a paying job over a personal project, even when you know that a well-executed project can walk you more toward the “feast” than the “famine.”
We get a lot of emails about whether or not entering photo contests is a good way to gain exposure and get your name out there. Most of the time they are not, especially in today’s world of rights-grabbing. Some of them, like Wildlife Photographer of the Year, NANPA’s Showcase, Sony World Photography Awards can be career-boosting pursuits, but the competition is extraordinary and the work has to be next-level to even be considered a contender.
Over the years, though, many for-profit contests have popped up as a way for the business or organization to profit from the photos entered. There is little-to-no merit to the awards themselves in these cases, other than some digital bragging rights for social media to those who aren’t in the industry. To quote a photo editor friend of mine who has been a judge on virtually every major international photo contest, “Calling yourself an award-winning photographer is like saying you’re an air-breathing human being. Who hasn’t won some sort of award?”
While providing the advice that I should only market myself as “award-winning” if I ever received a nod from “one of the majors,” he also told me that a better, more serious option, was to start looking at residencies, grants, and fellowships. Instead of winning just on the basis of an image or a series, these competitive options are like photo competitions on steroids.
The major contests may boost your career a bit and maybe lead to something, but grants, residencies, and fellowships often provide you with a place to develop your personal project, get paid for it, and lead to longer-term relationships over the course of your photography career. Many of these opportunities provide you with a place to live while on-site, and often include a stipend for food and transportation. Some are all-inclusive, while others provide the bare minimum. Some will pair you with a local expert, such as a ranger or biologist, to help, while others give you carte blanche to pursue your project as you wish.
These are amazing opportunities, and it sounds like everyone should be pursuing these options, but it’s important to ask yourself if it is worth your time. The payoff of being awarded a grant, residency, or fellowship is high, but the effort to throw your hat in the ring is also quite high. They require a fair amount of research and materials (usually) and may not be the best option for every career goal.
You will have a much higher likelihood of success in these arenas if you’re approaching a topic or point-of-view that is unique to you - something that makes you the best person for this particular project. The work needs to match VERY well the type of work that the grant is designed to support, and you need to pitch yourself as THE best person to execute this project.
The first step is to find grants and residencies that are a match for you and the work you’d like to do. I’ve listed out some places to check out as starting points at the end of this article to get you thinking about the possibilities that you can create for yourself in the next year.
So what makes a good match? Well, the first place to look is the mission statement of the organization or the company supporting the grant/residency. Does it resonate with you? Does it align with some of the ideas you’ve had simmering in the background of your photography? Look at who has won in the past and who the judges have been. What kind of work seems to be supported most? Are there underlying themes to the work that speak to you as an artist, as well?
Read the rules and submission guidelines with care. The competition is fierce for these opportunities and most places will reject your proposal entirely if anything falls short of the requirements. Guidelines are going to be all over the place, depending on who is awarding the grant or residency, but most of them will require a written proposal of your project along with 10-25 photos of your work. Typically, proposal summaries are about 500-1000 words long and judges appreciate brevity and clarity. Whenever I’ve applied, I always, ALWAYS, hire a copy editor to review my submissions and make changes or suggestions. What we think is a clear, concise idea (because it’s been banging around inside our heads) is often not always as clear or concise as it could be.
Some grants, residencies, and fellowship awards prefer to support a project that is already started, while others want to support projects that have yet to begin. Almost all of them will want some element speaking to how you’ll promote or market your project once complete, as well.
Once you’ve found the grant or residency opportunity you think might be a fit, the best place to start is by writing the summary of your project first. Even if the proposal doesn’t require a summary, writing out a shortened version of your idea will help you gain clarity and suss out the most compelling and important points to make.
Longer proposals should address these four areas:
What is The Project?
From my own research and reading interviews on the topic, most judges prefer to receive this information in a straightforward manner and not via too colorful a story, unless there is a surprise or an unexpected twist that flips the idea on its head. When they are reading hundreds and hundreds of proposals, you want to stand out on the merit of your ideas and not because you were overly hyperbolic.
Why is This Important Now?
When you are explaining why the project is timely and important now, it’s helpful to explain the consequences of inaction or how the historical impact has made this a new topic in the present or how things will change. There needs to be some sort of “stakes” in any form of compelling storytelling, and proposals are no different. What are the stakes in the here and now and why do we need to know about them?
How Will You Accomplish the Goals of the Project?
In writing about how you’ll accomplish the project, you should provide an overview of your plans, and what you have already done with regard to this project. Use the work you’ve already done (research, interviews, what’s changed, the impact) to demonstrate that you’re an expert in this concept or idea and you know exactly how to best present this work because of your dedication and expertise. The judges for these proposals assume you are already technically proficient and therefore, focus intently on the concept in this description unless the technical aspects are so unusual they warrant some explanation.
What Will Result From Your Completion of this Project?
This area of the proposal is a good place to explain your plans for the work once it is finished. Is it a gallery show? Is an organization inviting you to present and speak about it? Do you have a magazine or editor willing to publish once it’s done? If you are working with an organization, this is a great place to disclose that relationship and explain how it will help get more eyes on your work and this project long-term. As a word of caution, make sure that any organization you are working with is also a good fit for the awarding entity. Nothing is worse than not doing your homework and suggesting to opposing groups collaborate.
I’ve previously written about the importance of sequencing your photos and I encourage you to revisit that before you choose your photo submissions for grants and residencies. The photos you submit here should be more experiential than informational. They don’t need to know that you saw something, they need to feel what you felt when you were in that moment. Take people on a journey with your work.
Your submission is only as good as your weakest photo. If you’re using lesser-quality images because they represent an important aspect of your idea, consider working that concept or info into the text portion of the submission and choosing better, stronger images instead. Quantity is not as important as quality here, and you do not have to submit the maximum number of images. Being a good self-editor is highly important.
Captions can be critical to the submission, too. When you write them in Lightroom or other editing software, they are embedded in the metadata. Write thorough captions even if they aren’t required, as they could be read and seen. Do not describe what is happening in the photo, but rather provide context to what is happening. Tell a story with each caption and think of each caption and image as part of a whole, which collectively creates a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end.
Other Considerations for Photography Grants and Residencies
Ensure that the project you have in mind is best done now, in this time. If it could have been done in the recent past, judges tend to be less inspired overall. If it’s an ongoing issue, try to approach the topic with a fresh idea or approach that no one else has considered or put forth. For example, climate change is a broad topic that is being covered everywhere. However, the impact of climate change in this one area and on this one specific keystone species and what that means for the rest of the area could be much more timely and important to get out there.
If the topic has been covered or shown many times over, what makes your take on the topic unique and important?
Think about the scope of your work. Are you biting off more than you can chew or is this a realistic amount of work? If you are pitching a project that is grand in scale, consider whether or not it would be better to go for one part of the bigger project for that specific opportunity instead of overwhelming the judges with a huge plan that feels too lofty and ambitious for the scope of the award. Consider the opposite if the scope feels niche or too narrow.
Opinions can be fatal in grant proposals. Avoid being didactic or pedagogical in your submission and focus on being engaging and allow your passion for the topic shine through.
Think long and hard about the title of the project. I personally loathe coming up with titles for my projects and work because I am not by nature someone who feels compelled to whimsy or the ethereality with my titles. I even argued once with curators of a show because I titled a photo of a swan that was curated into a gallery “Photo of a Mute Swan.” It was dry and boring and I understood their point that it lacked a certain magic (I mean, really, Annalise), but it was also quite on-brand for me. Titles, though, set expectations for projects, and successful titles usually pique interest while being specific. Complete thoughts tend to fair better than one or two-word titles that leave too much for interpretation.
Like anything in the creative world, feedback on your submission is important. Have a few non-photographer friends read your summary and then ask them to explain to you what your project is about. If they understand it, you’re heading in the right direction. If people seem to have different ideas about what’s happening or miss the mark in explaining it back to you, it’s time to revise the submission for more clarity.
Now that you know more about grants and residencies and how they can support your professional development or project ideas, take a look at the list below and see if any may be a good fit for the work you’re trying to accomplish. It’s worth noting that these are HIGHLY competitive programs and it’s not uncommon to be rejected a fair amount before one comes through.
I keep a printed copy of every rejection I’ve ever received and use it as my motivation. Every “no” is a step closer to a “yes,” and being rejected is part of our professional world.
Grants and Residencies to Explore for Your Photography
The below list is not exhaustive by any means but should give you a jumping-off point to explore what kind of grants, residencies, and opportunities are available for photographers looking to expand their reach. Some of them work with a specific demographic of artists (e.g., college-aged, emerging photographers, women, and Indigenous community members) but others are open for anyone to apply. Look at options with art councils or state organizations where you live, too, as many cities, states, and municipalities offer grants to artists across many mediums or project-specific grant opportunities.
National Endowment for the Arts Grants (multiple categories and options)
U.S. Forest Service Voices of the Wilderness Artist in Residence Program
The Alexia at Syracuse University
Blue Earth Fiscal Sponsorship at Center Advancing Photographic Arts
Lucie Foundation Scholarship (categories for emerging photographers and professional photographers)
Pulitzer Center Grants (many for climate change-related pieces)