Last year’s winning photo showed how collaboration can create change in the fight against climate change. This year, we are once again putting the spotlight on powerful images that can tell a story.
Last year, Simon Sticker’s photo for Dreamtown was named Photo of the Year. The photo was taken at the Nairobi River, where members of Komb Green Solutions work together to clean up the river and reduce the risk of flooding. A single photo can thus tell a big story. About people standing together, about resistance and change, and about the everyday work taking place around the world.
CISU’s 2026 photography competition is now open, and we very much hope you will dig out your best photos and share them with us. The photo does not have to be new or taken in 2026. It simply has to be a good photo that has not previously been submitted to CISU’s photography competition.
New this year: The Audience Award
This year, the photography competition has an additional award. Photos submitted before CISU’s Folk High School Weekend will be exhibited at the event, where participants will vote for their favourite.
The winner of the Audience Award will receive DKK 5,000, have their photo featured on CISU’s annual poster, and receive a special travelling trophy.
And the competition does not end at the Folk High School Weekend. Photos can still be submitted until the final deadline on 1 November 2026.
Four categories
Legitimacy
Who gets heard, who gets a voice and influence, and how do people and communities create change themselves?
Community
Photos of people standing together, collaborating, organising and creating something together.
Courage and resistance
Photos of people and communities speaking up, organising or standing their ground when something is at stake.
Everyday life
The small and big moments where change happens: in everyday life, in organisations and between people.
From four categories to one winner
Once the final deadline has passed, a jury will select one winner in each category. The four category winners will go on to the grand final and will also have their photo featured on a CISU annual poster.
On 1 December, CISU Photo of the Year 2026 will be selected from the four category winners.
The overall winner will receive DKK 10,000, which must be used to support the member organisation’s work. The winning photo will also appear on the front cover of CISU’s 2026 annual report.
How to enter
If you want your photo to be considered for the Audience Award at CISU’s Folk High School Weekend, it must be submitted by midnight on 27 September 2026.
The final deadline is midnight on 1 November 2026.
All CISU member organisations can submit photos in all four categories, and you are welcome to submit more than one photo. The photos do not have to have been taken in 2026, but they must not have been submitted to CISU’s photography competition previously.
Remember rights and consent
It is the responsibility of the member organisation to ensure that it has the right to use and share the photo, and that relevant consent has been obtained from people featured in the photo where necessary.
We encourage you to be respectful towards the people featured in the photos and to avoid exposing or portraying anyone in a degrading way. Consider whether the people in the photo themselves would feel comfortable with the photo being shown publicly.
By submitting a photo, you accept that CISU may use it in connection with the photography competition and to illustrate the work of its member organisations in CISU’s communications.
If CISU may not use the photo in contexts other than the photography competition, please indicate this when submitting the photo.
We look forward to seeing the stories you want to tell through a photo!