Commonwealth Youth Photography Competition 2026 – YOA

Deadline: June 8, 2026

Applications are open for the Commonwealth Youth Photography Competition 2026. The Commonwealth Youth Photography Competition is a celebration of younger expertise, international connection, and the pure world that binds us all.​

Organised by the Royal Commonwealth Society, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the City of London Youth Natural Environment Board, this competitors invites younger individuals from throughout the 56-nation Commonwealth household to share their imaginative and prescient by means of the lens.

​This yr’s theme, Waves of Change, invites you to discover our oceans and waterways: their majesty, their vulnerability, and the communities whose lives depend upon them. They are in search of photographs that transfer individuals. Images that inform tales phrases can’t.

Categories

Submit one unique {photograph} that responds to one of many foru Categories:

• ​Human–Ocean Connection – Personal, cultural, or ancestral ties to the ocean, together with Indigenous Peoples and native communities’ traditions and data, in addition to conventional stewardship of blue carbon ecosystems comparable to mangroves, seagrasses, and tidal marshes.
• Hope & Resilience – Stories of safety, regeneration, or group motion, notably from areas affected by sea degree rise, ocean acidification and warming, and efforts to construct a sustainable blue financial system.
• Threats & Challenges – Personal or group experiences of marine degradation, overfishing, marine air pollution (together with plastics), and biodiversity loss, and the carbon emissions from delivery that contribute to ocean warming and acidification, in addition to the destruction of blue carbon habitats.
• Innovative Solutions – Community-driven or scientific efforts to guard the ocean, together with coral reef restoration, marine protected areas, the High Seas Treaty, and the Global Plastics Treaty.

Eligibility

• Open to all younger individuals aged 18–30 who’re residents of or resident in, a Commonwealth nation.
• Whether you’re an skilled photographer or choosing up a digital camera for the primary time: your perspective issues.

Application

• STEP 1: Check you’re eligible. You have to be aged 18–30 and a citizen of or resident in a Commonwealth nation on the time of submission.
• STEP 2: Create your entry. Take {a photograph} that responds to one of many 4 Categories. Your picture have to be your personal work and never beforehand revealed or entered in one other competitors.
• STEP 3: Complete the entry type. Fill within the on-line entry type, add your picture, and inform them in not more than 300 phrases what your {photograph} means to you and the way it connects to your chosen class.
• STEP 4: Submit earlier than the deadline. Entries shut on 8 June 2026 (World Oceans Day). Late entries can’t be accepted.

Click here to apply

For extra data, go to Commonwealth Youth Photography Competition.