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What Makes this event different?
The ZEKE Awards is about visual storytelling and not about individual images. Six images on one theme is required to enter although submissions can include up to 30 images with no additional fee. Submissions are public on the SDN website at www.socialdocumentary.net for one year at no cost beyond submission fee.
Copyright Policy
Photographers retain copyright ownership to their images.
Image Usage Rights
SDN reserves the right to use in promotion and in ZEKE magazine.
ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography and ZEKE Award for Systemic Change
Each awardee will receive $2,500
Photo by Jan Banning. 2025 ZEKE Award for Systemic Change First-Place winner
ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography
The Social Documentary Network (SDN) awards one photographer the ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography and a $2,500 honoraria to recognize their success in documentary visual storytelling. Subject matter is open with an emphasis on themes that affect the global community. Jurors look at the quality of the photographic images and accompanying text and how well the combination adds to our understanding of the issue.
ZEKE Award for Systemic Change
SDN is proud to partner again with the Foundation for Systemic Change for the fourth year to award the ZEKE Award for Systemic Change. SDN will award one photographer a $2,500 honoraria and recognition of their outstanding visual stories documenting systemic changes leading to sustainable solutions to important issues affecting the world today. We are particularly interested in issues related to the threat to democracy, human rights, global health, climate change, migration and refugees, conflict, race and gender, reproductive rights, sustainable farming practices, and others. We look to photographers to educate us as to what issues are most pressing and the change that is being done. What is important is to show solutions and not only problems.
How to Enter
Entering the ZEKE Award is identical to creating a standard exhibit on the SDN website, except that it is flagged as an award entry for the jurors and you pay the submission fee while submitting your project. Visit the Event Website to learn hot to prepare and submit your work to SDN. When you are ready to enter, click the Enter Now button below.
Already a member of SDN and ready to enter?
Select Competition Entry as exhibit type.
Accepting entries online: October 15, 2025
Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2026
Entry Fee: $25
Up to 30 images can be submitted and all submissions include a free exhibit on the SDN website for one year.
Scholarships available. Visit: httpes://documentary.net/cms/2026-zeke-award-details#scholarships for details
Awards
Two First-Place Winners will receive
- $2,500 cash prize.
- Featured in ZEKE magazine
- Featured in The Guardian US online
- Exhibitions to be determined
- Featured in in SDN's email Spotlight sent to SDN's 8,500 members and on SDN's home page, Facebook, and Instagram feeds.
Honorable Mentions
- Presented in ZEKE magazine.
- Exhibition to be determined.
- Featured in in SDN's email Spotlight sent to SDN's 8,500 members and on SDN's home page, Facebook, and Instagram feeds.
Jurors
Barbara Ayotte
Communications Director for Social Documentary Network and Senior Editor of ZEKE Magazine. Senior Director of Strategic Communications at GBH.
Greig Cranna
Professional photographer and the founder and director of BRIDGE, a photography gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sarah Leen
Former Director of Photography for National Geographic Magazine and Partners and currently an independent photo editor.
Dewis Lewis
Owner and publisher, Dewi Lewis Publishing
Maggie Soladay
Senior Photography Editor at the Open Society Foundations in New York.
Link https://socialdocumentary.net/cms/2026-zeke-award-jurors for full biographies of jurors.
For more information about this call for entry, please visit the Event Website or click to APPLy.
