Event History
Travel Photographer of the Year was founded in 2003. At that time there were few other international photography competitions. We wanted to show that travel photography is much more than holiday snaps and pretty postcards. Travel photography, by its very nature, encompasses a wide range of genres and subjects, from landscape to food, from architecture to people and from reportage to wildlife. Travel photographers need to be able to take many types of images and work in diverse and changing light. As we started, Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) was run from our home, which was flooded by thousands and thousands of prints from around the world each year when the competition opened and from the very first year. Today, TPOTY is run from an office in the Suffolk countryside (England) which has a view to rival some of the images we receive. Nonetheless, we try to keep our friendly, personal touch. Each year it is our pleasure to receive amazing images from photographers around the world and to see the work of many of our entrants evolve over the years. We are thrilled to see how they take on the challenges of the competition each year.
What Makes this event different?
We are run by photographers for photographers. Past winners have received global media coverage for their photographic work, as well as some amazing prizes. This year’s portfolio categories are ‘Art of Travel’ (eight images), ‘People, & Cultures’ (four images), ‘Endangered Planet’ (four images), 'Thrills & Adventures (four images) and 'TAPSA Travel Documentaries' (five to ten images) and there are three single image One Shot categories, ‘Dawn to Dusk’, ‘Oceans, Seas, Rivers, Lakes’ and ‘Street Life’. The theme for the Young Travel Photographer of the Year award for photographers aged 18 and under is ‘My Journey’, while, for pictures taken on a smartphone or tablet, there is ‘iTravelled’. Our winners feature in our international exhibitions, including those at an iconic location in London, England.
Copyright Policy
We have a very strong stance on photographers' copyright - your images remain YOUR images!
Image Usage Rights
The submitted images are seen only by our judges. Our winning images are exhibited at our international exhibitions, published on our site and issued to media (with strict usage guidelines) to promote the results of the awards and our exhibitions and in our annual book of winning images. We also offer selected photographers the chance to participate in our merchandising programme - this is entirely optional, has no bearing on the results whatsoever and photographers in the programme receive royalties for their images. We police image usage by the media very carefully to ensure images we have issued are only used in connection with news stories or features about the awards, and if this has been abused we will pursue the publisher for a usage fee for the photographer.
Welcome to Travel Photographer of the Year. This is TPOTY’s 17th annual award.
The awards are supported by Fujifilm, The Royal Photographic Society, Swarovski Optik, Wildfoot Travel, TravelLight, Paramo clothing, Genesis Imaging, and Plastic Sandwich. For 2019 we have a prize pool worth some $40,000.
The annual award is more than just prizes (great though they are!): TPOTY offers superb exposure for photographers' work through media activities, photographer profiles and exhibitions.
The 2019 competition is open for entries with new category themes including a superb 'showcase' 8-image portfolio category and a chance to win a place on the Timothy Allen Photography Scholarship Award run by the 2013 Travel Photographer of the Year Timothy Allen, to join him at TAPSA 2020 in the United Arab Emirates. We also have a free-to-enter award for photographers aged 18 and under - Young Travel Photographer of the Year.
Why enter TPOTY?
It's a highly prestigious award to win - previous winners have seen their stock sales and commission soar (for professional or semi-professaional photographers) and photographers of all levels of experience and of all ages have seen their images showcased around the world.
The popularity of our exhibitions has grown. Over the last eight years the UK exhibitions alone have welcomed neary two million visitors! And the exhibition is now touring internationally.
You can learn much more about TPOTY and discover previous winner galleries, competition rules and guidelines by visiting the Event Website.
