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THE JAMES ALAN COX FOUNDATION FOR STUDENT PHOTOJOURNALISTS
Type of Awards:
- Five (5) $2,500 scholarships will be awarded to five (5) college or technical school students, payable to their school. Four awards will be for video work while one will be for still photography.
- One (1) $2,500 scholarship will be awarded to one (1) graduate student, payable to their school, for video work.
- Five (5) Digital SLR Cameras will be awarded to five (5) high school students. (High school applicants should only submit still photographs. The video awards are for college and graduate students only.)
Focus of work and entries: PHOTOJOURNALISM. (Please see the 2023 or previous years’ scholarship recipients to view examples of winning videos and photographs.) Scholarships will be awarded to those students whose work “tells a story”. This is a fairly broad topic and may include a variety of subject matter and approaches (breaking news, sporting events, etc.) Please keep in mind that, for the still photography submissions, we are NOT looking for “art” photography.
Suggestions for subject matter: As we emerge from the worldwide COVID pandemic, there are still stories to be told about the effects of illness and isolation, but we are at last able to also focus on other things that are unrelated to the virus. For instance, your video submissions or photo images can relate to stories in your community or school – scenes from a graduation, induction into the military, a scientific experiment, police response to an emergency, sporting events … or even an unsolicited act of kindness such as helping an older person or rescuing a pet. Whichever videos or images you choose, they should be timely, objective, aesthetically interesting and tell a story. In terms of still photography, you may submit individual images that stand alone, or a series of photos related to one topic or story.
Again, we are looking for photojournalism. We are asking you to do a lot with this application – write an essay and send us your transcript and letters of reference – so if you are submitting still photos, please don’t ruin your chances of being considered by entering images of flowers, glamour shots or kittens – no matter how adorable they may be.
Scholarship applications must be submitted between July 15, 2024 and Midnight, the Evening of November 15th, 2024.
Scholarships will be announced and awarded in early to mid-December.
Application Requirements and Forms:
Please click on the highlighted lines below to access the various forms. (You may also use this as a checklist for completing your application.)
PLEASE NOTE: The applicant must be a United States citizen and the applicant’s school must be in the United States. (U.S. citizens attending U.S. government schools outside of the U.S. may apply.)
YOU MUST COMPLETE AND SUBMIT EACH FORM TO BE ELIGIBLE.
- Application Form
- Brief Essay
- 2 Letters of Reference
- School Transcript
- Financial Data
- Portfolio:
- High school applicants should only submit still photographs. The video awards are for college and graduate students only
- five (5) digital images for still photography submissions
or - two (2) videos, with a maximum duration of 3 minutes each, for video submissions
- Parental Release Form for high school students (or those under 18)
High school students applying for these scholarships must have completed one year at an accredited high school (student must therefore be a sophomore or older) and should have taken at least one photography or related art class.
College or technical school students applying for these scholarships must have completed one year at a accredited college, university or professional school (student must therefore be a sophomore or older),
and have taken courses in photography or photojournalism.
Graduate students applying for a scholarship should be enrolled in a journalism or photojournalism program.
High school, college and graduate students should have at least one semester remaining at time of award.
Important Notes:
- All submissions must be via the internet. We will not accept applications by mail.
- Label all files that will be submitted/e-mailed with the applicant’s name.
- The applicant must be a United States citizen.
- The applicant’s school must be in the United States. (U.S. citizens attending U.S. government schools outside of the US may apply.)
- The scholarship award must be used at the beginning of the next semester.
Otherwise it will be forfeited and given to an alternate. - A student may only receive one James Alan Cox Foundation scholarship in a given year.
- Note: Parental approval is required for students under 18. Please see accompanying form.
Digital Entry Rules: Please enter only 5 (five) images. Each image should be jpeg file format with a maximum of 2500 pixels on the longer side and 4 MB file size. Images should be at monitor resolution. Photos submitted must be an honest representation of what happened in front of the camera during exposure. You may, if needed, post-process the images electronically — but only in accordance with good practice. This may include cropping, color correction, etc. Post-processing, however, must preserve the image’s original expression.
Video Entry Rules: Please enter only two (2) videos. Videos should be no more than 20 MB file size with a maximum duration of 3 minutes each. Videos may be in these formats: .mpg, .avi, .mov, .wmv, .mpeg, .mp4, .divx.
Mac users: please make sure all file names have the proper file extensions.