Kishor Parekh Award for Contemporary Photography

Deadline 5 Feb 2026

Single award of INR 7,00,000

Purpose:

The Kishor Parekh Photography Trust announces an annual award, to recognise an Indian photographer who has an original visual language that is rooted in a distinct way of seeing. We are looking for exciting photographic voices: those with a compelling vision, and assuredness of craft.

This is an award that celebrates the photographer’s existing work, and not a proposal or future plan.


About Kishor Parekh:

Kishor Parekh is one of India’s greatest photography legends.

News photography in India can be divided into two eras: pre-Kishor Parekh and post. In 1961, Parekh returned to India, armed with a degree in filmmaking and documentary photography from the University of Southern California. Such was his colossal presence that he had a radical impact from the very onset, introducing multi-column photos, full-page photo essays, and bylines for photographers, all of which were unseen in the Indian media until then. Never before had a photographer so altered the visual landscape of newsprint in India.

Beyond journalism, Parekh straddled the worlds of contemporary, commercial, documentary and art with fluid finesse. His work was groundbreaking, his contemporary approach, radical. His book Bangladesh—A Brutal Birth (1972) is one of the seminal works in Indian photobook history. Kishor Parekh was a photographer, a documentarian, an artist and a fashion icon, all rolled into one inimitable persona.

About the Award:

  • A single award of Rs. 7,00,000 to the winning photographer.

  • No Entry Fee for Participation.

  • Focus: To honour purely photographic vision and practice.

  • Type: Unrestricted award: not a grant, commission, or project funding.

  • This award is an acknowledgment of what the photographer already is.

  • Deadline: 5th February 2026


Who Can Apply?

  • Open to Indian citizens, who reside in India.

  • No age limit for applicants.

  • This award is NOT limited to any genre. Photographic vision is key. We are seeking varied ways of seeing, regardless of genre.

  • Composites, adding/deleting/cloning elements and AI-generated visuals are not eligible. Post-production must be limited to moderate adjustments that reflect conventional darkroom practices (like contrast, colour correction, dodging and burning).

  • Please note, you ARE eligible to apply, even if your work has won any other grant or award.


Note From the Juror:

“When we as a family set up the Kishor Parekh Photography Trust, we wanted to honour his legacy by celebrating who he was: a photographer with an unflinching vision, striding unconventional paths across unfamiliar terrains, with a contemporary approach that broke and defied genre. I couldn’t think of a better way of honouring Dad’s legacy than by seeking, recognising and celebrating photographers who are trying to do the same today.

Dad is spoken of most often for his journalism work, but his oeuvre far surpasses any boundaries or genres.

We are seeking voices that are fresh, voices that are new, voices that are you. Voices that put photography first.”

Swapan Parekh

Swapan Parekh (b. 1966) is one of the most individualistic voices in Indian photography. For decades, his work has been published, recognised and awarded across parallel realities, be it documentary, advertising, commissioned or the personal. With a visual lexicon that is defiantly his, Swapan’s work traverses genre, and invariably finds its way into the contemporary.


Submission Requirements:

A. Portfolio

  • Two to three bodies of work, each of them consisting of 20 to 30 photographs, numbered as per your viewing sequence.

  • A MAJORITY of the photographs in each body of work, should have been shot in the last ten years. This is to ensure that we are viewing an in-practice photographer’s work.

  • Submitted as JPEGs (Adobe RGB, 2000 pixels on the longer side).

  • The file names of the images must be in the following format: <image number in sequence>_<your full name>_<project title>_<year that the photo was shot>.jpg. For example, if your name is Neha Oberoi and you are submitting a work titled ‘Hey Jude’, the first file in your sequence, if shot in 2018, must be named 01_NehaOberoi_HeyJude_2018.jpg

  • The images should be inserted in project-wise folders, and each folder named in the following format: <your full name>_<project title>. For example, if your name is Neha Oberoi and your project title is ‘Hey Jude’, the folder must be named NehaOberoi_HeyJude

B. Title & Description

Each project-wise folder must include a PDF file that has the following information.

  • Project title

  • Project description and duration

  • Captions, if relevant

Remember, this document only serves to provide context. It is not a judgement of your writing ability. In no way does it supersede the quality and integrity of your photographs.

C. Brief Biography or CV

  • A PDF file with a short overview of your practice and relevant milestones. Again, just to give us a sense of who you are.

Please combine soft copies of the documents/materials listed above in a single folder and upload it on any cloud-based file-sharing platform (Google Drive, Dropbox etc). Share the link to this folder in the relevant section in the application form. Please ensure that access to the link is shared with submit.kpptaward@gmail.com and that the link does not expire before 31 March 2026.

APPLY NOW

Award Timeline:

  • Submissions Open: 15th December 2025

  • Deadline: 5th February 2026

  • Award Recipient Announced: End of March 2026


Terms & Conditions:

  • Copyright of all photographs remains with the photographer.

  • The winner of the award grants permission to use their photographs, restricted to promoting the award, in print, web and social media. There will be no further usage without written permission of the photographer. All images will be credited to the photographer.

  • Integrity Clause: If images are found to be manipulated beyond the acceptable limits stated, the work will be disqualified. We may ask for RAW files/original in-camera JPEGs/original cellphone JPEGs/film scans to be submitted of the final shortlisted photographers for the award for scrutiny of adherence to the rules.

  • Legalities: Each entrant agrees not to submit any entry that (i) infringes any third party’s proprietary rights, intellectual property rights, personal or moral rights or any other rights, including without limitation, copyright, trademark, patent, privacy or confidentiality obligations; and (ii) otherwise violates any applicable local law. The entrant is solely responsible for the submissions and absolves the Kishor Parekh Photography Trust from violations or suits of any kind.

  • Disputes, if any, will be settled under Mumbai jurisdiction.


For any queries, please write to us at info.kpptaward@gmail.com.

APPLY NOW