Silver Eye

Silver Eye Center for Photography announces the Call for Entries for Fellowship 26 our annual photography open call.

All awardees and honorable mentions will be included in the Fellowship 26 exhibition in May, 2026. Awardees and honorable mentions will receive curatorial support to ensure that the exhibition provides new opportunities for creative growth. Awardees and honorable mentions receive a cash prize and free production support from the Lab @ Silver Eye for the exhibition.

The Fellowship Award recognizes a rising talent or established photographer from anywhere in the world, and the Keystone Award is given to an exceptional photographer living or making work in the state of Pennsylvania.

Fellowship Award: $1,000 cash prize
Keystone Award: $1,000 cash prize
Honorable Mentions: $500 prizes

This year’s awards will be juried by artist, author, and co-founder of Spaces Corners, Melissa Catanese, artist, filmmaker, educator, and writer Anthony Francis and Jessica Johnston, Executive Director of the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY.

The deadline for submissions is NOV 19 2025, NOON EST.

APPLY!

About the Jurors

Melissa Catanese is the author of Dive Dark Dream Slow, Voyagers, and The Lottery, among other books. Her work has been exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Aperture Foundation, Pier 24 Photography, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Musée des Beaux-Arts, and the Daegu Photo Biennale. A recipient of a Heinz Endowments Creative Development Award, she has been shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation and Foam Paul Huf Awards. Catanese is the co-founder of Spaces Corners, an artist-run project space, and teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.

Anthony Francis is a visual artist, filmmaker, educator, and writer based in San Antonio, Texas but from the H. His work and research interests are concerned with opacity, love, redaction, encryption and politics with and against the photographic apparatus. He speaks about art, has conducted workshops, and has sold some stuff to private and public collections. However, he just wants to make art with and for folx.

Jessica Johnston is the Executive Director of Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. Prior to taking on that role in 2022, Jessica was VSW's Assistant Director and Curator of Collections. She was Assistant Curator of Photographs at George Eastman Museum from 2005 through 2014 and has an MA from Toronto Metropolitan University (2005). Jessica is briefly coming out of jury/portfolio review retirement to participate in Silver Eye's Fellowship 26 and is looking forward to seeing the work!

Fellowship 26 is generously supported by Arts, Equity, & Education FundTM

Eligibility Notice

Photographers who have been a featured artist in a solo or group show (of up to eight artists) at Silver Eye in the last four years are not eligible to apply to Fellowship.

What to Enter

-Work sample of twenty images or less
-One page Artist's Statement in PDF format
-One page Artist bio and/or CV in PDF format
-One page checklist that includes the file number, title, and date of all submitted images.

You may submit up to 20 images, and up to a total of 30MB. Image files should be JPGs or a single PDF file. Images files must be titled with the image number (01-20) and the artists last name. For example: 02_smith.jpg

How to enter

Submit using our online entry form!

Full Guidelines/Eligibility/Terms & Conditions/FAQs

Fellowship Fees: $40 for one submission of 20 images

(Fees go toward covering our administrative costs for running the competition and presenting the related exhibitions.)

Deadline: NOV 19, 2025, NOON EST

If you cannot find answers to your questions on the entry form, or at the Full Guidelines/Eligibility/Terms & Conditions/FAQs above, you can email Leo Hsu, Executive Director, at leo@silvereye.org

Previous Winners

Fellowship 25
Fellowship Award, Ramona Jingru Wang
Keystone Award, Sobia Ahmad

Fellowship 24
Fellowship Award, William Camargo
Fellowship Award, Anthony Francis
Keystone Award, Vikesh Kapoor

Fellowship 23
Fellowship Award, Samantha Box
Keystone Award, Dominick McDuffie

Fellowship 22
Fellowship Award, Carla Liesching
Keystone Award, Eva Alcántara

Fellowship 21
Fellowship Award, Sasha Phyars-Burgess
Keystone Award, J Houston and Aleem Hurst

Fellowship 20
Fellowship Award, Rory Doyle
Keystone Award, Erik Hagen

Fellowship 19
Fellowship Award, Tim Carpenter
Keystone Award, Rebecca Arthur

Fellowship 18
Fellowship Award, Soohyun Kim
Keystone Award, Tamsen Wojtanowski

Fellowship 17
Fellowship Award, Kris Sanford
Keystone Award, Francis Crisafio

Fellowship 16
Fellowship Award, Ka-Man Tse
Keystone Award, Aaron Blum

Fellowship 15
Fellowship Award, Christopher Meerdo
Keystone Award, Matthew Conboy