ELIGIBILITY:

Photographers, whether professional or non-professional, of any nationality and of legal age, may take part, as may collectives made up of two or more members whose work follows a documentary and/or photojournalistic approach. Staff members of Médicos del Mundo España, their relatives up to the first degree of kinship, jury members, and any person directly involved in organising the competition may not take part

Theme: Photographs must address stories relating to health, humanitarian action, international cooperation, emergencies, social exclusion, migration, refugees, armed conflicts, inequalities, or human rights violations. Particular consideration will be given to stories that are rarely highlighted or receive little public coverage.

Entry to the competition is free of charge.

Each participant may submit only one entry. This must be submitted exclusively in digital format via the Picter platform, carefully following the instructions available at app.picter.com/contests.

The application must include:

The candidate’s contact details and personal information.

A biography.

A series of photographs comprising between 5 and 10 images.

A text presenting the project.

Captions for each photograph.

Each caption must contain information specific to the image it accompanies; under no circumstances may the same captions be repeated for all the photographs in a single series. Important: the author’s name must not appear in the project description, in the captions of the photographs, or in the file names. Entries will be assessed by a jury that will not be aware of the applicants’ identities.

BENEFIT:

Cash prize *View Terms and Conditions

The total prize fund for the 2026 Luis Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Award amounts to €12,000 (gross), distributed as follows:

First Prize (Overall Winner): €6,000.
Second Prize: €2,000.
Third Prize: €2,000.
Fourth Prize: €2,000.
Special Prize: €1,500, awarded by the San Sebastián Human Rights Film Festival to a single photograph selected from the four winning series. The chosen image will become the official visual for the festival’s 2027 edition.
In addition, the winner and the finalists will also have their work published in the catalog and displayed in the collective and itinerant exhibition that Médicos del Mundo Spain shall produce.

The organization will cover the travel and lodging for two consecutive nights of the chosen entrants to attend the award ceremony and inauguration of the exhibition.