CatchLight Fellowship

Application Deadline: January 31st 2018

Applications are now been accepted for the 2018 $30,000 CatchLight Fellowship Program.

The second year of this annual search for three lens-based storytellers who demonstrate excellence in the use of photography to drive social change adds two defined categories to the application’s open call: the Fellowship for Leadership and the Fellowship for California. The application will open on January 1, 2018 at CatchLight.io and all submissions must be received by midnight pacific time on January 31. The 2018 Fellows will be announced on April 2, 2018.

The CatchLight Fellowship serves as an incubator — a place to receive financial support, unlock individual potential, grow and leverage partnerships. The Fellowship cultivates a vibrant community of creative thought leaders whose work will be enhanced by collaboration, mentorship, and networking. A CatchLight Fellowship is awarded for life. 

Eligibility Requirements:

• The Fellowship is open to working professionals of any age and from any country who have demonstrated excellence in working with lens-based visual storytelling and a commitment to effecting social change.
• Applicants may work in a broad range of visual formats including photography, video, audio, motion or VR and the proposal should build on existing work.
• The CatchLight Fellowship pool will be formed by both nomination and open call.
• Applications must include work samples, professional references, a written proposal defining the scope of the project and potential ideas for partnerships and distribution avenues that best fit the proposal.
• Applications will be reviewed and shortlisted by a geographically and professionally diverse jury.
• There is no fee to apply.

The 2018 CatchLight Fellowships:

Fellowship for Social Leadership
This Fellowship will recognize an individual who demonstrates excellence in their personal art and leadership in their community and/or field; someone who actively creates opportunities for artists around them by mentoring, teaching or promotion of their work. This type of leadership is vital for broadening access to new talent and new perspectives, creating global benefit. We seek remarkable social leadership, coupled with a generous ingenuity that pulls others forward, even as they advance.

This Fellowship will incubate the individual’s leadership abilities, bringing resources to bear and spotlighting the power of individual action for growth and change. The nature of the awarded fellow’s work will determine the appropriate model for distribution partnerships.

Fellowship for California: Status Update on the California Dream
“Like the rest of America, California is unformed, innovative, ahistorical, hedonistic, acquisitive and energetic — only more so.” — Wallace Stegner

Everything in California is big, including dreams and challenges. How do we visualize the New California Dream in one of the most innovative, hectic and expensive places in America? It is America’s laboratory for the fiscal pressures shaping our housing, jobs and education and a rapidly changing future. CatchLight will identify a California-focused photographer who demonstrates work that broadly reflects any aspect of life in California today — interpretations can show impact to any of a variety of issues including but not limited to race, environment, health, democracy, immigration, gender and identity.

Fellowship for Social Change: Open
In contrast to the above fellowships which have a specific focus, the third 2018 Catchlight Fellowship is open to lens-based artists working on any social justice issue globally. This fellowship is aimed at the discovery and communication of issues not only of today, but of tomorrow — stories we don’t know about yet, or that we are revisiting through an entirely new lens.

CatchLight will recognize a visual storyteller whose work drives change around a social issue they are passionate about and there are no issues or methodology that CatchLight prioritizes over another. Applicants will have chosen their own themes and issues, and proposed unique and compelling methods of creation and distribution. This Fellow will be partnered with The Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting and therefore will focus both on media and education as distribution for the work.

CatchLight invite applicants to interpret these themes broadly and encourage proposals from visual storytellers working in diverse creative mediums.

Important Dates

• Application Open: January 1, 2018 – January 31, 2018, midnight PST
• CatchLight Fellows Announced: April 2, 2018

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the 2018 CatchLight Fellowships