📸 Success Stories from The Emerging Photography Award Winners

Over the years, dozens of photographers have won the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards, and their success stories serve to remind us why we host them.

From gallery exhibitions to commissions, magazine features, and community support, it’s so gratifying to hear how we’ve helped emerging photographers gain opportunities and wider exposure for their work.

We hope you will find these stories equally inspiring. And remember, thanks to our generous sponsors, MBP, everyone can enter the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards for free this year. Submissions are open through August 5, 2024.

Joey Solomon 

Since winning the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award, my photographs and words have been featured in The New Yorker Magazine, and I have received the honor of being named a winner in emerging photography as a contributing photographer at NYC's Daniel Cooney Fine Art 2020 Emerging Photographers Auction. Since being highlighted by Feature Shoot, my work has also been showcased on LENSCRATCH, the Rotterdam Photo Festival, and HYPEBEAST. Winning this award and working with Editor Ellyn Kail has been an uplifting experience for me and the future of my craft.

Lucia Sekerkova

“After I received the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award, my work was published in many magazines and online platforms, such as Republic (Sweden), Society (France), Gente di Fotografia (Italy), Indie (Germany), Marie Claire (United Kingdom), Fotograf (Czech Republic), Huck (UK), Calvert Journal (UK), Bird in Flight (Ukraine), Lens Culture (USA), Wired (USA), and many other.

Since then, my project Vrajitoare has been shortlisted for the Portraits – Hellerau Photography Award in Germany; it was part of the group exhibition in Pumpenhaus in Dresden, Germany; and it was also part of the Pozna Photo Diploma Award in Poland. I was announced as the Personality of Czech Photography in the category for up to 30 years in the Czech Republic.

I am also very grateful that because of the Feature Shoot Award, I could be a part of the FORMAT International Photography Festival in Derby (UK). I would definitely recommend other photographers to take part in this contest.”

Marcus DeSieno

The Emerging Photography Awards have had quite an impact on my career. The awards helped elevate the visibility of my art. My work has been featured in a variety of publications including The Washington Post and has been exhibited at Klompching Gallery in New York and Photo-Eye Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.  I was also a recipient of the Lensculture Emerging Talent Award for my photographic work on facial recognition. I'm currently working with a publisher to turn this series into my 2nd monograph.

Amanda Villegas 

Winning the Emerging Photography Award opened up a plethora of connections and opportunities. Having my work shared on such a largely viewed platform afforded me a new outlet to share my story and that of my late husband and raise much-needed awareness for the myriad issues surrounding the limited access to the End of Life Option Act. I have been able to share my images on a webinar for City of Hope and in front of legislators at the California State Capitol.   

Silvia De Giorgi 

Winning the Feature Shoot Photography Award led to a lot of recognition of my work. Photographs from my series were included in several print and online publications, including Aesthetica Magazine Artist Directory (UK), GUP Magazine (NL), Phases Magazine, Don't Take Pictures (US), ClickMagazine (IT) and Altri Animali (IT). I was selected as a Fresh Eyes Talent 2020 by GUP Magazine, and my work was recently exhibited at Gashouder – Westergas, Amsterdam, as part of this recognition.

I was contacted by photo galleries regarding collaborations and representation and am currently working towards publishing my work in a photo book. Being recognized as part of this contest gave me new confidence in my practice and encouraged me to keep exploring my interest in photography. Thank you, Feature Shoot, for your trust and your belief in my work!

Danny Franzreb 

Receiving the Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award last year was a great way to showcase my work to a larger audience. It got me a few invitations to exhibitions and also press coverage by several news outlets. On a larger scale, I started to develop my work further into a book. I just recently talked to my publisher about the details of the project, which is very exciting.

Madeleine Morlet 

The Emerging Photography Awards were a great opportunity to gain exposure, and it has been so exciting to see my work amongst the extraordinary photography submitted. Since participating this project has been awarded the 14th Pollux Award, an honorable mention for the 14th Julia Margaret Camera Award, an honorable mention for the Don't Take Pictures Prize for Contemporary Photography, Lucie Foundation Photo Made Scholarship, Ellis-Beauregard Studio Residency, Maine Arts Commission Grant, and was shortlisted for the Lucie Scholarship ChromaXLuxe, Belfast Photo Festival, and Felix Schoeller Photo Awards. Thank you to Feature Shoot for your interest and support! It has been a fantastic experience.

Megan Jacobs 

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to Feature Shoot's Ellyn Kail about my work and for her thoughtful article on my Hidden Mother series, which helped the work gain exposure in the early days of its creation.

Being recognized as a Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award winner has opened many creative doors for my career.  It led to my inclusion in the performance ART practice / MOTHER practice; ALONE / TOGETHER curated by the University Art Museum curator, Mira Sage at New Mexico State University.

Further, I was invited to participate in  A Yellow Rose Project, a photographic collaboration of responses, reflections, and reactions to the 19th Amendment from over one hundred women photographers from across the United States.

The work has been exhibited at Indiana University, the University of New Mexico, Texas Christian University and published in Paper Journal.  A book of photographs from the A Yellow Rose Project is forthcoming.

Panos Charalampidis and Mary Chairetaki 

The Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award was a great break for us. Since then, our “Cornucopia” gained a lot of attention, and we had the opportunity to show our work to a much larger audience. As a result, the “Cornucopia” zine was published by Another Place Press.  There was also a beautiful presentation and interview about our work in Dodho Magazine. Being one of the winners was an inspiration to keep working harder and producing our next project, “Mother Motif,” which led to the creation of a fine-art handmade book.

Mirja Maria Thiel

Since being named one of the winners of the 6th Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards my series All This Love and single images from this body of work were named: First-runner-up at Focus on the Story Portrait Awards and were selected second and third winner in different single categories at this year’s 16th Julia Margaret Cameron Award as well. I am also very happy to be part of The Third Annual SAC’s Gallery & Stonehenge Gallery 2021 photo exhibit in Montgomery. This exhibit will also go to the International Art Center on the Troy University campus in Alabama afterward. And I just got the news that the series has been shortlisted for the International Photography Exhibition. Next to this, I got a lot of lovely feedback from the photography community after winning the Emerging Photography Awards! This really encourages me to further portray life aspects of the elderly generation we should keep in mind.