ND Awards 2026, also presented as the Neutral Density Photography Awards, is an annual international photography competition run by ND Awards. The program is designed to promote photography and photographers by giving entrants a global platform to present distinctive points of view and contemporary photographic work.
The 2026 edition accepts single photographs and series across Professional and Non-Professional sections, with entries organized into broad subject categories including architecture, editorial, fine art, nature, people and special categories. Photographs are assessed individually by an international judging panel that includes gallery owners, publishers, editors and established photographers.
For photographers seeking an international benchmark, ND Awards offers a focused way to compare work across a wide range of photographic approaches while presenting it directly to industry professionals. Its combination of broad subject coverage, separate experience-level sections and category-based judging makes it suitable for photographers developing a competition portfolio or testing a body of work in an international context.
Entry fee: Non-Professional: US$24 per single-image entry or US$29 per series of 2–5 images; Professional: US$29 per single-image entry or US$34 per series of 2–5 images; entering the same work in an additional category costs US$10 per category.
Eligibility
Open to amateur and professional photographers worldwide aged 18 or over, except ND Awards employees, employees of associated companies and employees of prize-sponsoring companies; entries must be the entrant’s original work with the entrant as sole copyright owner, while published and unpublished photographs, previously awarded images and photographs taken at any date are accepted.
Prize
The Professional grand-prize winner receives US$3,500 total, comprising a US$3,000 grand-prize component plus the US$500 category award, and the title ND Photographer of the Year; the Non-Professional grand-prize winner receives US$2,400 total, comprising US$2,000 plus the US$400 category award, and the title ND Discovery of the Year. Six Professional category winners receive US$500 each and five Non-Professional category winners receive US$400 each; grand and category winners also receive official publicity, a winner logo and certificate, with the grand winners featured on the front page of the Winners’ Gallery. Professional and Non-Professional subcategory winners receive Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, an online Winners’ Gallery showcase and a certificate, while honorable mentions receive an Honorable Mention medal, gallery showcase and certificate.