Deadline: December 1, 2026
Applications are open for the Vital Impacts Environmental Photography Fellowships and Mentorships 2027. The Vital Impacts Environmental Photography Fellowships and Mentorships support visual storytellers undertaking long-term documentary photography projects that explore environmental and conservation challenges and, importantly, the people and communities working toward solutions.
The program has a dual purpose: to provide financial support and mentorship to photographers developing significant bodies of work while fostering meaningful collaboration with communities and organizations engaged in environmental and wildlife conservation. They are particularly interested in stories that move beyond documenting environmental problems to illuminate the people, communities, and initiatives working toward meaningful solutions.
Benefits
In 2027, Vital Impacts will award:
- One $20,000 fellowship to an established environmental photographer;
- Six $5,000 fellowships to emerging photographers from around the world; and
- Ten mentorships to photographers whose work demonstrates strong potential and would benefit from additional guidance and professional support.
Eligibility
- Vital Impacts is particularly interested in photographers who have a meaningful, established relationship with the people, places, and issues they are documenting. They believe the strongest environmental stories often emerge from photographers who have taken the time to listen, build trust, understand context, and return to a story over time.
- They strongly encourage applications from photographers documenting environmental and conservation stories in their own communities. Local photographers bring perspectives, knowledge, access, and relationships that can offer a depth and authenticity that outsiders may not have.
- At the same time, they recognize that meaningful relationships with a community or issue can take many forms. You do not have to live permanently in a place to have a genuine connection to it. They will also consider photographers who can demonstrate sustained knowledge and engagement through recurring travel, long-term collaboration, professional or academic experience, or other meaningful relationships with the community or issue they propose to document.
- Applicants should clearly demonstrate why they are the right person to tell this story: what they know, whom they know, what relationships they have built, and what perspective they bring that will allow them to tell the story with depth, context, and care.
- They are looking for photographers who are committed to long-term storytelling rather than short-term access—photographers willing to invest the time necessary for trust to develop, relationships to deepen, and more nuanced stories to emerge.
Application
All applicants must:
- Submit up to 20 JPEG images representing one or two bodies of work or photo stories. Applicants may submit 10 images from one project and 10 from another, or, if preferred, up to 15-20 images from a single project. The selection should demonstrate the applicant’s experience and ability in documentary storytelling, rather than simply present a collection of individual photographs.
- Submit a 25-word synopsis of the proposed project.
- Submit a 500-word project statement that describes the project, the environmental issue it explores, and the personal connection that drives the work. The statement should articulate what the photographer hopes the project will reveal, communicate, or change—and the impact they hope it will have on audiences, communities, or conservation efforts.
- Submit a biography of up to 1,500 characters.
- Provide requested social media information.
- Agree to abide by the Vital Impacts Code of Ethics.
- Agree to and sign the Vital Impacts Environmental Fellowship or Mentorship Agreement if selected.
For more information, visit Vital Impacts Environmental Photography Fellowships and Mentorships.
