About
Rules and Regulations
The Jury
The Prix Pictet will be judged by an internationally recognised panel of experts led by Francis Hodgson, Head of Photographs at Sotheby's. Other members of the judging panel are Richard Misrach, the American artist, Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian film director, Régis Durand, President of Paris Photo and former head of the Jeu de Paume, Loa Haagen Pictet, Pictet & Cie's art consultant, Peter Aspden, the Financial Times' Arts Writer, and Leo Johnson Co-Founder, Sustainable Finance.
The Process
Entry to the Prix Pictet is by nomination.
In its inaugural year the Prix has benefited
considerably from the expertise and
recommendations of 49 leading experts in the
visual arts and the media acting as nominators.
Between them the nominators identified over
200 photographers from 43 countries. Once
the nomination had been received by the Prix
Pictet Secretariat each nominated candidate
was asked to provide a single picture or a
series of pictures coherently defined and
limited to no more than ten images. Some
photographers received more than one
nomination and, in some cases, for different
groups of work.
Most portfolios considered were by professionals
and all were of a truly professional standard.
Some work had already been published and
much of it was of a publishable standard.
Indeed such was the power of the work
submitted that the jury decided to shortlist
as many as 18 artists.
All submissions were made online in a private
artists’ zone on the Prix Pictet website. The
judges’ initial consideration of the work
submitted also took place online. Their final
decision will be made following an assessment
of the work in a gallery setting.
In the search for images the subject matter
was not tightly defined, and neither was the
technique used to produce the image. The
judges were simply looking for original
contributions which, in their opinion, made
best use of the resources of photography to
communicate the issues concerning the topic
for the year. No distinction was made between
artistic merit and success in communicating
the message. Where a distinction was drawn
it came down to a choice between individual
images of considerable power and groups of
powerful images arranged as a series. There
were many of the former and considerably
fewer of the latter and ultimately the power
of images grouped in a coherent series won
out. Yet that is not the end of the story as
the photographs which make up the central
section of this book will testify. Those 70 or so
pages tell the story of the Prix Pictet 2008: here
images from shortlisted portfolios are cleverly
juxtaposed with images of extraordinary power
that the jury selected for special attention from
amongst the submissions.
In making their final decision on the award
the judges will make no distinction between
photographs of different genres, nor will they
assume different potential types of audience
for any class of photographs.
Although the judges are looking for photographic
excellence, no preference will be given to any
particular kind of photographic material,
technique or creative route, nor will any of
these be excluded from consideration. An
artist using photographs, for example, shall
be judged by precisely the same criteria as a
photojournalist or a commercial photographer,
or a professional in another field for whom
photography may be no more than one of
many tools.