Decagon Gallery - "Self" International Photography Contest

• Decagon Gallery

• Deadline: November 17th, 2026

• Theme: Self

• Prize: $1,000 Prize Pool + Online Exhibition

• Entry Fees: Yes

• REGISTRATION: CLICK HERE

SELF is an open call for self-portrait photography that explores the medium as a tool for introspection, self-examination, and personal discovery. While some photographs are made to document or interpret the world outside us, self-portraiture can offer a different kind of investigation: one in which the photographer becomes both the creator and the subject. This exhibition seeks work that uses that relationship to explore something deeper than appearance.

We are looking for self-portraits that go beyond conventional representations of likeness. The selected works should reflect an authentic engagement with the self and may emerge from moments of vulnerability, uncertainty, confrontation, tenderness, or personal transformation. Rather than photographs created primarily for self-presentation, SELF seeks projects that reveal an underlying emotional or psychological journey — whether connected to the body, memory, loss, change, identity, or questions that are difficult to articulate in any other form.

Self-portraiture has a long and significant history within photography, precisely because of its intimate relationship between photographer and subject. By turning the camera toward themselves, artists enter a space where the act of photographing becomes an act of observation and reflection. The camera can function simultaneously as a mirror, a document, and a confessional, allowing artists to determine what they reveal while also acknowledging what they choose to keep hidden.