Infrared Photography Contests: Where to Enter in 2026
Infrared photography contests are rare, and that is the first thing to know. One international contest, Kolari Vision’s Life in Another Light, dominates the genre, and its 2026 entry window is open until December 30. Beyond it, most opportunities are general contests with black-and-white, landscape or experimental categories where infrared work can compete. This guide covers the dedicated contest, how to prepare an entry, and how to find the others.
TL;DR
Life in Another Light is the leading dedicated infrared contest. Entry is free, with up to 15 images per person, and the 2026 deadline is December 30.
The contest offers over $60,000 in prizes across thirteen categories, including infrared, ultraviolet and visible-light classes.
Few other contests are infrared-only, so general competitions with black-and-white, landscape, abstract or fine-art categories are your second route.
Read the license and file terms before you upload. Rules differ from one organizer to the next.
A curated directory saves the weekly search for contests that do not advertise widely.
Table of Contents
The dedicated infrared contest: Life in Another Light
The contest is run by Kolari Vision, a company that makes infrared conversion and filter equipment. The contest began in 2019 and is held every two years. The 2024 edition drew more than 3,000 entries, which gives a sense of the field you would be joining.
The organizer frames the theme as a question: what changes when we switch to infrared, and what stays constant? That is a useful brief for your own selection. Judges are not simply looking for a strange color palette. They want images where the invisible spectrum reveals something the eye would miss.
Categories at a glance
According to the organizer’s contest page, three winners and several honorable mentions are chosen across thirteen categories. Those listed for 2026 include:
Candy Chrome: candy-colored foliage, shot with the organizer’s Candy Chrome filter.
IR Chrome: the deep red and orange against blue look associated with Kodak Aerochrome, shot with its IRChrome filter.
Landscape, Infrared: the classic category for the genre.
Landscape, Visible Light: outdoor spaces in ordinary light.
Black & White: high-contrast monochrome, either visible or infrared.
Ultraviolet: images made with a UV bandpass filter.
Abstract, Portrait, Cinematic, Astro Landscape, Aerial and Long Exposure.
Notice how many categories are not strictly infrared. A photographer who shoots portraits, aerials or long exposures in visible light can still enter. The infrared-specific classes, though, are where a converted camera or filter becomes the entire point.
Rules that matter before you enter
The official rules state the following for the current cycle:
Item | What the rules say |
Entry fee | Free |
Entries per person | Up to 15 |
File types | .jpg, .gif or .png |
Maximum file size | 2.00 MB per image |
Deadline | 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time, December 30, 2026 |
Authorship | Individual entries only, original work of the entrant |
Post-processing | Allowed, including channel swapping, dodging and burning, HDR, panoramas and focus stacking |
The 2 MB cap catches people out. A finished file exported at full resolution will be rejected or force a hasty re-export, so build a contest export preset ahead of time and check how fine detail and gradients hold up at that size. Infrared skies and foliage can band when compressed too hard.
Also note the company behind the contest sells gear, and some categories reference its filters. You do not need to buy anything to enter, since entry is free, but read each category description so you place an image where it belongs.
What judges tend to reward in infrared work
Published coverage of the 2024 winners, such as the DPReview report on the results, shows a pattern that holds for most specialized contests: technical control first, then composition, then a point of view. Infrared adds one more layer, which is whether the image uses the spectrum with purpose.
In practice, we would suggest asking four questions of every frame before you enter it.
Does the infrared effect serve the subject? A pink-and-white forest is striking once. A frame where the glowing foliage frames a human moment is memorable.
Is the technical base clean? Check focus (infrared focus shift is a real issue with some lenses), hot spots, sensor dust and noise in the shadows.
Is the color or tone deliberate? Channel-swapped images invite heavy editing. Restraint reads as confidence, and clipped channels read as accident.
Does the set work together? When a contest allows several entries, choose frames that show range rather than five variations of the same tree.
Building an entry set
With 15 slots available, resist filling them all. Pick the strongest eight to ten, spread across the categories where each image fits best. A single outstanding frame in the right category beats a dozen decent ones scattered across all thirteen.
Keep a short note for each image: camera, conversion or filter (for example, a 720nm filter), lens, and what you wanted to show. Not every contest asks for this, but some require comprehensive details, and having them ready speeds up every submission. The same notes become captions for your portfolio.
Infrared work in general contests
Because dedicated infrared contests are scarce, many photographers get further by placing infrared images in broader categories. These are the ones where infrared tends to fit:
Black and white and monochrome: infrared is a natural fit for deep skies, luminous foliage and dreamlike tonal range.
Landscape and nature: check whether the rules require natural color. Some prohibit major color alteration, which can exclude false-color infrared.
Fine art and abstract: these categories often welcome experimental processes and conceptual series.
Open or creative categories: flexible by design.
The rules matter more than the category title. Some nature and documentary contests restrict manipulation strictly, and a channel-swapped image can be disqualified. Others, including fine-art calls, celebrate it. Read the section on editing before you pay a fee.
If you want to see how broad international awards present their categories, our listing pages for the IPA International Photography Awards 2026 show the type of open, multi-category structure where a strong black-and-white or fine-art infrared series can find a home.
Understanding the fine print
A contest entry is a legal transaction as well as a creative one. A few points to check every time:
License. A common arrangement is that you keep ownership of your work while granting the organizer a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide license for promotion. The rules of DarkSky’s Capture the Dark contest are one public example of how such terms are written. Terms vary, so look for the words perpetual, exclusive and commercial. Be cautious with any contest that asks for rights beyond promotion of the contest itself.
File and metadata requirements. Organizers commonly set limits on file size, format and resolution, and some ask for metadata or a statement about technique. This open call’s terms show how detailed a submission agreement can be. Gather a clean master file, a contest-sized export and a short description before you start.
Eligibility. Check age, residency and authorship. Individual contests, like Life in Another Light, do not accept team or corporate entries.
Fees. Free contests exist, and Life in Another Light is one. Many others charge per image or per series. Set an annual budget and enter where your work genuinely fits, not everywhere.
Why dedicated infrared calls are hard to find
Infrared contests are often organized by specialist equipment makers, not by large photography institutions. That means they appear on manufacturer sites, in newsletters and in niche forums, rather than in the general feeds most photographers follow. A contest can open and close within a few weeks, and a biennial schedule means that missing one cycle costs you two years.
There are practical habits that help:
Follow the makers of infrared conversion and filter products, plus the camera brands you shoot with, for contest announcements.
Set calendar reminders for the known biennial contests at the start of each even-numbered year.
Check general directories weekly for open categories where monochrome, landscape or experimental work qualifies.
Keep an always-ready folder of export-sized infrared images, so a two-week deadline is not a crisis.
Our perspective: infrared is a portfolio strategy, not just a genre
We do not run contests. We research, curate and publish the international photography competitions that other organizations run, and we update the list every week. That vantage point shows us something about infrared photographers in particular.
They are often better prepared than they think. A converted camera, a practiced eye for the invisible spectrum and a coherent body of work are exactly what curators and jurors want from an entry. What holds them back is discovery. The dedicated contest comes around every two years, and the rest of the opportunities are scattered across general awards, festivals and open calls where an infrared series is competitive but rarely labeled as such.
Our advice is to think of contests as a ladder. Start with free-to-enter competitions to test how your work is received. Move to respected international awards once you have a tight series. Use every placement, shortlist and honorable mention in your portfolio, your artist statement and your pitches to editors. Recognition compounds: a published winner’s gallery gives curators and magazine editors a reason to look at your next project.
If you are also building the online presence that turns recognition into commissions and sales, SEO for photographers is worth understanding, because a contest win does most of its work when people can find your site afterward.
— DARIO
Finding more contests that fit your work
Our directory lists more than 320 active international photography contests, awards, calls, prizes and grants, and over 100 of them are free to enter. Each listing shows the essentials in a chronological format: deadline, fee, prize and genre. That makes it quick to filter for the categories where infrared images belong, such as black and white, landscape, fine art and abstract.
The listings include competitions run by major brands and institutions as well as niche contests and independent festivals that are easy to overlook.
The plan is called PhotoContestsClub. It costs €6 per month or €40 per year, and a free trial is available. You can see the full list and sign up on the PhotoContestsClub page. Members also get access to the photographer community and a monthly internal competition. If you are already a member, you can manage your plan on the renewal page.
A practical calendar for an infrared entrant
Timing is half of contest strategy. Here is a simple way to organize a year.
Now through December 30. Select and export for Life in Another Light. Check the 2 MB limit, sort images by category and enter early rather than on the last evening, when upload servers are busiest.
January and February. Review the results of your entries, then audit your archive. Which frames got attention in the community? Which were overlooked? Use that feedback to plan a new shoot, ideally with a theme that could become a series.
Spring and summer. Infrared is at its best when foliage is full and the sun is high, because chlorophyll-rich leaves reflect strongly in near-infrared. Shoot your new work in these months and build your set while the season lasts.
Autumn. Many international awards open their calls for the following year. Enter the ones where your series fits their categories and where the fee is justified by the exposure, prize or publication offered.
As you plan, remember that placements matter beyond the prize money. Exhibitions, magazine features and published galleries give your work visibility with curators and editors, and that is often worth more than the cash. If you want to write about your process or your results for photography publications, our pages on DPReview and Photography Life point to places that accept contributions.
Mistakes that cost infrared entrants
Entering the wrong category. A Candy Chrome image belongs where the filter is expected, not in a general landscape class.
Over-processing. Extreme channel swaps can look alike from entry to entry. Distinctive subjects and composition beat saturated color.
Ignoring the export limit. Banding, compression artifacts and soft detail are more visible in infrared skies than in ordinary images.
Skipping the rules. Confirm that your editing and any composite elements are allowed. Disqualification wastes entries and, in paid contests, fees.
Treating a contest as a single shot. Juries change, categories evolve and the same image can be overlooked one year and honored the next.
FAQ
Is there a free infrared photography contest?
Yes. Life in Another Light, run by Kolari Vision, lists entry as free and allows up to 15 images per person. Other free contests exist in our directory, although most do not focus on infrared specifically.
How often does Life in Another Light take place?
The contest runs every two years. It started in 2019, and the organizer describes it as biannual, with the 2024 winners published in January 2025. The current entry window closes on December 30, 2026.
Do I need a converted camera to enter?
Not for every category. Several classes, such as Portrait, Aerial, Astro Landscape and Landscape in visible light, are not infrared classes. The infrared and filter-specific categories, such as Candy Chrome and IR Chrome, are meant for images made with infrared equipment.
Can I edit my infrared photos for a contest?
It depends on the contest. Life in Another Light allows channel swapping, dodging, burning, HDR, panoramas and focus stacking. Nature, documentary and photojournalism contests often restrict editing far more, so read the rules first.
Who owns my photos after I enter?
In most reputable contests you keep ownership and grant the organizer a limited license for promotion, as seen in published contest rules. Terms differ, so check for wording about exclusive or commercial rights before you submit.
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