Scholarship applications open Dec. 3, 2025

We offer eleven (11) $2,500 scholarships. Details of those scholarships are here.

Who is eligible?

Undergraduate and graduate students enrolled for the spring semester of 2026 and attending a four-year college or university in the United States. International students residing in the U.S. are eligible.

The deadline for entries is 5:59 P.M. Eastern time, Friday, February 6, 2026.

Recipients will be notified via email within a month of the deadline.

Sponsors — We are pleased to have corporate sponsors for our scholarships that will provide gifts in addition to the $2,500 award. 

Student Group Teleconference — Student groups are welcome to set up a teleconference with Dr. James Kelly, director of scholarships at NPPF, to confer on portfolio development and to answer any questions on the application procedure. Request a meeting by email at jkelly@nppf.org (please put “NPPF Scholarship Question” in the subject line)

NPPF Scholarship Application

NPPF scholarships are awarded to encourage those with the talent and dedication to photojournalism and who need financial help to continue their studies.

Still photographers apply for a pool of nine scholarships: the Bob Baxter Scholarship, Blackburn/East Scholarship, James Brown & Frank Folwell Scholarship, Liane Enkelis Scholarship, C. Thomas Hardin and Mary C. Hardin Scholarship, King/Lott Scholarship, Mary Lou Foy Still and Multimedia Scholarship, Sony’s Photojournalism Scholarship, and the Xan Korman Scholarship.

Video Storytellers may additionally apply for The TV scholarship by including at least two video files in their portfolio.

Student Leaders who have demonstrated significant leadership in their field and elsewhere may additionally apply for the Rich Clarkson Founders Scholarship by writing an additional essay and securing an additional letter of reference.

A jury of top professional picture editors evaluate each application and award scholarships according to their determination of who best matches the donor’s criteria.

Preparing to apply

A recommendation is required from a professor familiar with the student’s work.

  • Obtain a letter recommending you and describing your qualifications from a professor/lecturer familiar with your photojournalism.
  • The letter must be on university letterhead, dated 2025, and include the professor’s signature. Save file in PDF format.
  • Applicants for the Clarkson Scholarship need a second recommendation letter from a non-academic person familiar with their leadership qualities.
  • You will upload your letter(s) as PDFs to Picter, our online contest site (link is below).

You must complete a form that will be your CV for the NPPF submission on Picter (Click this link to download the PDF form to your download folder). It requires:

  • Contact information
  • Academic standing (including GPA)
  • Campus news media experience
  • Confirmation that you adhere to NPPA’s Code of Ethics
    • Three or four, one-page essays about:
      • Your journey as a student photojournalist
      • Your need for financial assistance
      • Your career aspirations
      • And if applying for the Clarkson Scholarship, Your leadership skills and experiences

Be sure to save the CV form with filename “yourlastname_yourfirstname_University.PDF” (ie. Brown_James_IUPUI). Confirm that your entries were saved to the file before submission. You will upload this PDF as your CV on the Picter site.

Portfolio Preparation

Click this link and read the image preparation requirements carefully. Our online portfolio system will reject images that do not meet these specifications.

General Portfolio Submission Instructions

Your portfolio should show your storytelling ability.

A portfolio may include three types of visual message: Single Pictures, Picture Stories and Videos. You may submit all three or just two or just one type.

The maximum number of image files is 24 (JPEG and MP4/MOV). The maximum number of video files is 10 and the maximum length of each video is 10 minutes.

Examples:

  • 10 Singles + one, 12-image picture story + 2 videos
  • Two 12-image picture stories
  • 10 videos
  • 24 singles

All still photographs must have captions and required meta data in the JPEG flies, and conform to image size requirements. See: https://nppf.org/online-portfolio-image-preparation/ for requirements.

Image Permission

This is an educational website. We post winning portfolios here so that other students may learn from them. Applying for our scholarships gives NPPF permission to publish your images on our websites and use your pictures on our social media platforms to promote our scholarship program. You retain the copyright to all your images.

Completing your application at Picter.com

Once you have completed your CV using our PDF form (see above), obtained your letter(s) of recommendation and properly prepared your image/video files, go to our Picter site.

http://www.picter.com/nppf/scholarships

The Picter site asks for

  • your name,
  • date of birth,
  • permanent address,
  • personal email address,
  • personal mobile phone number.

Critically important: Use the “Biography” field on Picter to indicate that you want to be considered for the Clarkson by typing the word “Clarkson” into the field. You do not need to write a biography.

Follow directions and upload your materials as indicated.

Please address any questions about this application process or system issues to Dr. James Kelly, at jkelly@nppf.org