Scholarship applications open Dec. 15, 2024

We offer fourteen (14) $2,000 scholarships. Details of those scholarships are here.

Who is eligible?

Undergraduate and graduate students enrolled for the spring semester of 2025 at a four-year college or university in the United States. International students enrolled in U.S. programs are eligible.

The deadline for entries is midnight Eastern time, Friday, February 7, 2025.

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

Sponsors — We are pleased to have corporate sponsors for our scholarships.

Scholarship recipients will receive news-gathering equipment in addition to the $2,000 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 scholarships@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 12 scholarships: the Bob Baxter Scholarship, Reid Blackburn Scholarship, James Brown & Frank Folwell Scholarship, Bob East Scholarship, Liane Enkelis Scholarship (new), C. Thomas Hardin and Mary C. Hardin Scholarship, Jimi Lott Scholarship, Kit C. King Scholarship, Mary Lou Foy Still and Multimedia Scholarship, Paul Lester Scholarship, Sony’s Photojournalism Scholarship, and the Xan Korman Scholarship.

Video Storytellers apply for The TV scholarship. This includes TV videographers and other visual journalists who report using video. If you submit at least TWO video files in H.264 (AKA MPEG-4 Part 10) you will be considered for this scholarship. You may NOT simply provide links to web servers as was the case in previous years.

The Rich Clarkson Founders Scholarship will be awarded to students who have demonstrated significant leadership in their field and elsewhere.  Clarkson applicants apply to the pool of still/TV scholarships and complete an optional essay on their NPPF CV form.

We have panels of top professionals who judge each submission and award scholarships according to their determination of those who best match the donor 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 on university letterhead, dated 2025, that includes 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 NPPA application (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”. 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, but judges would like to see at least one video from each applicant.

The maximum number of image files is 24 (JPEG and MP4/MOV). The maximum number of video files is 10 and the maximum length 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 scholarships@nppf.org