Le Prix Pictet

The Prix Pictet is a major new global prize in photography that focuses on perhaps the greatest single issue of the twenty-first century: sustainability. The award is sponsored by Pictet & Cie, in association with the Financial Times. In its first year, the site was attacting more than 5000 unique visitors per day.

The competition is run online: nominators submit photographers; the photographers submit their work; and the judges then evaluate.

With a single annual prize of CHF 100,000, the Prix Pictet will reward photographers and the images they use to tell stories of urgent global significance. Each year the Prix Pictet will focus on a distinct sustainability theme. The theme for 2008 is water.

Entry to the Prix Pictet is by nomination. A global nominations panel of over 40 leading experts in the visual arts, from six continents, has already begun the search that will lead to the image or set of images that will, in the opinion of the independent jury, have the power and artistic quality demanded by the Prix.
Short-listed works and photographers will be announced in late June 2008.

The short-listed images will be shown on the website from July 2008 and members of the public will be invited to cast their votes for the image that in their opinion has the artistic quality and power of expression demanded by the Prix. The votes will be taken into consideration by the jury when they make their final decision in October 2008.