Huawei NEXT-IMAGE Contest 2017

On September 9, 2017, Huawei announced their first, annual, four-month long photography and videography competition called “NEXT-IMAGE Awards” in partnership with New York’s “the International Center of Photography” (ICP), an institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Along with the launch of annual creative competition, Huawei and ICP signed an agreement for long-term collaboration.

Huawei's NEXT-IMAGE Awards will provide smartphone users from around the world with an online gallery where they can showcase their best creative work in front of a global audience.

All Huawei's users from around the world are welcome to participate by uploading their photos to the official website. Entries are open until 20 November, 2017, and the awards will be announced on 19 December, 2017. The grand competition champion will be awarded to $20,000 and their works will be exhibited at “ICP”.

The NEXT-IMAGE awards will give more credit to Huawei’s Leica dual camera as participants should only use Huawei phone in order to submit their photography to the competition.

The "NEXT" in NEXT-IMAGE refers to the next generation of photographers using the next generation of tools to create and spread the next generation of visual content – all with new forms of interaction and feedback. The "IMAGE" part of the name refers to both static images and new forms of dynamic visual expression.

The 2017 competition consists of 7 independent categories:

• @All
• Me, Myself & I
• Hello, Life!
• Check-In
• Citizen Witness
• 3x3
• Timeline

How can I enter?

You can submit your entries on the official Huawei NEXT-IMAGE website

The “NEXT-IMAGE Awards” also includes an act of collective creation initiated by ICP to be activated during the awards and for the months immediately following aimed to encourage and sustain participation from image-makers who are utilizing smartphone technology. All in all, the competition takes a fresh approach to traditional contest elements like category design, submission, and judging. Visual creatives from around the world will compete to become NEXT-IMAGE finalists, ultimately contending for best-in-category awards and the grand $20,000 prize – a cash award for the NEXT-IMAGE creative champion.

Rules and Regulations

All submissions to the Huawei NEXT-IMAGE Awards shall consist of photos or videos taken using Huawei phones, without restriction as to when the images or videos were recorded or as to which model of Huawei phone was used. The images or videos submitted may only have been graphically edited using a Huawei phone (third-party processing software used on your Huawei phone will be accepted). The length of the image's shortest side must be at least 800pixels, and the file size of a single photo file shall not exceed 20MB. Any videos submitted are allowed to have been processed by computer or phone software, but the originals must still have been captured on a Huawei phone. The file sizev of a single video file shall not exceed 100MB. You can submit your videos in .mp4, .3gp, .wmv, .rm, .rmvb, or .asf format.

Before the final selection, the organizer will conduct a thorough verification of all submissions. All contestants should then submit all original photo and video files from their Huawei phone along with all relevant information. Files submitted past the deadline or submissions not conforming to the organizer's standards will be treated as an automatic disqualification, with any vacancies to be filled by runners-up in order of precedence.

The choice whether to take part in this contest is entirely voluntary on the part of the participants. Once a participant has engaged in any stage of the contest, in part or in full, this will be seen as the participant understanding and fully consenting to all competition rules and the organizer's interpretation of their terms.

Awards

NEXT-IMAGE Finalists: Fifty finalists will be selected in the final selection, each will be awarded with one Huawei flagship smartphone due for release in October 2017.

NEXT-IMAGE Best-in-Category Awards: Seven best-in-category award winners will be announced in the final selection. Each will be awarded with a HUAWEI MateBook X and one flagship smartphone due for release in October 2017.

NEXT-IMAGE Grand Prize: One NEXT-IMAGE creative champion will be selected from the seven best-in-category award winners. The champion will receive $20,000 (USD) of Huawei NEXT-IMAGE Funds as an encouragement for his/her "Next-Image" creations over the following year. The creation direction is subject to joint discussions of the winner, Huawei, and ICP.

Participation Fees

Registration for this competition will not require any costs or fees. Each participant may submit up to twenty items for review, a submission item consisting of either one photo, one 3x3 set, or one video file. Before the deadline is reached, contestants will be able to modify and edit their submissions on the official website.

Competition deadline for all submissions: November 20, 2017

For more details, please refer to the official Huawei NEXT-IMAGE website

Some Background

Back in April 2016, HUAWEI released the HUAWEI P9 series with its ground-breaking Leica dual-lens camera. The company later released the HUAWEI Mate 9 series in November of 2016, and the HUAWEI P10 series in February the following year. In September 2017, HUAWEI announced the release of the Kirin 970, the world's first smartphone chipset with a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that supports on-device AI processing. Moving forward, HUAWEI will redefine visual culture together with hundreds of millions of smartphone users around the world, while continuing to build on its foundation of next-generation visual imaging and optical technology.

As smartphone penetration grows and mobile camera evolves, more people will be using their phones to create compelling visual content—content that is far more expansive and diverse than ever before. In effect, smartphone photography will be no longer just a form of entertainment, but a new phenomenon in visual culture. The NEXT-IMAGE Plan is the culmination of HUAWEI's efforts to redefine the visual tech culture with more professional and intuitive smartphone cameras. With the right technology and a unique style, HUAWEI wants to explore the next-generation of visual expression together with smartphone users around the globe.