The IPF Portrait Prize 2026, presented by Ricoh GR, invites photographers across the Indian subcontinent to submit portraits that go beyond mere likeness to explore identity, culture, and human connection. Open to emerging and established practitioners, the prize offers cash, equipment worth INR 2,00,000, a festival exhibition in Hyderabad and potential international exposure.
In 1984, American photographer Steve McCurry was in Pakistan photographing Afghan refugees in a camp outside Peshawar when he noticed a young girl inside the camp’s makeshift school. As the story goes, McCurry was surprised by her striking green eyes and asked the teachers if he could photograph her. The girl, later identified as a Pashtun orphan named Sharbat Gula, initially covered her face with her hands when she saw the camera, but lowered them after her teacher spoke to her.
McCurry captured just a few quick frames in soft natural light before she stood up and walked away. In June 1985, one of these photographs, titled ‘Afghan Girl’, appeared on the cover of the National Geographic magazine. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and her eyes staring directly into the camera, was named “the most recognised photograph” in the magazine’s long history, and the cover became one of National Geographic’s best-known. Almost four decades later, the image remains pivotal to the broader discussion of representation, authorship, and the photographer’s gaze. Such is the power of photography — especially portrait photography.
A portrait can capture a person's likeness, but the most enduring ones often become records of something larger: a particular time, place, culture, or society. Since the invention of photography in the 19th century, portraiture has evolved from the formal studio images of early photographic processes into an expansive visual language that documents private lives, social change, and shifting ideas of identity.
The power of the photographic portrait lies partly in this tension between the individual and the world around them. From August Sander’s systematic portraits of German society to Dorothea Lange’s Great Depression-era photographs, portraits have told stories about the societies they represent and shape.
Today, portrait photography occupies an equally complicated space, moving between documentary practice, fine art, fashion, journalism and deeply personal forms of storytelling. The IPF Portrait Prize 2026, presented by Ricoh GR, is inviting photographers across the Indian subcontinent to submit portraits that go beyond likeness to explore stories, identities, cultures and human connections.
The annual competition is open to both emerging photographers and established practitioners until 25 October 2026. The prize includes a cash award and photographic equipment worth INR 2,00,000, plus the opportunity to have selected work exhibited as part of the 12th Indian Photo Festival in Hyderabad, from 26 November 2026 to 3 January 2027.
Selected photographs may also travel internationally as part of an exhibition tour, potentially introducing photographers and their work to audiences beyond India. Previous winners and finalists have gained visibility through photography publications and platforms, alongside opportunities for publication and press coverage.
For photographers working across documentary, contemporary, editorial or personal practice, the prize offers an opportunity to consider what a portrait can communicate when the photograph is not merely about who is pictured, but about the circumstances, histories and relationships that surround them.
Learn more and submit your image here.
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