A life takes shape slowly: through the spaces we inhabit, the objects we live among, the routines we repeat, and the ways our surroundings change with us over time. 

For THE SHAPE OF A LIFE we are looking for photographs that show how a person lives and what their life feels like from within. This may be someone sitting at a kitchen table, resting in a small room, working, waiting, or moving through an ordinary day. It may be a home filled with personal belongings, a familiar street, signs of a daily ritual, or a place carrying years of use.

People may appear in the photographs, but conventional portraits are not the main focus. We are interested in the relationship between a person and the world around them: the rooms they occupy, the things they keep, the habits that shape their days, and the traces that remain over time.

We welcome photographs of people, interiors, domestic spaces, everyday routines, personal objects, family environments, places of work or rest, and signs of presence or absence. Documentary, fine art, conceptual, and personal approaches are all welcome.

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Juror: J. Sybylla Smith

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J. Sybylla Smith is an independent curator, podcaster, and consultant. Her creative framework, Concept Aware®: How You See & Why It Matters, provides visual artists with specific tools to bring their abstract ideas to fruition in image, text, exhibition, and book form. She consults with emerging and seasoned professionals to refine ideas and collaboratively contextualize their work, develop portfolios, write content, produce projects, create exhibitions, and complete book proposals.

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She has curated 40+ solo and group exhibitions featuring over 125 international photographers
within the U.S., Mexico, Colombia and Japan. Her Concept Aware® podcast engages global
photographers, curators and critics to discuss creative practice and the photobook-making
process. 

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Awards

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• First Place: $500

• Second Place: $250

• Third Place: $150

• Two Honorable Mentions: $50

• Human Presence award: Free entry to a future exhibition of their choice

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Selected photographs will be exhibited online by Decagon Gallery, published in a

professionally designed exhibition catalog, and accompanied by digital badges and

certificates for exhibiting artists.​

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How to Submit

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$25 entry fee for up to 4 photographs. $5 each additional photograph. Open to photographers worldwide. All photographic processes and styles welcome.

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Submit JPGs sized to 2100 pixels on the long side, without text, watermarks, or borders.

Preferably under 4 mb.

Name files: First Name-Last Name_Title.jpg

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Photographers retain all rights, including copyright, to their photographs. We will never distribute your photographs to anyone without your permission. You grant Decagon Gallery the right to publish your photograph in our online exhibition, in the exhibition catalog, and to promote the exhibition in social media and newsletters.

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Note

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Not every exceptional photograph can be included in an exhibition. Space is limited, and many submissions that deserve recognition simply cannot be selected. Throughout the year, Decagon Gallery may feature a small number of these photographs on our Instagram account as Curator's Picks, giving additional visibility to work that impressed us during the review process. Being featured on Instagram is separate from exhibition acceptance, but it reflects our appreciation for photographs that made a lasting impression.

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If you would like your work to be considered for this additional recognition, simply check the permission box on the entry form. Your photograph will only be featured with your consent.