The Exhibition

A portal is not simply an opening. It is a condition — a space where something begins to shift, dissolve, or remain beautifully unresolved.

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We are looking for photographs that hold tension rather than explain it. Images that exist at the edge of transformation: between visibility and disappearance, movement and stillness, intimacy and distance, entry and refusal. The work doesn't need to describe transition — it needs to feel like one.

Physical passages — doorways, corridors, thresholds — are welcome, and so is everything else. What we're looking for is not a subject but a quality of attention: the sense that something is at stake in the frame.

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If your work carries that charge, we want to see it.

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Juror: Douglas Stockdale

Douglas Stockdale is a visual artist, editor, and educator whose practice centers on the photobook as a significant form of contemporary photography. He is the founder and publisher of PhotoBook Journal and author of the long-running blog Singular Images. His work is held in collections including the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale. douglasstockdale.com

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Awards

$1,000 in total cash awards, plus a solo exhibition feature for First Place.

• First Place: $500 + Solo Exhibition on the Decagon Gallery website

• Second Place: $250

• Third Place: $150

• Two Honorable Mentions: $50 each

• Human Presence Nomination: Free entry to a future Decagon open call

All selected photographers receive inclusion in the curated exhibition, a dedicated exhibition page, Instagram feature, and inclusion in the printed catalog.

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How to Submit

$25 entry fee for up to 8 photographs. 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. Name files: First Name-Last Name_Title.jpg

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Photographers retain rights, including copyright, to their photographs. we will never distribute your photographs to anyone without your permission.