Hasselblad is now accepting submissions for the 2009 Hasselblad Masters Awards. For 2009, winners will be chosen from submissions in each of the following ten categories: architecture, editorial, fashion/beauty, fine art, general photography, nature/landscape, portrait, product, up and coming, and wedding/social. Submissions for all categories will be accepted from any established professional photographer, using any large and medium format camera. The closing date for submissions is 1st January 2009.

DPNow are giving away an Olympus E-520 twin-lens kit in their latest monthly prize draw. All you need to do to enter is subscribe to their email newsletter.

Website: DPNow - Win a twin-lens kit Olympus E-520 DSLR

17 college students from around the USA have been chosen as winners in the first MyShot08 photo contest. Entrants were challenged to create innovative and aesthetically striking photo specialty products using web-based templates in three categories: photo books, greeting cards and calendars. Contest judges reviewed more than 200 submissions. Jenee’ Jones, a junior photography major at Virginia Commonwealth University, won “best of show” honors and will receive a prize package that includes a trip to a photo shoot with lead contest judge and professional photographer George Kamper.

US bag manufacturer Think Tank Photo are offering a free trip to the Photokina photography show in September. If you are a photographer, you are eligible to enter Think Tank Photo’s drawing for free round-trip airfare, hotel, spending money, and exhibition passes to photokina, the world’s leading photo and imaging trade fair. Join over 160,000 visitors from 156 countries in exploring 1,600 exhibitors of cutting edge imaging products from almost 50 countries. And, you get to hang around Cologne with the gang from Think Tank Photo (what could be better!). Go to www.thinktankphoto.com/photokina to enter.

The theme for the 8th Ricoh Photo Contest is “Precious Things, Precious Moment”. Running from May 30th 2008 to August 29th 2008, the Ricoh contest is open to any photos taken with a Ricoh compact digital camera. A total of 50 photos will be chosen as winners from among the photos submitted, including a grand prize winner. In addition, this year a “2009 Ricoh Photo Calendar” will also be created using 13 photographs selected from among the winners.

Win an Olympus E-3 camera or a £1000 Supercheque Travel and Retail voucher in the 18th Annual TNT Magazine Travel Photography Awards. Photographs submitted should encompass the spirit of travel and be representative of different cultures, lifestyles, landscapes and people that one has contact with while on the road. All finalists will be published in a special edition of TNT Magazine and the photography finalist’s work will be exhibited for paid commission sales. The competition closes on August 8th.

The Travel Photographer of the Year 2008 competition is now open for entries. There are three portfolio categories - Life, Call of the Wild and Joy of Travel - a One Shot category, Destination Anywhere, and Young TPOTY. New this year are the First Shot: Wish You Were Here category for less experienced photographers, and three special £1,000 awards for the Best Single Image in a Portfolio. Prizes include a place on the 2009 High & Wild Everest Skydive Expedition and Intrepid Travel trips to India and Cuba and to see the mountain gorillas of Uganda. The competition closes on September 9th. Entry costs £10 for a single image category and £15 for a portfolio category, and entry to Young TPOTY is free.

The winner of the “Everyday Smiles” photo contest from Sony and Reuters will have their photos displayed on a Times Square billboard. Aspiring U.S. photographers are invited to submit photos of themselves, their friends and their families smiling. Entries for the Everyday Smiles contest must be received between now and June 16th 2008.

The Nikon Discovery Awards 2008 offers students across the UK and Ireland the chance to win a share of £50,000 worth of prizes. Selected colleges and universities offering photographic courses have been invited to join the Nikon Academy, making them eligible to enter the competition. Entries for the competition must be submitted by 31st October 2008, when a panel of independent judges will select a shortlist of entries. To view the winning entries from the Discovery Awards 2007, visit www.nikon.co.uk/gallery

The five winners of Elevation 2008, PhotoShelter’s first annual student-to-pro award and competition, have been announced. The five grand prize winners will receive a portfolio from the award’s sponsors, and be a featured photographer in the PhotoShelter Collection’s May 2008 Editors’ Showroom. “We’re thrilled to recognize the 2008 ELEVATION student winners and assist in their transition to the pro level with the help of outstanding judges and sponsors,” said Meagan Ziegler-Haynes, Director of Photography of PhotoShelter.  “Today’s winners should be proud – our distinguished judges felt that their work stood out among hundreds of entries, and now they’ll stand out in the market too.”

The 2008 TIPA Awards have just been unveiled. Billed by TIPA as the “Most Coveted Photo & Imaging Awards in Europe”, this year’s winners include the Sony A200, Canon EOS 450D, Nikon D300 and Nikon D3 in the various DSLR categories, the Sigma DP1 for “Best Prestige Camera”, and Casio’s 60fps EX-F1 for “Best Imaging Innovation”. Visit the link below to see all 36 winners.

Website: TIPA Awards 2008

Vanessa Winship from the UK has been named as the Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year. Her entry in the Portraiture category has beaten thousands of submissions to win the esteemed title, accompanied by a $25,000 cash prize. Vanessa Winship said, “Many, many thanks, and these are actually for the little girls of Eastern Turkey.” Vanessa Winship received her award from Honorary Board Member Elliott Erwitt at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes.

Canon USA has announced a call for entries for the third annual Canon Photography In The Parks Photo Contest. You can enter the competition from April 22nd to September 30th 2008 by submitting images from any park or monument in America. The theme for this year’s contest is “Inspirational Nature Images”. The winner of the Photography In The Parks contest will receive a trip to a park of their choice, and a full suite of Canon photographic equipment.

The New Classic Nude Art Competition aims to identify and expose today’s version of the classic nude. Sponsored by the Christiania Art Foundation, the winner of the New Classic Nude contest will have their work featured on a prominent billboard in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District and other major cities later in the year. The competition will be overseen and critiqued by a panel of art-world luminaries and collectors, including Lydia Fenet, auctioneer at Christie’s Auction House. The deadline for entry is 15th May 2008.

You can win 2 grandstand tickets for the Great Britain round of the 2008 MotoGP motorcycling championship in PicStop’s latest competition. These highly sought after MotoGP tickets will entitle the winner to 3 Days of MotoGP action from the home of British Motorcycle racing. This will also include spectacular Redgate GrandStand Seats to watch all the action from. The competition closes on 13th June 2008.

The natural history website Loveearth.com has launched a natural history photo contest. Each week 20 images will be selected and published on the site, with the winner drawn at random. The first prize is a digital camera worth £299, and the weekly winners will receive a Planet Earth box set (RRP £20) and £50 worth of Lonely Planet travel guides. Open to all residents of the UK and USA, the Love Earth contest will run until May 31st 2008.

The second annual ASMP Arnold Newman Prize has been awarded to photographer Jonathan Torgovnik. The work of Torgovnik, “Intended Consequences: Genocide Mothers, Children of Rape,”, was selected from nearly 300 images submitted in the 2008 contest. He will receive a grant in the amount of $2,500 cash from Getty Images and a Canon EOS 30D camera. The ASMP Arnold Newman Prize prize recognizes the work of a contemporary environmental portrait photographer whose imagery is grounded in the traditions and values that Newman pioneered.

LG’s Viewtyful World photo competition aims to encourage people to explore and capture their surroundings. The Viewtyful World winner’s work will feature in National Geographic magazine and they will receive a copyright fee of £5,000. There are three different themes, night view, retouch, and moments, and the contest will be will be judged by website visitors. Jeremy Newing, head of LG Mobile Marketing, LG Electronics commented “This is a great opportunity for budding photographers to put their skills to the test and take their photography to a new level, via the powerful combination of a world class imaging device with a world class media partner.”

The finalists for the Garden Photographer of the Year 2008 contest have been announced. Theirphotographs will be showcased at an exhibition launched on 22nd May at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which runs until late September 2008.  The winners themselves will be announced when the show opens, as part of the opening of Kew’s Summer festival. Prizes include £5,000 cash for Best Single Image, £5,000 for Best Portfolio, and over £10,000 worth of vouchers from Manfrotto, Kata and Visible Dust. The competition for 2009 is now open with new categories including “World Botanic Gardens” and “The Edible Garden”.

The professional finalists of the Sony World Photography Awards have been announced. Three professional photographers in each of the eleven categories will find out if they have won at the Awards Presentation in Cannes on 24th April. The overall winner will be awarded the L’iris d’or and receive a $25,000 prize. “The World Photographic Academy has had a challenging assignment to select the finalists from such an expansive selection of high quality work. The 33 professional finalists should be rewarded with the knowledge that they were chosen from a total of 44,641 professional entries internationally – the calibre of photographic entries is a testament to the industry in itself.” commented Scott Gray, Founder of the Sony World Photography Awards.