Phodar Series Awards

Gain widespread exposure, your work will be exhibite during the Phodar festival in Sofia

Showcased at the online Winners Gallery

Get published in our Photobook

2025 Grand Prize $2.000
Award for Humanistic Photography $600
Debut Award $600

The 13th consecutive edition of the “Fodar” International Photo Festival Biennale is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the “Fodar” Foundation. Its theme is “Photographic Reality”. It was provoked by the increasingly rapid democratization and wide distribution of the photographic image. If 30 years ago photography was the most accessible technology for creating images and its fields of application expanded exponentially, becoming a leader in the field of visual arts, today practically everyone who has a mobile phone takes pictures. The development of social networks gives a new impetus to the creation and distribution of photographic images. It is no exaggeration to say that especially for the younger generations, the creation of digital images, online communication and life on the web is replacing the physical existence. The problem has many dimensions and ramifications, and the authors have a wealth of material for interpretations. Does virtual reality come into conflict with physical reality, or do they go together to new unsuspected horizons? And isn’t photographic reality a new language with its own rules, vocabulary, syntax? Where is and will be the place of artificial intelligence in this problem space? Of course, in addition to social, photographic reality also has its historical, informational and philosophical dimensions. This is the first topic that addresses so directly the problematic of the phenomenon of photography.

A jury consisting of Alexander Nishkov, Antoan Bozhinov, Elisaveta Musakova, Ivan Zahariev, Yordan Evtimov, Nadezhda Pavlova, Plamen Shulikov and Rosen Kolarov will choose the prizes and the participants in the exhibition of Phodar Biennial 2025.