autoportrait 2026 portrait prize - play

Welcome to the third interim edition of KLPA's AUTOPORTRAIT 2026 Open Call. This edition KLPA is collaborating with FORMAT International Photography Festival, integrating their FORMAT27 festival theme PLAY into this exciting open call. 

From its first inception, the essence of photography has centred on experimentation, trial and error, and exploration of something unknown; the desire to record the world around us in a way that is as close to reality as the eye can see. From Niépce’s first image to the Albumen print, photogram, cyanotype and collage, the very creation of the photographic medium and its continued evolution has been developed through the act of PLAY – experimentation as play. 

Self-portraiture, in essence is always based on experimentation, trial and error and a degree of creative playfulness. PLAY is at the heart of the creative process, no matter the subject or idea; the act of exploration is what fuels us. PLAY can be thought of as fun, joyful, intriguing, exploratory, experimental, challenging, deceitful, mischievous, imaginative, curious, provocative, inventive, spontaneous, subversive, engaging or perhaps rule-bending. Camera play, playing with and questioning the medium of photography itself, documenting the act of play, playing with the development of new technology, play as sport, playing with the truth or reality, the politics of play and the significance of the freedom of play being taken away are just some of the ways this broad theme could be interpreted.

Winners and finalists will be exhibited by projection/special screening as part of the FORMAT27 festival in Derby, United Kingdom from 11 March to 11 April 2027.