In the first 100 days after Google+ was launched, 3.4 billion photographs were uploaded to the service. In light of this, Google is launching an international photo competition to “find the photography stars of the future.”

From far-away places to up-close faces, there are 10 different categories to spark your imagination. And there are some great prizes to be won: 10 finalists chosen by a jury of renowned photographers will show their work at Saatchi Gallery, London for two months in 2012 alongside Out of Focus, a major photography exhibition, and win a trip to London to attend the exhibition opening event with a friend. One winner will go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to an amazing destination with a professional photography coach.

The contest is open to college students, and can be entered by uploading entries to Google+ and then submitting it through an online form. The deadline to enter is January 31, 2012.

Google Photography Prize (via Google)

A couple days ago we covered the winning image of the British Journal of Photography’s international photo contest and how many readers disagreed with the photo’s merits. The prize for that contest was a one week exhibition and a Sigma digital compact camera. Now compare that to the above photograph, which won AU $80,000 in the 2010 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, one of the richest prizes in the world. Like the BJP photo, this photograph became the subject of debate.
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The TED conference announced yesterday that the 2011 TED Prize would be awarded to the anonymous street artist and photographer known as JR. Previous winners of the $100,000 award include Bill Clinton, James Nachtwey and Bono.
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Adorama announced today that “So Long & Farewell” by Neville Black was picked as the grand prize winner of the first annual iPhone Photo Contest, which comes with a $1,000 gift certificate as the prize.

Black tells us,

I’m a photographer based in Ottawa Ontario Canada (moved from Vancouver BC recently) and I’m still in awe at some of the architecture in the capital. I’ve shot most of it all before with my SLR but when I picked up the iPhone 3Gs to add to my camera collection, it was like rediscovering photography. The iPhone is in a world of its own, its amazing. I created this photo with TiltShift, DXP (blurry shampoo bottles made the sky) and my favorite app I pretty much use for all my shots, Lo-Mob.

The photograph was selected from more than 17,000 submissions by the team of seven judges.

To see the other photographs picked by the judges, check out the list of prize winners. Congrats Neville!

Image credit: Photograph by Neville Black and used with permission

“Save Our Earth, Let’s Go Green”, an electron microscope photograph created by Harvard scientists, was recently awarded first place in the Science And Engineering Visualization Challenge 2009 put on by Science Magazine and the National Science Foundation.

Noodlelike fibers stretch to latch onto a green sphere. Alone each fiber is powerless, but together they grip and support the orb, embodying cooperation at a microscopic scale. This electron microscope photograph catches self-assembling polymers in action, but it could also represent people’s cooperative efforts to save Earth, says materials scientist Joanna Aizenberg of Harvard University. “Each hair represents a person or an organization,” she says. “It shows our collaborative effort to hold up the planet and keep it running.”

What’s amazing is that each fiber seen in the photo has a diameter of 250 nanometers, or 1/500th the thickness of a human hair.

2009 Visualization Challenge: Photography (via Silber Studios)

Image credit: Photograph by Harvard University

Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian billionaire who purchased the photograph 99 Cent II Diptychon in 2007 for a record breaking $3.34 million, has launched an international award for artists called the Future Generation Art Prize.

The biennial prize awards $100,000 to a young artist under the age of 35. Anyone who meets the age requirement can apply online through the award’s website. Once the nominations have been received, 100 art experts from all over the world each select 2-5 candidates. From there, another selection committee reviews the resulting 200-500 entries and selects 20 artists for an exhibition. The winner will then be selected from the exhibition.

Pinchuk, who is 49, has only been collecting art for five years, but has ranked among the most active collectors during that time. Though he will not take part in selecting the winner of the prize, the prize stipulates that the finalists must include the winner of a separate Ukrainian award that he established. One of Pinchuk’s goals through his museums and awards is to establish Ukranian capital city Kiev as one of the cultural hubs of the world.

Future Generation Art Prize (via PDNPulse)

Image credit: Photo by Sergei Illin