The "Capture the Spirit of Ramadan" International Photography Award™, also known as the IRPC (International Ramadan Photography Competition) is an unprecedented.... annual global photography competition founded in 2011 by StudioBasel. The competition aims at providing a window into the diverse lives and cultural customs of over one billion Muslim worshipers during the holy month of Ramadan. It also serves as an crowd-sourced platform upon which the founders hope to spread awareness on Islamic practices through the art of photography.
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The competition has published photos of Muslims in over sixty countries experiencing the physical and spiritual motions of the holy month. The purpose of the competition is both to educate and enlighten those living beyond the borders of Muslim countries and who may foster misconceptions of Islam and Muslims by displaying the various positive facets of the Islamic faith such as compassion and humility.
In its inaugural year, the competition garnered a response of 25,000 participants and fans in total. The photo submissions numbered over 1000 with participants from 40 countries including Mauritius, Russia, Bosnia,Herzegovina and Libya. The IRPC has also garnered support from organizations such as UNESCO and The British Museum Cash prizes for the winning photos sum up to about USD $10,000 with additional accolades such as “Viewer’s Choice Awards” and “Honorable Mentions” Winners and runners up have their photographs published in internationally acclaimed news and media outlets as well as international photography magazines. Additionally, the Top 100 photographs of each year are displayed on the competition website archive for perpetual reference.
In 2013 “Capture the Spirit of Ramadan” gathered the world’s largest modern Islamic themed photography collection from over 60 countries, the best of which are published in a print photography book by StudioBasel. In addition to the photography book, “Capture the Spirit of Ramadan” publishes an annual magazine on photography, spirituality, inter-faith and cross-cultural dialogue, family, organic living, and halal cuisine. The world-touring "Capture the Spirit of Ramadan" International Photography Exhibition will debut in Kuala Lumpur at the Islamic Arts Museum of Malaysia in 2014 with a 3-month residency that will include the month of Ramadan. The touring exhibition will also go to Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Australia. Conclusively, the ultimate aim of the entire IRPC project is to create cultural bridges and counteract the negative images of Islam often seen in today's media portrayals by using photographic images to open peoples minds to the beauty of faith
Submission Guidelines
The competition has specific rules and guidelines to be followed by all participants.
Each photographer may submit up to three photographs a day during the month of Ramadan. Once submitted, photographs will be judged upon the criteria of Impact and Message, Creativity and Photographic Quality and Technique. The photographs will also be judged in terms of quality and resolution clarity (1). All photos that pass submission guidelines are published for the general public on the Facebook page of “Capture the Spirit of Ramadan”.
Founding Organization
The competition was founded by Basel Almisshal, Chief Creative Director of StudioBasel, a creative arts firm specializing in a range of disciplines including architecture, photography, branding and diverse social responsibility projects. StudioBasel is committed to building world-class brands through elegant and sophisticated designs with a mission to contribute to the development of contemporary art and design in the Arab and Muslim world. Basel Almisshal has a diverse professional background which encompasses diplomatic architecture, photography, design and research in politics culminating in a PhD from the University of York. StudioBasel runs the IRPC as a corporate social-responsibility initiative with the assistance of dedicated volunteers from all over the world.
Panel of Judges
In addition to Dr. Almisshal, four other panel judges will be applying their expertise to evaluate submitted photography.
Steve McCurry is an award-winning photo-journalist, best known for his world-famous green-eyed “Afghan Girl” photograph which appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985.
Professor Shahidul Alam is a National Geographic Society advisory board member as well as World Press Photo Awards judge. He continues to publish acclaimed photography books and lectures at several universities including Harvard, UCLA and Sunderland University in the UK.
Dr. Mustafa Azahari is the Dean of Arts and Design Faculty at the University of Technology MARA (UiTM) in Kuala Lumpur. Dr. Azahari has been an advocate of "the power of photography as a medium of visual communication" since the 1980s while completing his PhD in Visual Communication at the Birmingham City University in the UK.
Elvira Bojadzic is an award-winning artist and designer and co-founder and Art Director of the Islamic Arts Magazine, which is a leading international Islamic arts publication.
Previous Winners
IRPC 2011
1st Place - Megat Mohd Syazwan Othman (Malaysia) Photo title : Reminisce the Golden Age
2nd Place - Hisham Sarsour (Palestine) Photo Title : The Shoemaker
3rd Place (1) - Iwan Hariyanto (Indonesia) Photo Title : Colourful Eid Preparation
3rd Place (2) - Shubhadeep Roy (India) Photo Title : Reaction of the Flow
IRPC 2012
1st Place - Muhammad Hatta (Indonesia) Photo Title : The Qur'an
2nd Place - Samer Hilmy (Egypt) Photo Title : The Month of Qur'an
3rd Place - Imane Tirich (Morocco) Photo Title : Subhanaka Ya Allah