The Contest
Photographs, Stories
Photographs, Stories
Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award 2023
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award was created in 2012 by The Estée Lauder Companies France, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Pink Ribbon, in homage to Mrs. Evelyn H. Lauder and in order to support the actions of the Ruban Rose organization.
A pioneer in its genre and on a national scale, this competition is open to all photographers, amateurs and professionals alike. Since its first edition, several hundred contributions have been received from every region in France, around a theme defined annually: Pink Positive (2012), #SoPink (solidarity and breast cancer – 2013), Pink Energy (2014), My Battle, My Force (2015), Loving Oneself (2016), What Unites Us (2017), All Involved (2018), Heroes (2019), Resilience (2020), Gratitude (2021), An Eye for Beauty (2022).
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award brings together a wide public in an artistic way within the context of the national campaign against breast cancer, a campaign in which the Estée Lauder Companies France is actively involved as a founding member—with Marie Claire magazine—of the Ruban Rose Association.
Now a key event within its field, over the years the competition has allowed life stories to be revealed. Although they are often anonymous, they are always unique and never ordinary. It has contributed to removing certain taboos with regard to what many women, and sometimes men, experience when confronted with the disease.
Stories of families, friendship, love, reflections on the disease, unvarnished portraits, moving visual chronicles, humor… the photographic gesture here represents in and of itself a profound human engagement.
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is the bond between one person and another, heart to heart, an indestructible bond of solidarity between models and photographers, carried along by a cause that affects each and everyone of us. Its photographs, its stories, have resulted in several exhibitions, in Paris and in the provinces, during the context of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, dedicated each year, in October, to the struggle against breast cancer and to disseminating information about early breast cancer screening.
Each year, 40 photographer finalists are selected by a Jury composed of personalities united by the passion for photography and their commitment to the fight against breast cancer. The recipients of the Jury Prize and the Téva Audience Award of this eleventh edition have been announced during an exceptional awards ceremony during Paris Photo Fair (November 9-12, 2023), a partner of the competition for the seventh consecutive year.
2023 THEME
– IИ.VISIBLE –
“My motivation, always, is to reveal something that one might not otherwise see.” —Evelyn H. Lauder
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is the first photographic competition and event dedicated to breast cancer.
The medium of photography is invaluable in many ways for reversing the "invisibilisation" of bodies and minds, as well as the visible and invisible pain, feelings and hopes experienced by those confronted with the disease
Making the 'invisible' visible
Since the first edition of the Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award, our aim has been to give visibility - through images and words - to the 'invisibles' of a disease and its treatments, which affect the bodies and minds of those directly concerned - women and men - as well as those around them.
The result is images that are powerful, dignified, modest, sombre or full of hope, where humour and derision echo the difficult moments, and sometimes also images that are militant.
This new edition of the competition is also an invitation - whether you are a finalist or not - to create a space of possibilities where photographers and models can meet together to tell the invisible and the unspeakable and teach us to see.
"Teaching us to see" also means reminding us that every life story is unique, even when illness tends to confine people to a group and erase their individuality.
Breast cancer is a very intimate disease, and it's important to be recognised first and foremost as an individual, and only then as a patient. Photography helps to do this, as shown by Frédérique Jouvin's portrait of Manuella, the visual for this 12th edition.
Who better than the photographic eye - and, more broadly, the artist's eye - to help make manifest what we often cannot see alone, or even what we do not wish to see.
We could say that to photograph is to bring into the world.
Some inspirational quotes:
- “It's important to see what's invisible to others.” ~ Robert Frank
- “You see, teaching others to look is a gift.”– Mariana Yampolsky
- “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.”~ Diane Arbus
- “Wanting to be a photographer is not a goal in itself. What counts is to have something to say.” ~ Jane Evelyn Atwood
- “I try to capture the bodies, so that you can also capture people's souls, their feelings and what their eyes have seen.” ~ Isabel Muñoz
- “Appearances are a vision of the invisible.” ~ Anaxagore
- “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” ~ Jonathan Swift
- "Photography helps people to see." ~ Berenice Abbott
- “It’s curiosity. Even though I’m scared I still want to go; I don’t want to see it, but I do. I want to capture this world that we live in and show it to people who aren’t aware.” ~ Tsuneko Sasamoto
- “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible.” ~ Paul Klee
THE ESTÉE LAUDER COMPANIES PINK RIBBON PHOTO AWARD WAS OPEN TO FRANCE RESIDENT PHOTOGRAPHERS, FROM MAY 30 TO AUGUST, 20 2023.
The Origin The Book The Jury Our Partners
Finalists 2023
