The Contest
Photographs, Stories
Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award 2025
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), IN.VISIBLES (2023), Lumière(s)/Light(s) (2024).
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 will be announced during an exceptional awards ceremony that will take place during Paris Photo (November 13-16, 2025), a partner of the competition for the seventh consecutive year.
THE ESTÉE LAUDER COMPANIES PINK RIBBON PHOTO AWARD WAS OPEN TO FRENCH RESIDENT PHOTOGRAPHERS, FROM MAY 30 TO SEPTEMBER, 1 2025.
THE 2025 FINALISTS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON 1St OCTOBER
2025 Theme: – Clother to the heart–
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is the first photographic competition and event dedicated to breast cancer.
For its 14th edition, the competition orientate this year with a deeply human and symbolic theme: “Closer to the Heart”. Photographers are invited to take a subjective look at the disease, by telling a story: the story of Women - or much more rarely, the one of Men - who face this cancer. This has been the the aim of the Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award since its beginning in 2012, to encourage the audience for early breast cancer screening.
More than 900,000 people in France face this ordeal, one woman in eight, with an average of more than 60,000 new cases diagnosed every year.
Each image tells an intimate, subjective story about kindness, struggles and hopes “Closer to the Heart”
At a time of global political destabilization, the competition gives space to the very essence of the fight against breast cancer. A fight which, beyond the disease, is played out on the terrain of empathy, solidarity, humanist values and the unfailing support of family and loved ones, all united in a common spirit of solidarity, benevolence and hope.
Breast cancer, one of the most widespread pathologies, is a profound upheaval for sufferers and those around them. It's an upheaval that not only alters our bodies, but also our relationship with others and with the world.
Through this competition, photographers and models share an intense moment, which they offer to the audience. What emerges from these human encounters are powerful and enlightening accounts of the daily lives of sufferers, illustrating the different stages of the disease: from treatment and remission to recovery.
Each image tells a story of struggle, hope and love. A story that shows the moments of gentleness between friends and family, the gestures that reassure, the discreet smiles that sometimes hide tears. A story that tells, in a single photo, the daily reality of a sick person, alone or accompanied, faced with illness and its progression. A story that tells of collective initiatives, benevolence, support, moments of courage and determination. And dignity.
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is a call for collective action to raise public awareness of the importance of breast cancer screening, prevention and research.
By exposing these images to the general audience, the aim is to break taboos, to talk freely about the disease, but also to celebrate the strength and beauty that emerge and triumph from the ordeal. Photographer Jacques Lannegrand, who signs the poster for this new edition with the portrait of his wife with which he was a winner in 2016, testifies with his true words that touch our hearts: "How does a person love herself during and after an ordeal such as breast cancer?
My wife, who had been a model, had always sat for me. Taking up this photographic activity again helped her rediscover her self-confidence and a femininity that she thought she’d forever lost. For me, this image represents a huge gift, it means even more to her, this return to a full life by starting to love herself again.”
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is more than just an art competition. It's a way of conveying a message of solidarity and kindness, of changing the way we look at people with breast cancer, of highlighting the importance of early detection, but also of paying tribute to all individuals, to all stories. Because true light lies not only in what we see, but in what we feel deep down inside. Hence the title of this 14th edition: “Closer to the Heart”.
Through the subjective gaze of the artist-photographer, emerges to light the plurality of singular stories surrounding the disease and bring out the beauty of each person, who lives the pain in their body, in their flesh, in their mind, in their daily life. Direct or suggestive, in natural lighting or in the studio, as a portrait or a snapshot... all styles are welcome More than 900,000 people in France face this ordeal, one woman in eight, with an average of more than 60,000 new cases diagnosed every year.
Each image tells an intimate, subjective story about kindness, struggles and hopes “Closer to the Heart”
At a time of global political destabilization, the competition gives space to the very essence of the fight against breast cancer. A fight which, beyond the disease, is played out on the terrain of empathy, solidarity, humanist values and the unfailing support of family and loved ones, all united in a common spirit of solidarity, benevolence and hope.
Breast cancer, one of the most widespread pathologies, is a profound upheaval for sufferers and those around them. It's an upheaval that not only alters our bodies, but also our relationship with others and with the world.
Through this competition, photographers and models share an intense moment, which they offer to the audience. What emerges from these human encounters are powerful and enlightening accounts of the daily lives of sufferers, illustrating the different stages of the disease: from treatment and remission to recovery.
Each image tells a story of struggle, hope and love. A story that shows the moments of gentleness between friends and family, the gestures that reassure, the discreet smiles that sometimes hide tears. A story that tells, in a single photo, the daily reality of a sick person, alone or accompanied, faced with illness and its progression. A story that tells of collective initiatives, benevolence, support, moments of courage and determination. And dignity.
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is a call for collective action to raise public awareness of the importance of breast cancer screening, prevention and research.
By exposing these images to the general audience, the aim is to break taboos, to talk freely about the disease, but also to celebrate the strength and beauty that emerge and triumph from the ordeal. Photographer Jacques Lannegrand, who signs the poster for this new edition with the portrait of his wife with which he was a winner in 2016, testifies with his true words that touch our hearts: "How does a person love herself during and after an ordeal such as breast cancer?
My wife, who had been a model, had always sat for me. Taking up this photographic activity again helped her rediscover her self-confidence and a femininity that she thought she’d forever lost. For me, this image represents a huge gift, it means even more to her, this return to a full life by starting to love herself again.”
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is more than just an art competition. It's a way of conveying a message of solidarity and kindness, of changing the way we look at people with breast cancer, of highlighting the importance of early detection, but also of paying tribute to all individuals, to all stories. Because true light lies not only in what we see, but in what we feel deep down inside. Hence the title of this 14th edition: “Closer to the Heart”.
Some inspirational quotes:
- “To photograph is to put the head, the eye and the heart on the same line of sight.” ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer
- “You fill the frame with feeling, energy, discovery and risk, and leave enough room for someone else to enter.” ~ Joel Meyerowitz
- “It's not so much what you look at that counts, it's what you see.” ~ Dorothea Lange, photographer
- “There is one thing that photography must contain, the humanity of the moment” ~ Robert Frank, photographer
- “Photographing is a way of crying out, of praying, of bearing witness.” ~ Sophie Calle, artist
- "What we see is not always what we look at. What we feel is what we photograph." ~ André Kertész, photographer
- "I try to capture something more fragile than an ordinary story. I like what people bring me." ~ Agnès Varda, filmmaker and photographer
- “Every scar that life leaves us is proof that we have survived.” ~ Frida Kahlo, artist
- “The body is a diary where memory is inscribed.” ~ Boris Cyrulnik, author
- “In every pain there is a dignity to be revealed.” ~ Emmanuel Levinas, philosopher
- “Suffering asks to be seen.” ~ Susan Sontag, philosopher
- “For me, the subject of the image is always more important than the image.” ~ Diane Arbus
- "It's with the heart that we really see. What is essential is invisible to the eye." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Origin The Book The Jury Our Partners
