The Contest
Photographs, Stories
Photographs, Stories
Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award 2024
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).
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 7-10, 2024), a partner of the competition for the seventh consecutive year.
2024 Theme: – Lumière(s)/Light(s) –
“Like all photographers, I am fascinated by light and the way it changes throughout the day; the way it forms patterns, creates rhythms and adds textures to the simplest objects.”
—Evelyn H. Lauder
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award is the first photographic competition and event dedicated to breast cancer.
Photography - etymologically "the art of writing with light" - is a medium that allows us to represent reality, but also beyond it. In this photo contest, a photographer, who takes a subjective glance at one or more individual stories, interprets the representation of illness. The participants are invited to shed light on the lives of people going through this often-invisible ordeal. In France, over 61.000 new cases were diagnosed last year.
Telling the stories of these women and men through photography and text has been 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.
Highlighting combats, strengths and hopes
The theme of this 13th edition is Lights(s) - "Lumière(s)": the illustration disease stages - discovery, evolution, treatments - the sparks of hope or bursts of joy in cases of remission and cure. But also, the inner fire that drives many people confronted with this suffering... All nuances are allowed. Through this competition, photographers and models share an intense moment that they offer to the public. What emerges from these human encounters are powerful and enlightening accounts of the daily lives of sufferers, whether they are undergoing treatment or in remission, and of the loved ones who are also going through these ordeals. A feeling of benevolence shines through where, often, loneliness and incomprehension threaten.
"Lumière(s)" is also about bringing out of the darkness all that is rarely revealed: moments of fragility and disarray, impacts on bodies, difficulties of showing, of showing oneself....
Each individual story, each photograph, each testimonial encourage us not to close our eyes to this disease. The result is images that are strong, modest, dark or full of hope, sometimes activist pictures, always dignified, and sometimes humorous and derisive.
The light is also the one in the eyes of others that encourages self-acceptance. As Frédérique Barraja, whose photograph is on the poster of this 13th edition, explains: "This laughter, so present, so full of life, makes us forget what Julie endures: chemo, bilateral mastectomy, radiotherapy. [...] She doesn't want to show her flat chest. I insist, she trusts me and takes off her T-shirt. [...] At that moment, my photographer's eye is caught by her luminous smile, which makes her painful scars invisible."
The Estée Lauder Companies Pink Ribbon Photo Award aims not to reduce people affected by breast cancer to their status as patients, past or present. It aims to change the way people look at things, to convey the importance of screening, and to highlight all the individualities, all the lights.
Some inspirational quotes:
- “Like all photographers, I am fascinated by light and the way it changes throughout the day; the way it forms patterns, creates rhythms and adds textures to the simplest objects. I'm interested in what isn't obvious, and I spend a lot of time looking for the special little details that one wouldn't always notice.” ~ Evelyn H. Lauder
- “It's this story that I like to tell, the story of shapes, light or lack of light, lines, especially when it's black and white.” ~ Jane Evelyn Atwood
- “A painter is someone who wipes the glass between the world and us with light, with a cloth of light soaked in silence.” ~ Christian Bobin
- “I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical.” ~ Trent Parke
- “Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
- "Photography helps people to see." ~ Berenice Abbott
- “No outward grace is complete unless it is enlivened by inner beauty. The beauty of the soul spreads like a mysterious light over the beauty of the body.” ~ Victor Hugo
- “Light, though impalpable, is a carnal medium, a skin that I share with the person photographed.” ~ Roland Barthes
THE ESTÉE LAUDER COMPANIES PINK RIBBON PHOTO AWARD IS ONLY OPEN TO FRANCE RESIDENT PHOTOGRAPHERS, FROM MAY 30 TO AUGUST, 20 2024.
The Origin The Book The Jury Our Partners
