What is Fotomaraton?

Fotomaraton is an open photography competition with a long tradition organised by Ylioppilaskamerat ry, the Helsinki University students’ photography association. The competition is held every year during Helsinki’s Night of the Arts festival in August. This year we have three separate classes: digital, film and Instagram.

The competition assignment consists of 12 consecutive subjects or themes, which will be announced in three successive sets during the Night of the Arts (subjects 1-4 at 5 pm, subjects 5-8 at 7 pm and subjects 9-12 at 9 pm). The announcements will be made on the Fotomaraton website and on the Ylioppilaskamerat Instagram-feed. For the film and digital competition classes, all images must be handed over at the Fotomaraton competition office. For the Instagram class, entries will be identified by their hashtags.

The entry fee for the digital and film classes is 10 euros (students, pensioners and minors get a discount of 5 euros). Entrants in these classes recieve an Ylioppilaskamerat ry fabric carrier bag. Entrants in the film class will be supplied with a film roll for the competition (35mm, black-and-white), and the fee covers the processing of the film. Those intending to enter the film class should therefore stop by the Fotomaraton competition office before starting to sign up and pick up the film. Entrants to the digital class can sign up and pay the entry fee when submitting their photos at the end of the competition. Entry in the Instagram class is free of charge, so entrants aren’t required to visit the competition office.

The complete set of 12 photos – one for each subject – must be submitted by the deadline of 11 pm at the Fotomaraton competition office (at our stand Leppäsuonkatu 11, 00101 Helsinki). When submitting the photos there must be exactly 12 images on a memory card or film roll, and they must be arranged in the correct order corresponding to the assigned subjects. Competitors in the Instagram class can enter with any number of images and aren’t required to complete the full set.