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    • Home
    • Smoky Hill
    • five state
    • Quiet America
    • school & youth
      • summer classes
      • creative writing
      • famous figures
    • exhibitions
      • She Is...
      • Friday & Lawrence
      • Intuitive, Beyond Dusk
      • Wood, Jilg, Epp
      • Frank Nichols Revisited
      • Mysterious Iconography
  • Home
  • Smoky Hill
  • five state
  • Quiet America
  • school & youth
    • summer classes
    • creative writing
    • famous figures
  • exhibitions
    • She Is...
    • Friday & Lawrence
    • Intuitive, Beyond Dusk
    • Wood, Jilg, Epp
    • Frank Nichols Revisited
    • Mysterious Iconography
Hays Arts Council

Five State PHotography Competition & Exhibition

This is the 40th year for this regional photography competition, open to any photographer living in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma and Colorado. 

Entry is through 8"x10" photographs. Complete information & entry forms through links below, followed by images from the 2021 & 2022 exhibitions.

2023-2024 Five State

Juror: Charlie Riedel, Associated Press Photographer
Categories: Nature, People & Open
Cash Awards: $1,500 ($500 each category)
Entry Deadline: November 7, 2023
Exhibition: December 2, 2023 - February 9, 2024 

2023-2024 competition & exhibition info2023-2024 fillable entry form

Our Five State Partners

2022 Five State

The Five State Photography Competition & Exhibition is a regional fine art photography competition open to any photographer living in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma and Colorado.   


Entry was through 8"x10" photographs.  This year 549 works were submitted, and after processing, they were delivered to this year's judge, April Watson, who selected 150 works for exhibition.  $1,500 in cash prizes were awarded, works were matted and framed, and the exhibition opened as the anchor of our Winter Art Walk on Saturday, December 3.


Included on this page is a gallery of those works receiving cash and Juror's Merit awards, the statement by our juror, and the complete album of this year's exhibited photographs.  If you're interested in learning more about the project, the entry information can be found on this page.


The 39th Annual Five State Photography Exhibition opened on December 3 as the anchor of the Hays Arts Council Winter Art Walk and will run through February 10, 2023.


Link to complete list of photographers and selected works

2022 Juror

April Watson is the senior curator of photography for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.  She holds degrees in Art History from the University of Kansas (Ph.D.) and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (MA). She has contributed writing and scholarship on photography and its history to catalogs and exhibitions for the Corcoran Gallery, Center for Creative Photography, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the Nelson-Atkins.  She has curated exhibitions of the work of Terry Evans, Eugene Richards, Anthony Hernandez, Gordon Parks, Jim Dow and an upcoming project on Evelyn Hofer.  

2022 juror statement

2022 Awards

$200 Cash Award - Nature  

Jennifer Burns 

To the Lighthouse


2022 Exhibition

Douglas Busby - Shawnee KS 

Portrait of a Shipwreck 

2021 Awards

$200 Cash Award - NATURE

MONARCHS - Michelle Kelty

2021 exhibition

Rhonda Albrecht

Salina, KS

Old Glory

Hays Arts Council

112 East 11th Street - Hays, Kansas 67601

785.625.7522

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