Photographer membership

Applies to active photographers who have developed a personal body of work within the field of contemporary photography whether with a documentarian or an artistic approach.

All members get free access to all near. activities and the possibility to apply for free for the ‘near. prize’, as well as various benefits from our partners.

 

Become a member

Membership fee: CHF 100.– per year.

Applicants for a photographer membership are selected by nears.’ committee based on their portfolio.

Young photographers (also selected on the basis of their portfolio) benefit from a free one-year membership, as long as they are students or graduated within a year.

Note that the near. membership only extends to Swiss nationals or people that live and work in Switzerland.

 

near. family

Selection criteria

The acceptance of new members into the association is done by the committee following a series of selection criteria which include, among others, the originality of the submitted project and the artist’s vision, the body of work’s aesthetic quality, the coherence between the content and the form given to it, the integration of the submitted work into the author’s broader artistic project and, finally, the relevance of the project in relation to the current challenges faced by the photographic medium.

 

How to apply for a membership

Subscription Procedure:

Please send us all content, as listed below. The committee gets together 2 times a year to consider applications and discuss the subscriptions.
Please note point 5 below*, we also need the content for the website portfolio when applying.

 

What we need:
A single PDF document, with the following content (please do not exceed 20 MB)
1) 10–20 images (ideally at least two projects, no single images)
2) a written overview statement of the project(s) in english or french
3) a CV and/or Biography
4) full contact and site
* Please note that applications not corresponding to the above guidelines will be rejected.

 

Send us your application here

Deadlines to submit your portfolio:
March 1st and September 1st of each year.

 

What we expect from our members:

— Do one Takeover of the near. Instagram account.
— Be ready to participate in the ‘near. photographic collection’ which consists of a collection of one print per artist (production is paid by near. selection is done in chronological order of acceptance).
— Pay each years membership in due time.
— If possible participate to the General Assembly and of course to our events.