The CatchLight Global Fellowship Program

Made possible in part through a partnership with MPB.com, the CatchLight Global Fellowship, accompanied by a $30,000 award, serves as an incubator — a place for innovative leaders in the visual storytelling field to receive financial support, unlock individual potential, and grow and leverage partnerships. The Fellowship cultivates a vibrant community of creative thought leaders whose work will be enhanced by collaboration, personal development and networking. 

“The visual language has never been as important to our everyday communication or more powerful, and yet it is increasingly difficult to make a living as a professional visual storyteller, as recently established in the 2022 State of Photography survey, many photographers, especially in expensive cities like LA and New York, are living near the poverty line,” says Elodie Mailliet storm, CatchLight’s CEO. “CatchLight looks to build sustainability and resiliency for the field by investing in key leaders committed to impact.”

In 2019, we initiated the CatchLight Impact Fund as an opportunity for current and past fellows to propose collaborations with CatchLight to produce impact-driven engagement activities such as workshops, exhibitions and community activations in connection to their work. Most recently, 2019 Global Fellow Sparsh Ahuja received a $10,000 award from our Impact Fund to provide headsets for Project Dastaan’s Child of Empire, an immersive virtual reality experience about the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan.

CatchLight seeks candidates who think through the long-term impact of current social issues and embrace the Fellowship as an opportunity to lead the field in creative and innovative ways.

Proposals must represent excellence in the visual field and innovative engagement ideas. We invite and encourage a broad diversity in applicants, ideas, and creative mediums.

In addition to the $30,000 financial award, the Fellowship offers personal development opportunities, impact strategy and networking support from CatchLight staff and our extended network. You join a community of like-minded Fellows and industry professionals with opportunities for mentorship, education and speaking engagements.

A CatchLight Global Fellowship is awarded for life. Fellows are encouraged to share expertise beyond the year of their Fellowship of the grant period, and CatchLight hopes that Fellows will offer mentorship and seek mentorship within the community throughout their lives.

Banner image: © 2021 CatchLight Global Fellow Bayeté Ross Smith