Photo of the Season — Worth a Thousand Words

The Image Flow is a Bay Area photography gallery and education space at 328 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in San Anselmo, California. "Photo of the Season" is the gallery's quarterly themed competition for standalone images. The 2026 spring/summer cycle theme is "Worth a Thousand Words" — narrative-driven photography that carries emotional or conceptual depth in a single frame.

Cash prizes are modest but useful: $150 first place, $100 second, $50 third, plus two honorable mentions. The four seasonal competitions of 2026 culminate in a 2027 group exhibition at The Image Flow, in which selected images from across the year are exhibited together — submission to any one season also enters the work into consideration for the year-end show.

Entry fee is $15 for up to three images. Eligibility is open globally to original work. Accepted media include film, digital, alternative process, and printmaking; mixed media, film/video, and AI-generated images are excluded. Selection is by The Image Flow's in-house team, judging on composition, color, contrast, technical quality, point of view, and narrative strength.

Winners are featured on The Image Flow's website, newsletter, and social channels. The 2026 deadline for the "Worth a Thousand Words" cycle is June 20.