Leica will once again host the international photography contest "Leica Oskar Barnack Award" (LOBA) this year. The award, established in 1979, marks its 40th iteration.

The "Leica Oskar Barnack Award" was established in 1979 to honor the achievements of Oskar Barnack, who revolutionized photography in 1914 with his invention of the revolutionary, compact, and portable Leica camera.

In 1980, Floris Neusüss became the first recipient. Since then, renowned photographers such as Sebastião Salgado (a two-time winner), Jan Grarup, Dominique Nabokov (the first winner of the newcomer award), Jane Evelyn Atwood, Eugene Richards, and Chris Steele-Perkins have received the award.

The award comprises two categories: the main "Leica Oskar Barnack Award" for professional photographers, and the newcomer award, "Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award."

A significant change this year is the shift to a nomination-based application format, where submissions are made by nominators. Previously, photographers applied directly.

Finalists will be selected from the nominated candidates, and the winners will be decided thereafter. The nominators are 70 globally recognized photography experts selected from over 30 countries. This change to a nomination format means that being selected as a finalist signifies direct recognition of one's abilities by esteemed figures with significant influence in the photography world.

For the main "Leica Oskar Barnack Award," nominators evaluate and judge the works of various photographers based on their individual criteria, recommending three photographers each.

The sole condition for photographers to be nominated is that their photographic work must be documentary or conceptual, focusing on the theme of "the relationship between people and their surroundings."

For the "Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award," each nominator recommends one photographer under the age of 30.

The jury will convene at Leica headquarters in Wetzlar, Germany, in May 2020 to select this year's winners. The winner of the main category will receive a cash prize of 40,000 euros (approximately 4.8 million yen), a first in the award's history.

Additionally, Leica camera products worth 10,000 euros (approximately 1.2 million yen) will be awarded, as in previous years.

The winner of the newcomer award will receive a two-week trip to Leica headquarters in Wetzlar and participation in a photography project. They will also be presented with a Leica Q series camera valued at 5,000 euros (approximately 600,000 yen).

The award ceremony is scheduled for September 24, 2020. To commemorate LOBA's 40th anniversary celebrating talented photographers, a special exhibition featuring this year's winning works and selected past winners will be held at the Ernst Leitz Museum and Leica Gallery Wetzlar.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a magazine will also be published, featuring detailed profiles of the winners and their complete works.

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, Director and Chief Representative of Leica Galleries International and head of the jury for this award, commented: "Documentary photography is central to the rich photographic history built by Leica products and remains deeply intertwined with the Leica brand today. This year marks the 40th LOBA, an honor for original documentary photographers. Introducing a new nomination-based application format and aiming for further development into a more prestigious award with even greater global attention is a fitting endeavor for this milestone."