Los Angeles, CA—The Lucie Foundation supports emerging talent with vision and dynamic ideas that challenge as well as progress the art form of still photography into compelling work. It does so through various programs. In keeping with its mission, the organization revealed the the Lucie Foundation 2022 Scholarship winners.
“Our support of photography is overarching, from fine art to documentary and photojournalism, as well as from digital to film-based works. Our objective is to support emerging photographers producing work that is at once gripping, and original,” the organization announced.
Lucie Foundation $3,000 Fine Art Scholarship
This scholarship is in support of fine art photographers. Moreover, it is open to both emerging and established artists. This year, the winner was Felipe Romero Beltrán for his work Bravo. 
The southern border entrance into the United States is through northern Mexico. Furthermore, the Rio Bravo is defined by a dual status: it is a river and a frontier at the same time. The geographical separation coincides in the river with a political division. With the frontier on one side, the entrance in northern Mexico is a place inhabited by those who are waiting as well as those watching people crossing the border.
Felipe Romero Beltrán’s project, titled Bravo, is an essay that registers persons, objects and architectures of a place that precedes, in suspension, the frontier.
Honorable mention photographers, and their works, include Brett Leigh Dicks, Ground Zero; Christine Lenzen, As Long as I’m Alive, I’m Living; and Farren van Wyk, Mixedness Is My Mythology.
Emerging Artist $1,500 Scholarship +
Along with a cash prize this scholarship awards a Sony Alpha 7 III camera body as well as a 28–70mm lens. Sponsored by Sony, the scholarship is open to all genres of photographic work. It is given to an individual to create or continue work on a specific dynamic project.
This year’s winner is Chloe Milos Azzopardi for Ecosystems. Ecosystems is the last part of Les formes qu’ils habitent en temps de crise. It’s a futuristic fable, research about how we can imagine new interspecies relationships in a post-capitalocene era. The term capitalocene refers to a geological era Earth entered in the 19th century. It designates the unprecedented environmental transformations triggered by human activity in overdeveloped countries.
Honorable mention photographers in the Emerging Artist category are Aïcha Fall, Jiggen Jiggen; Mandana Mahdavi, ÂME; and Dominic Whisson, Epicinium.
Photo Taken $1,000 Emerging Scholarship
This scholarship is given to an individual to create or continue a project focused on telling an existing story through a documentary or photojournalism approach. The winner is Radu Diaconu for R_EU_nification.
2020–2023 Cyprus is still reeling from the effects of the 1974 Greek-led coup and the subsequent Turkish invasion that divided the island into two communities, Greek and Turkish-Cypriots. Now, it must deal with an influx of refugees that threatens to change the island’s demographics. With a population of around 850,000, Cyprus holds the largest share of asylum-seekers per capita—3.5%—in Europe. The influx of Syrians fleeing the war, the largest group of refugees, is slowly giving way to a host of asylum seekers from Africa.
The new arrivals, along with a broken system, threaten to upend the fragile peace that has held since 1974. As one side tries to derail the other by sending them across the border, migrants suffer while waiting in limbo, victims of racism, extortion by landlords and employers, according to Diaconu.
The honorable mention photographers in this category comprise Rebecca Conway, Aftermath, Nepal; Aaron Hammond Duncan, Habeas Corpus; and Hailey Sadler, Missing Home.
Photo Made $1,000 Emerging Scholarship
The foundation grants this scholarship to an individual to create or continue a project focused on creating a story through a conceptual fine art approach. Beihua Guo took home the top prize for Water Is Thicker Than Blood.
“In Water Is Thicker Than Blood (2021-present), my photographs and archive-based art attempt to illuminate the ignored and forgotten history of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. It is a story of greed, violence, oppression and disastrous environmental consequences,” said Guo.
“By the mid-1920s, Owens Lake was drained by Los Angeles and toxic dust storms swept across the dry lakebed. The Owens Valley was financially and ecologically destroyed, farms and ranches abandoned. Furious Owens Valley residents repeatedly dynamited the Aqueduct. In 1928, the St. Francis dam disaster killed more than 400 people. Even today, Owens Valley residents deal with the environmental consequences of the aqueduct.
“In addition to my analog photographs and archive-based art,” added Guo, “I also used a projector to cast newspaper headlines, texts, historical photos and maps onto the surfaces of ruins, monuments, landscapes and engineering features along the 338-mile Los Angeles Aqueduct.”
The honorable mention photographers in the Photo Made are Diana Cheren Nygren, Life on Mars; Bethany Hucks, How to deal with the idea of going to hell; and Owen McCarter, The Three Eyed Fish.
