Call Description

The Carolyn Grande Harder Scholarship was created to honor the life and spirit of Carolyn G. (Grande) Harder (1943–2024), a devoted mother, teacher, art historian, and lifelong patron of the arts.With a degree in Art History from Elmira College, years spent teaching young students, and a long tenure as a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she believed deeply in the power of art to enrich lives and expand our minds.

Celebrating Carolyn’s legacy this prize supports emerging photographers whose work reflects her spirit: a devotion to art, a love of beauty, and a desire to explore how the visual language of art can connect us and inspire creativity.

Scholarship Prize: $1,000 + placement in the Atelier to further the recipient’s artistic growth and a solo exhibition.

Open to emerging artists (students, recent graduates, and early-career photographers) candidates who are serious about photography, whose potential is emerging and whose photography will benefit from this scholarship.

Eligibility Criteria

The scholarship is open to new photographers who are looking to further their creativity in the process of producing photographic bodies of work. We are looking for candidates who are serious about photography, whose potential is emerging and whose photography will benefit from this scholarship. 

Candidates can be currently enrolled in a photography degree program. There is no age limit. There are no residency requirements. There is no application fee.

This scholarship is not for well-established photographers. Well-established photographers are individuals in mid-photography-careers and are seen by the public and peers as distinguished in the field of photography and have many accomplishments as a photographer.  Of note, receiving a Fulbright Scholarship would disqualify a candidate from receiving this scholarship. Producing a published (by a publisher) photo book would disqualify a candidate from receiving this scholarship. Self publishing does not disqualify a candidate.

The paid employees of the Griffin Museum or their immediate families, Griffin Museum board members and jurors’ immediate families and those immediate families of Griffin board members or jurors’ paid employees are not eligible.

Submissions

Submissions may be made directly to Café. You will be asked for a brief biography and artistic cv (a single PDF that includes both bio and cv. In the PDF title include Harder and last name and first name.); a statement of artistic purpose/intent; a statement on the work supplied, and flattened rgb jpgs (1200 pixels on the longest side) of your photographs (10 photographs total). Please submit your images in the order you wish them to appear. numbering from 1-10 will be helpful to the jurors so they can see your intention with the works. 

Do not supply links. Café will give the jurors the ability to go there to view. No other means of submission will be accepted. All missing criteria will disqualify the submission. Emails will not be accepted as a method of submissions. It is recommended that great thought and effort be put into the artistic purpose/intent statement (see sample supplied). Artistic Purpose is how you will use the scholarship and your plan. The statement is about your body of work's intent.

It is recommended that you prepare all the elements of the application in advance. Do not start the application if you do not have time to finish it. Wait until you have time to complete the application in one session.

About the Jurors -

Emily Belz is an independent photographer, educator, and curator based in Lincoln, MA. Her photographs focus on domestic and place-based still lifes, telling stories through the traces, objects, and slants of light that have been left behind. Belz has exhibited her photographs widely in both solo and group exhibitions at venues including the Newport Art Museum, the Danforth Museum, the Griffin Museum, and the Center for Fine Art Photography. She is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston and will have a solo show there is February 2023.

Belz holds a BA in photography and art history from Hampshire College (1997); an MA in community-based art education from the Rhode Island School of Design (2009); and an MFA from the New Hampshire Institute of Art (2017). She teaches classes and workshops at the Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA) and is on the faculty at Lasell University (Newton, MA). Belz works privately with artists as a mentor and specializes in reviewing and sequencing portfolios. With 20+ years in the art world, Belz brings this experience to her role as a juror for photography competitions and reviewer for regional portfolio reviews. She enjoys curating exhibitions in collaboration with emerging artists in Boston and New England.

Jennifer McClure is a fine art photographer based in New York City. She uses the camera to ask and answer questions. Her work is about longing, solitude, and an ambivalent yearning for connection. She often uses herself and her experiences as subject matter to explore the creation of personal mythology and the agency of identity.

After an early start, Jennifer returned to photography in 2001, taking classes at the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography. In between, she acquired a B.A. in English Theory and Literature and began a long career in restaurants. Most of her projects today incorporate her love of literature; one series was inspired by a short story, another includes photos of transformative texts, still another draws titles from a long-form poem.

Jennifer was a 2019 and 2017 Critical Mass Top 50 finalist and twice received the Arthur Griffin Legacy Award from the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Juried Exhibitions. Her first book, You Who Never Arrived, was published as one of nine Peanut Press Portfolios in 2020. She was awarded CENTER’s Editor’s Choice by Susan White of Vanity Fair in 2013 and has been exhibited in numerous shows across the country. Her work has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Vogue, GUP, The New Republic, Lenscratch, Feature Shoot, L’Oeil de la Photographie, The Photo Review, Dwell, Adbusters, and PDN. Lectures include the School of Visual Arts i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration series, Fotofusion, FIT, NY Photo Salon and Columbia Teachers College. She has taught workshops for Leica Akademie, International Center of Photography, Los Angeles Center of Photography, PDN’s PhotoPlus Expo, the Maine Media Workshops, the Griffin Museum, and Fotofusion. She was a thesis reviewer and advisor for the Masters Programs at both the School of Visual Arts and New Hampshire Institute of Art. She founded the Women’s Photo Alliance in 2015.

Molly Lamb If I looked just beyond my father’s shoulder when he was sitting across the table from me, I could fall into the view of a mountain range, framed and hanging on the wall. I remember the purples and blues. His other photographs were around, too – storied landscapes whispering to skies, still water cradling cypress trees, lightning, a butterfly. Years after he passed away, my stepmother carefully copied each page of his poetry journal and gave it to me. Although he encouraged my early curiosity about photography and gave me my first camera, I was too young then to realize that he was an artist.

Both photography and writing have always been part of my own creative process. They’re continually in conversation, each inspiring the other. I think of a photograph and a poem very similarly and love how they each delicately conjure the tangible from the intangible – the shape of light, the shape of a word, and hopefully, the shape of a story.

Scholarship Dates and Deadlines
Tuesday September 16, 2025: Application period opens. 
October 31, 2025: Application period closes at 11:59 PM Mountain Time. 

We will announce the awardee by January 1, 2026

Application Requirements

See Application Requirements above

Eligibility Criteria

See Eligibility Criteria above