Google’s Creator Labs has teamed up with non-profit platform Aperture to launch The Creator Labs Photo Fund, a new initiative to provide financial support to artists affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The program is especially aimed at photographers, who can submit applications for free until the July 16 deadline. 

The fund will be distributed through a national open call; submissions are open to any photographer or lens-based artist living in the United States. The group will select 20 creatives to receive a prize of $5,000 each. 

To apply to the Creator Labs Photo Fund, each candidate will have to submit eight to ten images from one body of work that shows a commitment to making a “cohesive and compelling” series or project – though the project does not need to be finished upon submission. 

Applicants will not be evaluated based on their prior experience or exhibition history, but on the originality of their ideas and visions.    

Since 2019, Creator Labs supports rising visual artists in the creation of work that tells important cultural stories. The incubator was founded as a partnership between Google Pixel and SN37 and provides resources for photographers, filmmakers, and YouTubers to create personal work that is connected to a social cause. 

Aperture is a non-profit organization founded in 1952 by photographers and writers. Today, it is a multi-platform publisher and center to connect the photo community and its audiences. 

“We are thrilled to partner with Google on the Creator Labs Photo Fund and we hope that together we can contribute to sustaining the future of photography,” Aperture creative director Lesley A. Martin said in a statement. “We all communicate with images today: we want to encourage photographers to keep working toward a more rigorous, more expansive range of expressions to the field.”

Learn more about the selection process for the Creator Labs Photo Fund at Photo.fund.