This is not another photography competition

The communities that photographers are invested in often become integral to their work. When you really care about the people, places or things you photograph, that authenticity bleeds into the picture. You’ll see it in a smile captured from an intimate angle, the glint of honest familiarity in a gaze, or the access given to a private space.

As part of their ‘Reveal the Real You’ campaign in collaboration with Dazed, tech pioneers Huawei are giving you a chance to support the people and things you care about most through your photography. This is a call to action: we want to give you a way to celebrate, document and ultimately give back to the communities, causes and ideologies that have shaped you. You must live in the UK.

Submit five examples of your photography and answer three questions which lay out a concept for shooting a community that’s close to your heart to make it down to the shortlist of 20.

If you've been shortlisted, you'll then receive a Huawei P10 phone featuring a Leica Camera lens – to be used to take ten images that document your chosen community.

After being looked over by a respected Leica judge and a panel of experts, the three best photo stories submitted from the shortlist will be gifted a contribution of up to £10,000 – with the cash going directly to a registered charity related to your community.

Of the final three photo-sets, one lucky photographer will have the opportunity to have their work commissioned and shown at an outdoor “living gallery” –  an open space where people can come and interact with your images. A space that doesn't box them away in a tiny white-walled gallery; far away from the environment where they were taken.

The P10 is a phone that casts off photographic limitations and puts creative power into your back pocket. It allows you to take the type of high-quality street portraiture which reflects the legacy of the Leica – the first compact camera of its kind, behind iconic and revolutionary images such as V-J Day in Times Square and Ché Guevara's best-known portrait, Guerrillero Heroico.

To kickstart the campaign, Dazed 100 photographer and filmmaker Campbell Addy's latest project is a selection of ten portraits, all shot on the Huawei P10. Alongside a short film about his process of creation, he will also have an outdoor living gallery in Peckham to showcase his work.

The relationship Addy has with his subjects is visceral. As a black, gay, former Jehovah's Witness, he spends a lot of time shooting people he shares a connection with, exploring themes of diversity of race and sexuality. It seems natural that to launch ‘Reveal the Real You’, he’s shining a light on an underground selection of artists and creatives doing the most with the least: the young people of colour (PoC) who are a part of the burgeoning, creative community in London.

Despite the fact they might have grown up without being expected to become the next generation of creative talent, these artists, set designers, radical feminists and models are all shattering the stereotypes assigned to their identities.

As Addy proves, photography has the power to change perceptions and spotlight different communities that we might not hear about everyday. It can also be cathartic in how it reveals the parts of yourself that you're still coming to understand. Get ready to be brave.

We’d want to find interesting clubs or communities from all over the UK to document and would like to find:

1. Positive stories: clubs or a group in the community that are doing positive work (health clubs, sports, diversity, women, music etc)
2. Vibrant: images that show people in a positive light and have energy
3. Help: if it were a club or community that people could potentially donate to. Helping causes that could benefit from funds in the future.
4. Everyone in the images needs to be over 18

T&Cs can be found here. Submission open 10:30am September 1 and closes 23:59pm on October 1, 2017. 

Submissions have now closed for 2017