“Age doesn’t define us. Our gaze does.”
The General Foundation of the University of Salamanca, through CENIE, launches the 6th edition of its International Photography Contest—an initiative that has become one of the most significant visual creation spaces around longevity, life course diversity, and new social imaginaries. Framed within the New Long-Lived Societies project, this contest is not merely a call to participate; it is an invitation to look differently.
We are living longer than ever, yet society has not fully learned to observe this expansion of lived time with fairness, depth, and beauty. Stagnant images persist, reducing age to a number and longevity to a condition. In response, this contest proposes a radically simple gesture: to look again.
That’s why the theme of this edition is both clear and provocative:
“Age doesn’t define us. Our gaze does.”
This phrase precisely sums up our philosophy: what truly reveals who we are is not the number on a calendar, but how we inhabit time, build connections, care, create, learn, and dream. And, of course, how we choose to look—and allow ourselves to be seen.
The contest seeks photographs that bear witness, yes—but also those that propose. Images that expand the collective imagination around what it means to live longer. We want each image to be an affirmation of diversity, an opening to nuance, a break from stereotypes. Because longevity is not a closed category—it is a growing territory.
The contest is open to people of any nationality who are 18 years of age or older. Each participant may submit up to 30 photographs, distributed across six thematic categories that reflect different dimensions of the human experience:
- Portraits with Soul
- Ageless Moments
- Iberian Gazes
- The Borderless “La Raya”
- Artistic Expressions
- From Above
Each category invites a unique perspective: from the intimate expression of a face to the aerial view of a shared landscape, from symbolic experimentation to the most unexpected scenes of daily life. What unites all of them is the desire to explore how we live—and see—beyond age.
In its previous editions, the CENIE Photography Contest has received broad international participation and hundreds of images that have shown longevity through unexpected, moving, and deeply human lenses. This enthusiastic response confirms that there is a collective desire to tell new stories about lived time—and to do so with beauty, truth, and creativity.
The 6th edition maintains this commitment while going a step further: it invites us to look from a new vantage point. To question the limits that age imposes, and to find in every image a new visual language for long-lived societies.
In addition to monetary prizes—including the CENIE Grand Prize of €5,000—selected photographs may be included in future visual publications by CENIE. It is an opportunity for participants’ work to engage in dialogue with an international community committed to the cultural transformation of our long-lived societies.
The call for entries is open from June 1 to November 30, 2025, and all information needed to participate is available on CENIE’s website: www.cenie.eu.
At CENIE, we believe longevity is not something to be portrayed—it must be interpreted. That’s why we promote this contest as an act of shared creation, exploration, and respect. Because we need new images to rethink the present. Because every photograph can also be an act of justice, recognition, and beauty.
The 6th edition is part of the New Long-Lived Societies project, promoted by the General Foundation of the University of Salamanca in collaboration with the Economic and Social Council of Portugal and the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, and co-funded by the European Union through the INTERREG VI-A Spain–Portugal (POCTEP) 2021–2027 Cooperation Program.