The iconic CERN teams up with major science laboratories for an international photography competition: the Global Physics Photowalk.
Hosted every six years, this year’s competition titled “CERN Photo Walk 2025: Future Colliders” offers 20 photographers the exclusive opportunity to explore the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. Most notably, winning photographers will explore the facilities of the high Luminosity LHC with its new magnets and cold powering system.
The “CERN Photowalk 2025: Future Colliders” is open to all photographers with the deadline for applications of March 25, 2025.
The competition begins at local laboratories around the world, with stages culminating in the sought-after 20 elusive laboratory access spots and an international photo competition. The 20 photographers selected will have access to four unique physics facilities in Asia, Europe, and North America to create unique behind-the-scenes photos. The resulting images can then be entered to be featured in an exhibition at CERN as well as an international competition for publication.
A local jury and a public vote will choose winners of the photo competition. Each laboratory will select three photos to be entered into the international photo competition, which concludes at the end of the summer. The images that win the global competition will then move on to a jury selection in a public vote to be featured in the CERN Courier and Symmetry magazines.
“Physics is beautiful. The Global Physics Photowalk celebrates this beauty and the ingenuity of some of the largest and most advanced research instruments ever built,” says Arnaud Marsollier, head of communications, education, and outreach at CERN. “At CERN, we continue to push the boundaries of technology — we invent the future to study the past, as far back as the Big Bang. By opening our doors to international photographers, we would like to invite them to explore the future with us.”
The work of the previous winners from 2018 can be seen below:
Beyond Nuclear
In December of 1951, UNESCO met in Paris for an intergovernmental meeting. Their goal was to create an international library for fundamental research of technology, pooling the budgets and great minds of many countries into one goal: a better understanding of our Universe and how it works. The meeting established what would be called the European Council for Nuclear Research. Two months later, they officially signed the agreement establishing the council with its acronym CERN (in French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire). While the initial intention of the organization was nuclear research, in particular particle physics, CERN today researches many additional critical scientific topics. Crucial aspects of physics such as antimatter, dark matter, and our understanding of molecules down to the atomic level and their nucleus have been studied.
CERN’s work is both prestigious and vital. In 1984 CERN researches Simon van der Meer and Carlo Rubbia shared the Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery of the W and Z particles, carriers of the weak force as part of the structure of matter governed by four distinct forces. Some of CERN’s research and the resulting technologies have even helped improve things that we use every day, such as the World Wide Web.
Today, CERN is most known for their Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is helping scientists test leading theories and perform groundbreaking particle physics experiments, which have broader implications for the nature of the Universe at large.
Entry Details
For a chance to be one of the 20 photographers as part of the “CERN Photo Walk 2025: Future Colliders” competition, participants must first register in advance at one of the participating laboratories around the world. These labs will host local photowalks where participants can create behind the scenes images. These photographs can then be entered in the worldwide Photowalk competition.
The deadline to enter is March 25, 2025, with the global shortlist announced in September, followed by a public vote online. Photographers interested can find out more details as well as a full list of participating laboratories at Interactions.org or by clicking here.
Image credits: Photographs courtesy CERN, Interactions.org
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