About the SATW Bill Muster Photo Awards
The SATW Bill Muster Photo Awards recognizes excellence in photography and is named for renowned photographer Bill Muster, who generously established a foundation to support this annual travel photography award. Since 1981 SATW has presented the Muster Awards and cash prizes for travel photography in various categories awarded at the annual SATW convention.
Judging and Photography Rights
An independent panel of highly qualified judges will select all winners. A Muster Committee member will be present during judging to review judging guidelines, present submissions, and answer any questions. Submission of photos automatically allows SATW the right to display, exhibit and publish said images in non-profit society-related uses, including the SATW website and social media. Otherwise, all rights remain with the photographer.
Overview
We thank the Bill Muster Foundation and the Western Chapter of SATW for their continuing financial support of this year’s awards.
The awards are open to all SATW members and the entry fee is $35. Full competition rules and information on how to enter are found below. For the 2026 awards, the eligibility period for entries is photos captured between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2025. The registration link will be active on June 1. The deadline to enter is Tuesday, July 1, 2025.
The competition is open to professional and amateur photographers alike. Active, Associate, and Emeritus members have an equal opportunity to enter and win cash prizes, including the $1,000 Photographer of the Year award. Winners will be announced at the SATW annual convention in Detroit in September, 2025 and will be featured in the Bill Muster Photo Awards presentation.
Don’t be bashful about entering! Freelance writers, editors, bloggers, associates, and Emeritus members have an equal opportunity to enter and win cash prizes generously donated by Nori Muster and Bill Muster, Jr. Past winners can be viewed via the links at the bottom of this page.
Cash prizes are as follows:
Photographer of the Year
- Gold $1000
- Silver $750
- Bronze $500
Single Subject Portfolio
- Gold $750
- Silver $400
- Bronze $300
Individual subjects
- Gold $300
- Silver $200
- Bronze $100
- Merit awards (no cash) may be awarded on the recommendation of judges
Submission Categories
All photos in a submission must have been taken by the member-photographer entrant; photos taken by someone other than the entrant will result in the disqualification of their entire portfolio.
1) Photographer of the Year
Twenty images on a variety of travel destinations and categories. Any images not selected as part of the three winning Photographer of the Year portfolios will be considered for the eight Individual Categories (see below). Portfolios containing fewer than 20 images will be moved to the Individual Category competition. A Photographer of the Year portfolio must contain 20 images.
2) Single Subject Portfolio (SS)
Ten images from one specific travel-related subject. Single Subject portfolios must focus on a particular destination, subject, or event and should not be overly broad in scope. Images not selected as Single Subject portfolio winners will be considered for the eight Individual Categories (below). Because you are allowed 20 photos total, you may submit two single-subject portfolios OR one single-subject portfolio and up to 10 photos in the eight Individual Categories alone. A Single Subject portfolio must contain 10 images.
Single Subject portfolio subjects may be of any of the following:
Single destinations such as a city or small region; a specific cultural group such as Wyoming cowboys; a particular subject such as Moroccan bazaars or animals of the Everglades; or an event such as Carnival in Rio de Janeiro.
Subjects such as a large country, birds, or people, are considered too general for the Single Subject competition. Single Subject portfolios should be specific and obvious to viewers as a standalone portfolio of related images.
3) Individual Categories
Submit up to 20 photos to be judged exclusively for the eight Individual Categories. Some images may fit in multiple categories (example: a bull rider in action at a rodeo could be considered Action/Adventure, Animal, Cultural, or People General). Choose the category that you feel best describes the image, and the judges can move it to another category if they choose.
- Action/Adventure – Things or people in motion, sports, or active adventure; the action or adventure aspect is the dominant feature of the image
- Animal – Animal(s) should dominate, but people in the frame are acceptable
- Architecture – Includes any structure built by people from any time period. Examples are bridges, places of worship, barns, modern or ancient cultural sites, cityscapes, indoor and outdoor public spaces, hotels and museums, and details or elements of architecture.
- Cultural – Images that capture the unique culture of a location, including but not limited to ceremonies, rituals, celebrations, festivals, markets, transportation, work, fine and performing arts, pastimes, and entertainment. May or may not include people but the cultural activity or event, not the people, should be the main focus.
- Food – Encompasses all aspects of food, including growing, harvesting, preparing, presenting, and partaking. Examples include harvesting crops, wine and beer brewing, seafood industry, coffee houses, restaurants, and plated presentations.
- Natural Scenic – Nature, landscape, or any scene where nature is dominant but may have some human elements, such as a dock on a beach or a vehicle on a road
- People General – Individual or group of people in an environmental setting or engaged in activities such as cooking, blacksmithing, fishing, etc., that depict a sense of place
- People Portrait – One or more individuals in a portrait format with emphasis on the person/people, not the environmental setting
There is no restriction as to the number of entries in any given category – you can submit from one to 20 photos in any Individual Category, up to a maximum of 20 total.
Questions? Contact SATW HQ at [email protected].
SATW Bill Muster Photo Awards Rules and Requirements
The SATW Muster Photo Competition is open to all Society of American Travel Writers members.
- Entries must be received no later than Tuesday, July 1, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. PDT. Submissions received after this date will not be considered.
- All images must have been shot between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2025. Photos do not need to have been published to be submitted. Important: any photos taken before or after these dates will be disqualified, and the photographer may also be disqualified. Please be prepared if asked to submit metadata that displays accurate capture dates and times.
- A maximum of 20 images can be submitted per member.
- Important: All photos must be named using the requested file naming procedure. Please follow the naming format exactly. Files not named correctly will be disqualified.
- For photographers entering either the Photographer of the Year competition or the Single Subject competition, you can enter one or the other, but not both competitions. If your portfolio is not chosen as a winner in one of these competitions, your photos will automatically be moved into the Individual Category competition and judged there. Photos from a winning Photographer of the Year or Single Subject portfolio can’t simultaneously win an individual category prize. Once a portfolio wins, all those photos are removed from the judging.
- Photos submitted must not have won a previous Muster award. The only exception is Merit Award winners from previous competitions, which may be re-entered only if they still fit within the two-year time limit.
- A photo that is judged to be too similar to another image (by the same photographer) that has previously won a gold, silver, or bronze award in a previous Muster Photo Competition will be disqualified. This means a photo that shows the same activity or same location, with a similar viewpoint to a previous winning image. Conversely, a photographer who has won a Muster award in a previous year with a photo of, for example, Machu Picchu may submit another photo of Machu Picchu in the following year if the new image is distinctly different from the earlier one and the photo has been taken within the two-year eligibility period.
- Basic photo processing, such as cropping, exposure, contrast, color balance and adjustment, saturation, sharpening, and dust spotting, is allowed. High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques , where two or more images are blended together realistically, as well as the stitching of two or more images into a panorama, are also acceptable. AI-powered features such as masking and noise reduction are allowed as long as AI is not changing the image by adding or removing elements.
- Images that are not allowed: altering photos by adding or removing objects, backgrounds, or skies; compositing by combining two or more photos with different elements such as a moon; adding colors or textures not in the original capture; and other major alterations that transform the image into something significantly different than the original capture. AI-generated or enhanced images are not allowed in this competition, and submission of even one AI image is grounds for complete disqualification from the competition. Entrants may be asked to provide metadata proving that AI was not used in a photo.
- All photos submitted must be essentially editorial in content. This means that these images are appropriate for a travel publication, book, or website. Photos identified as having been taken in a commercial studio, or perceived by the judges as having been shot primarily for a commercial purpose, such as a product advertising campaign (except destination promotion, which is allowed), will be disqualified.
- Photos will be judged with consideration given to subject, composition, lighting, perspective, storytelling, and other aspects that result in a unique, compelling, travel-oriented image.
- The decision of the judges is final. Both judges and the Muster Chair may reclassify entries into another appropriate category at their discretion.
- Winners will be announced at the SATW Annual Convention in Detroit in September 2025.
Special thanks to Nori Muster for producing the Muster Photo Awards video once again, which is always a major highlight of the convention.
SATW Bill Muster Photo Awards Submission Procedures
Submit your 2026 Muster Competition entries online (you will receive an email address in your entry form confirmation email after using the Payment button below).
Once your payment has been confirmed and you have received the submission email address, please send your complete portfolio of photos via WeTransfer, with correctly named files, to [email protected]. In the subject line include your last name and the words “Muster entry.”
File Naming: Please follow file naming procedures exactly to avoid having your photos disqualified.
Sizing: A JPEG file and 3000 pixels (on the long side) is strongly recommended. Please avoid file sizes exceeding 6MB for any one photo.
SATW Bill Muster Photo Awards File Naming Procedures
Please follow file naming procedures exactly to avoid having your photos disqualified.
1. Begin each photo file name with the last four numbers of your telephone number. Follow this with an underscore.
If you are not entering a photo in the Single Subject category, skip to step 3.
2. If you are entering a block of 10 photos in the Single Subject category, add the letters “SS.” If you are entering two Single Subject portfolios follow the SS with a “1” or “2” to indicate which portfolio each photo belongs to. Follow this with another underscore.
3. Use one of the following 2- or 3-letter category abbreviations for each photo:
- Action/Adventure – Act
- Animal – Ani
- Architecture – Arc
- Cultural – Cul
- Food – FD
- Natural Scenic – Nat
- People General – PG
- People Portraits – PP
4. Following each category abbreviation add a sequential number. I.e., your first animal submission will be Ani1; if you enter a second animal shot it would be Ani2, etc. Follow each of these with another underscore.
5. Follow this with the year the image was shot (last two digits – 24, 25, etc.). Do not include your own name or the location of the image.
Example file name: 7898_Cul1_25.jpg
- “7898” is the four digits of your phone number
- “Cul” indicates the Cultural category
- “1” indicates the first photo in a sequence (“2” here would indicate the next photo in this category)
- “25” indicates the year (2025) this photo was taken
Note: Ordering photo sequence – if you would like your Photographer of the Year portfolio to be viewed by judges in a particular order, please number them using a numerical prefix in your photo file names, followed by an underscore.
Example file names: 01_7898_Cul1_25; 02_7898 _PG1_25; 03_7898_Ani1_25; etc.
Images submitted for the Single Subject Travel Portfolio follow the instructions above with the addition of the “SS” and the number “1” or “2” if you are submitting two Single Subject Portfolios.
Example file names: 7898_SS1_Cul1_25.jpg (for an image that is part of your first Single Subject portfolio); 7898_SS2_Nat2.25.jpg (for an image of your second Single Subject portfolio)
- “7898” represent the last four numbers of your telephone number
- “SS1” indicates the first Single Subject Travel Portfolio category; “SS2” indicates the second Single Subject Travel Portfolio category if entered
- “Cul1” indicates the first image in the Cultural category (“Cul2” would indicate the next image in this category)
- “25” indicates the year (2025) in this photo was taken
Note: Ordering photo sequence – if you would like your portfolio of photos to be viewed by judges in a particular order, please number them using a numerical prefix in your photo file names.
Example file names: 01_7898_SS1_Cul1_25; 02_7898_SS1_PG1_25; 03_7898_SS2_Ani1_25; etc.
SATW Bill Muster Photo Awards Judging Criteria
All photos will be judged on overall quality as well as the extent to which they meet specific criteria for each contest.
- For Photographer of the Year, judges will be looking for portfolios that display multiple destinations and categories and inspire travel. The album will be judged as a totality.
- For Single Subject, judges will be looking for portfolios that display a single destination, subject, or group in a way that creates a sense of identity for the subject and inspires travel. The portfolios will be judged as a totality.
- For Individual Category, judges will be looking for high-quality photos in each category.
Judging and Photography Rights
An independent panel of highly qualified judges will select all winners. A Muster Committee member will be present during judging to review judging guidelines, present submissions, and answer any questions. Submission of photos automatically allows SATW the right to display, exhibit and publish said images in non-profit society-related uses, including the SATW website and social media. Otherwise, all rights remain with the photographer.
Good luck! Questions? Contact SATW HQ at [email protected].
