JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia harbors promising talents in the art of photography. The increasing number of participants in the Bab Rizq Jameel photography contest revealed this fact.

At its launch in 2010, more than 400 contestants were registered. In 2011, the number jumped to more than 900, and is expected to increase in this year’s event.

The award seeks to create job opportunities for talented young men and women in this creative field. The contest makes their works accessible to photography-related industries, such as journalism, advertising agencies and arts in general.

This year’s theme of the award will address conceptual photography, a new area in the Arab world. For this, the artist will have to develop a concept for their picture before the actual shooting. This sort of photography depends upon creating the appropriate effects and environment for the photograph, to send a message to the viewer.

According to award supervisor Mohammed Bahrawi, conceptual photography does not depend only on the technical skills of the photographer. He added that during this year’s award educational workshops would be organized in the main cities of the Kingdom for the contestants to educate them about its theme.

The contest started this month and will continue for 45 days, during which the contestants will introduce their creativity in photography.

Abdulrahman Al-Fihaid, executive director of BRJ Saudi Arabia, said: “This award is one of the BRJ awards for young men and women, which aims to create outstanding job opportunities for them in creative and technical fields. BRJ would like to encourage them to join this sector for the national economy.”

Amani Alothmani, BRJ events executive, said a panel of five members specialized in photography would name three first winners. An exhibition would then be organized for the first 10 nominees at Arabian Wings Gallery. Winners will get a contract worth SR 30,000 from ALJ Community Initiatives to prepare the photographs for the “Saudi Success Book.” The exhibition will remain open for 10 days.Registration for this contest is still open through www.babrizqjameel.com.