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On Rose: Photo Contest and Bay Area Gallery Exhibition

Deadline Extended: Submit by September 6


We’re giving photographers a little more time to show us what Rose means to them. Purchase your entry and complete your photograph submissions through Zealous by Sunday, September 6, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

Already purchased your entry? You do not need to purchase again. Use the Zealous link and Looking Glass Order # in your On Rose confirmation email to complete your submission.

On Rose invites photographers to create thoughtful, visually compelling work inspired by Rose: as a flower, color, symbol, place, memory, or moment of renewal. A physical rose does not need to appear, but the connection should be visible and meaningful within the photograph. Selected photographs will be exhibited at Abrams Claghorn Gallery this October.

Selected Photographs Will Be Exhibited This October

Looking Glass has partnered with Abrams Claghorn Gallery on Solano Avenue to present selected On Rose photographs in October 2026. An opening celebration is planned and will be hosted at the gallery. Exhibition dates and opening details will be announced soon. Learn More About Abrams Claghorn Gallery

How to Enter the Contest

One entry purchase covers one entrant and up to three photographs.

1. Purchase Your Entry: Choose the sliding-scale entry amount that feels right for you. Every amount provides the same contest access and has no effect on judging, selection, exhibition consideration, or awards.

2. Submit Your Photographs: Immediately after checkout, you will receive an On Rose confirmation email containing your Looking Glass Order # and a direct link to the On Rose submission page on Zealous. Use that link and Order # to submit up to three photographs by Monday, September 7, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

Each photograph must be submitted separately and assigned to one contest category. You may submit all three photographs to the same category or divide them among different categories. **Important:** Photographs are not uploaded during checkout on the Looking Glass website. Your contest entry is complete only after your photographs have been successfully submitted through Zealous. If you have already purchased an entry, you do not need to purchase another one.

The Contest Categories

  • The Botanical Rose: Rose as a natural subject. Form, texture, growth, decay, fragility, abstraction, and the hidden worlds within a bloom.

  • Symbol, Story, and Metaphor: Rose as love, beauty, secrecy, longing, resistance, resilience, remembrance, hope, transformation, contradiction, or connection.

  • Rose as Color: Rose, pink, blush, coral, magenta, red, or rose gold used as atmosphere, emotion, tension, identity, or story.

  • Celebration, Honor, and Community: Images of care, gratitude, remembrance, legacy, gathering, joy, and communal connection that visibly relate to Rose.

  • On Rose Street: A literal or imaginative interpretation of Looking Glass’s new Rose Street home, including place, neighborhood, belonging, transition, and shared stories.

  • They Rose Up: Photographs about resisting, returning, rebuilding, or becoming. This category invites images of courage, defiance, renewal, movement, resilience, and transformation. Moments when people, places, communities, or ideas rise from pressure, loss, injustice, silence, or change.


What Does Rose Mean to You?

On Rose was inspired by Looking Glass’s move to Rose Street and the sense of transition, renewal, and possibility that came with it. For you, Rose may mean beauty, grief, resistance, memory, community, color, growth, or something entirely unexpected. It may be literal or symbolic. What matters is that the photograph carries the connection.

Does a rose need to appear in the photograph? No. The connection may come through subject, color, symbolism, story, place, emotion, or idea.

Awards and Judges

The overall winner, category winners, and honorable mentions will be exhibited at Abrams Claghorn Gallery & Shop in October. The overall winner will also receive a commemorative trophy recognizing the photograph selected as the strongest work in the contest.

Entries will be reviewed anonymously by Bay Area photographers Becky Jaffe, Sarah Deragon, and Brandon Ruffin. Photographs will be considered for their interpretation of Rose, visual voice, emotional resonance, and photographic execution.

Eligibility and Photographic Integrity

Photographs may be made with film, digital cameras, phones, or other camera-equipped devices, but every submission must originate from a real-world photograph made by the entrant. Limited AI-assisted editing may be permitted when disclosed. Fully generated, prompt-generated, or substantially fabricated images are not eligible. Older photographs are welcome, provided they are the entrant’s original work and comply with the Official Rules.