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PhotoCup competition
Only for members!
Only for members!
Theme of PhotoCup 2025: “ENIGMA in CHAOS”
Deadline for all submissions: 31 August 2025
PhotoCup 2025 promises to be the biggest and most popular competition to date – a chance for every member of Mensa to showcase their creativity, express themselves, and go for glory!
Mensans thrive on solving the unsolvable – it’s in their DNA. But what’s the formula for the perfect photo? Of course there isn’t one, and therein lies the challenge.
But that buzz you get when you crack an enigmatic puzzle or break a mind-bending code is not dissimilar to that amazing feeling you get when you just happen to be in the right place at the right time – AND you manage to get your camera out before that unique, serendipitous moment disappears forever.
Really? My photo? In a city gallery? Wow!
You never know – that once-in-a-lifetime shot you’re just about to capture could be hanging on a gallery wall later this year! Yes, the “Mensa International Photographer of the Year 2025” could be you!
But there’s so much more on offer this year! With more categories and prizes than ever before, you’ll have plenty of chances to compete and win something special.
Not only that, but your work will also be showcased worldwide on websites and social media channels, and at special events and gatherings in various countries.
More details about categories and prizes will be announced very soon, so watch this space.
In the meantime, get clicking! 📷
Countries
Participants
PhotoCup competition
Only for members!
Theme of PhotoCup 2025: “ENIGMA in CHAOS”
Deadline for all submissions: 31 August 2025
PhotoCup 2025 promises to be the biggest and most popular competition to date – a chance for every member of Mensa to showcase their creativity, express themselves, and go for glory!
Mensans thrive on solving the unsolvable – it’s in their DNA. But what’s the formula for the perfect photo? Of course there isn’t one, and therein lies the challenge.
But that buzz you get when you crack an enigmatic puzzle or break a mind-bending code is not dissimilar to that amazing feeling you get when you just happen to be in the right place at the right time – AND you manage to get your camera out before that unique, serendipitous moment disappears forever.
Really? My photo? In a city gallery? Wow!
You never know – that once-in-a-lifetime shot you’re just about to capture could be hanging on a gallery wall later this year! Yes, the “Mensa International Photographer of the Year 2025” could be you!
But there’s so much more on offer this year! With more categories and prizes than ever before, you’ll have plenty of chances to compete and win something special.
Not only that, but your work will also be showcased worldwide on websites and social media channels, and at special events and gatherings in various countries.
More details about categories and prizes will be announced very soon, so watch this space.
In the meantime, get clicking! 📷
Here’s the entry form
Any comments or questions? Let us know: photocup@mensa.org
Only for members!
Countries
Participants
2024 Winners
The PhotoCup Team is very pleased to announce that the winner of the 2024 Mensa International PhotoCup competition is Alessandro Moser of Mensa Switzerland for his spectacular photo, “Fireball”.
Congratulations to Alessandro on becoming our Mensa International Photographer of the Year!
The theme of the 2024 PhotoCup competition was “FIRE”.
PhotoCup competition
Our 20th annual PhotoCup competition will soon be underway, with members all over the world competing to be crowned “Mensa International Photographer of the Year”.
Here are some of the top photos from the last two competitions:
ABOUT THE COMPETITION
Mensa and the art of photography
Mensa embraces people from all over the world. Our fellow Mensans in neighbouring countries might speak a different language from us, eat different food from us, dress differently from us, and so on, but as members of the worldwide Mensa family, our differences are something to be celebrated. Likewise, we celebrate all the things we have in common – our high intelligence, our love of learning, and our desire to identify and foster intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
But we have so many other things in common, and one of them is our love of photography. Yes, that’s right! Even if you think that taking pictures is not for you, or you don’t think you know anything about photography, the chances are that you enjoy looking at interesting photos taken by others, and that you appreciate the skillful capturing of a unique moment in time. The photographer might have chanced upon a spectacular sunset, a fancy-dress party, or a father and son fishing by a lake, but each and every image is a unique snapshot in history. And the appreciation of a good photo is something we all share. It is a meeting place of minds, a common language.
MENSA INTERNATIONAL
Mensa and the art of photography
Mensa embraces people from all over the world. Our fellow Mensans in neighbouring countries might speak a different language from us, eat different food from us, dress differently from us, and so on, but as members of the worldwide Mensa family, our differences are something to be celebrated. Likewise, we celebrate all the things we have in common – our high intelligence, our love of learning, and our desire to identify and foster intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
But we have so many other things in common, and one of them is our love of photography. Yes, that’s right! Even if you think that taking pictures is not for you, or you don’t think you know anything about photography, the chances are that you enjoy looking at interesting photos taken by others, and that you appreciate the skillful capturing of a unique moment in time. The photographer might have chanced upon a spectacular sunset, a fancy-dress party, or a father and son fishing by a lake, but each and every image is a unique snapshot in history. And the appreciation of a good photo is something we all share. It is a meeting place of minds, a common language.
Some of our Top Entries
Photo Gallery
In the Members Area (login required), you can see the galleries that contain all the PhotoCup winners and runners-up from previous years.
Poetry competition
If words are more your kind of thing than pictures, we’ve got you covered! Our annual Poetry competition is a great chance for all our budding Mensan poets to get creative and show us what they can do.
10 Benefits of Poetry
It makes me:
-
open up my mind to new ideas and possibilities, and to think outside the box.
-
want to communicate my thoughts, feelings and ideas to help inspire people.
-
want to express myself in a way that will help people understand me better.
-
want to break the rules, reject convention, and embrace the unorthodox.
-
conceptualize and analyze the world in a deeper, more meaningful way.
-
feel self-aware and develops my insights, intuition and empathy.
-
want to challenge myself and break free of my comfort zone.
-
feel different - in a good way: original and special.
-
want to articulate my intelligence to the world.
-
want to make a difference.
Now read the above again. Do some of these sentences describe how you feel? If so, this is precisely why everyone should try their hand at poetry. It is also why you should think about joining Mensa!
MENSA INTERNATIONAL
The Power of Poetry
Johann Georg Hamann, the German philosopher, once said, “poetry is the mother tongue of the human race.” Perhaps he was right. The majority of the world’s poems were written centuries ago, in languages most of us do not understand, by strangers we will never meet. And yet, when we sit down and read translations of their poems, we often feel as though we have been transported back to their worlds, and to those of their characters, such is the timelessness of the human experiences and feelings they describe: love, envy, fear, pride, anger, regret, guilt – indeed the full gamut of human emotions.
But this is not just about empathy, understanding or an ability to relate: at times we can even begin to feel as though we actually know the poets and their characters. So, when you really think about it, you realize that the true power of poetry is not just that it can bring humanity closer together in the temporal world: it can also connect us with our ancestors.
ABOUT THE COMPETITION
The Power of Poetry
Johann Georg Hamann, the German philosopher, once said, “poetry is the mother tongue of the human race.” Perhaps he was right. The majority of the world’s poems were written centuries ago, in languages most of us do not understand, by strangers we will never meet. And yet, when we sit down and read translations of their poems, we often feel as though we have been transported back to their worlds, and to those of their characters, such is the timelessness of the human experiences and feelings they describe: love, envy, fear, pride, anger, regret, guilt – indeed the full gamut of human emotions.
But this is not just about empathy, understanding or an ability to relate: at times we can even begin to feel as though we actually know the poets and their characters. So, when you really think about it, you realize that the true power of poetry is not just that it can bring humanity closer together in the temporal world: it can also connect us with our ancestors.
ABOUT THE COMPETITION
10 Benefits of Poetry
It makes me:
-
Open up my mind to new ideas and possibilities, and to think outside the box.
-
Makes me want to communicate my thoughts, feelings and ideas to help inspire people.
-
It makes me want to express myself in a way that will help people understand me better.
-
It makes me want to break the rules, reject convention, and embrace the unorthodox.
-
It makes me conceptualize and analyze the world in a deeper, more meaningful way.
-
It makes me more self-aware and develops my insights, intuition and empathy.
-
It makes me want to challenge myself and break free of my comfort zone.
-
It makes me feel different - in a good way: original and special.
-
It makes me want to articulate my intelligence to the world.
-
It makes me want to make a difference.
Now read the above again. Do some of these sentences describe how you feel? If so, this is precisely why everyone should try their hand at poetry! It is also why you should join Mensa.
Here’s last year’s winner: The Senses of You
by Tom Hooker
I remember when you
walked along the beach,
head down, marching to a
rhythm only you could hear.
I remember when you
peeked into the mouth of a
civil war cannon, seeing
an image visible only to you.
I remember when you first
tasted salsa, and your
reaction to such an
unexpected sensation.
I remember our butterfly
kisses, and your giggle
at the feel of my eyelash
on your cheek.
Now you’ve gone to
experience things that
can’t be heard or
seen or tasted.
But we’ll meet again.
Blue, green, sun-bleached gold;
shades of my memory stained
with streaks of copper and rust.
Breathless cicada-shrill afternoons
fade into sage-scented summer nights.
I cover myself with a blanket of stars,
Sleeping rough beneath acacia and ironwood.
The desert wakes at dusk;
Soft breezes blow as a brief caress,
Fading and returning unexpectedly
Lingering like a love long past.
Sere grasses rustle, timid creatures search
fiercely for survival.
Night birds twist against the sky;
Dancing shadows in the dark light
that hangs between earth and evening.
Leather-winged bats dart faster than the eye
can follow and an owl calls ...
just there.
Close your eyes. Breathe
mesquite smoke from a smoldering fire.
The rising heat shivers through leaves overhead.
Stillness settles with the rise of the moon
and silver washes the land;
whispering silent in the night.
2023 Winner:
Nightsong
by Christina Lishen
2022 Winner:
The Gannet
by Helen Ferguson
My feet.
Webbed. Clawed.
Cling to the rock face.
My eyes watch the horizon.
The deafening cries of my flock.
We squabble. We screech. We stink.
We are a wall of dirty white.
Beaks. Feathers. Guano.
I launch my muscular body from the cliff
And join my colony in the sky.
The ocean roars beneath me.
Wings wide, I beat the air.
The rock I call home shrinks behind me.
Wings tucked, I dive.
Like a missile I drop from the sky
Piercing the surface of the water.
The ocean swallows me.
I plummet. I plunge. I plunder.
Shoals dart by
Silver flecks of panic.
With stealth I fill my beak.
Scales. Flesh. Bones.
Fins tickle my throat.
I swim.
Up. Up. Up.
The sky draws closer.
I break the surface.
Join my gannetry.
Gulp
The salty air.
Winners from past years
Blue, green, sun-bleached gold;
shades of my memory stained
with streaks of copper and rust.
Breathless cicada-shrill afternoons
fade into sage-scented summer nights.
I cover myself with a blanket of stars,
Sleeping rough beneath acacia and ironwood.
The desert wakes at dusk;
Soft breezes blow as a brief caress,
Fading and returning unexpectedly
Lingering like a love long past.
Sere grasses rustle, timid creatures search
fiercely for survival.
Night birds twist against the sky;
Dancing shadows in the dark light
that hangs between earth and evening.
Leather-winged bats dart faster than the eye
can follow and an owl calls …
just there.
Close your eyes. Breathe
mesquite smoke from a smoldering fire.
The rising heat shivers through leaves overhead.
Stillness settles with the rise of the moon
and silver washes the land;
whispering silent in the night.
My feet.
Webbed. Clawed.
Cling to the rock face.
My eyes watch the horizon.
The deafening cries of my flock.
We squabble. We screech. We stink.
We are a wall of dirty white.
Beaks. Feathers. Guano.
I launch my muscular body from the cliff
And join my colony in the sky.
The ocean roars beneath me.
Wings wide, I beat the air.
The rock I call home shrinks behind me.
Wings tucked, I dive.
Like a missile I drop from the sky
Piercing the surface of the water.
The ocean swallows me.
I plummet. I plunge. I plunder.
Shoals dart by
Silver flecks of panic.
With stealth I fill my beak.
Scales. Flesh. Bones.
Fins tickle my throat.
I swim.
Up. Up. Up.
The sky draws closer.
I break the surface.
Join my gannetry.
Gulp
The salty air.
Blue, green, sun-bleached gold;
shades of my memory stained
with streaks of copper and rust.
Breathless cicada-shrill afternoons
fade into sage-scented summer nights.
I cover myself with a blanket of stars,
Sleeping rough beneath acacia and ironwood.
The desert wakes at dusk;
Soft breezes blow as a brief caress,
Fading and returning unexpectedly
Lingering like a love long past.
Sere grasses rustle, timid creatures search
fiercely for survival.
Night birds twist against the sky;
Dancing shadows in the dark light
that hangs between earth and evening.
Leather-winged bats dart faster than the eye
can follow and an owl calls ...
just there.
Close your eyes. Breathe
mesquite smoke from a smoldering fire.
The rising heat shivers through leaves overhead.
Stillness settles with the rise of the moon
and silver washes the land;
whispering silent in the night.
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PhotoCup 2025, our biggest and most popular global competition, is now underway!
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