Photography captures the sentiment of a moment, reflecting the actual world in a picture. The Alfred Fried Photography Award aims to present human efforts to live together in peace and the quest for beauty and goodness in our lives. The award goes to those photographs that best express the idea that our future can only be peaceful coexistence.Alfred Hermann Fried (* 11 November 1864, Vienna; † 4 May 1921, Vienna) was an Austrian pacifist and author. As founder of the journal Die Waffen nieder! (Lay down your arms!) and other peace activities, Fried received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911, together with Tobias Asser, organizer of the first International The Hague Peace Conference and instigator of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The Photographische Gesellschaft, (PHG), founded in Vienna in 1861, is the longest-standing photographic society in the German-speaking countries and the second-oldest in the world. It was founded on 22 March 1861 by Anton Georg Martin at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Edition Lammerhuber is an Austrian publisher, based in Baden near Vienna, dedicated to photography and to the interpretation of science and art.

The Alfred Fried Photography Award will be organized in partnership with UNESCO, the Austrian Parliament, the Austrian Parliamentary Reporting Association and the International Press Institute (IPI).

With the Alfred Fried Photography Award the PHG and Edition Lammerhuber want to promote photographers from all over the world whose pictures capture human efforts towards a peaceful world.

The Alfred Fried Photography Award is presented annually on 21 September, the UN International Peace Day.