Mati Gelman | 1st Place | Mati Gelman is a self-taught commercial and fine art photographer. Born in Hungary and raised in Israel, he first pursued deep knowledge of the natural world through education, receiving a degree in Biochemistry from the Israel Institute of Technology and Masters of Science in Organic Chemistry from Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv. He transitioned to full-time photography after moving to New York City where he currently resides. His work explores queerness and human integration with nature, through composite and staged photography, evoking feelings of rapture, wonder, and unmooring in equal measure. Once manipulating molecules, now manipulating pixels, his work balances the granular and the grand. Awards include the UMBRA International Photography Awards, FAPA (Fine Art Photography Awards), and the International Color Photography Contest’s Chromatic Awards, in addition to being a 2021 Finalist of Microsoft’s “Original by Design” competition. His work has been showcased at “Artsy” and “Dabart”, and the “More Art Please”, “Photoplace”, and “SMUSH” galleries. His work is featured in “Dance Vision” by Joshua Teal, publication from Abrams Books, as well as “Painting with Light”, which showcases highlights from the last five years of production.

Ray Fritz | 2nd Place | People interest me. From early psychology studies I became curious as to how the unconscious interacts with, and influences, everyday behaviour and activities. Through photography I try to bring these interactions and influences into view; if not explicitly, at least implicitly. The human mind, and therefore our behaviour, is largely driven by factors and forces we often can’t identify. Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy strive to understand these factors by bringing them into everyday consciousness. One way of doing this is to observe a person’s interactions with objects and symbols, however disconnected to their everyday experience that may be. The Rorschach Inkblot Test is an example of this. My images are observations of people interacting with items and environments which give some insight into their inner life. We can never fully understand our own mind, nor that of others. What we can see is always surrounded in shadow.  I try to shed a little bit of light into those shadows’.

Susanne Middelberg | 3rd Place | Susanne is a professional dancer, photographer and actress.  She completed her dance education at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem (now Artez).  After that she studied photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, where she graduated in 1998. Susanne specializes in portrait photography, theater and dance photography. For her photography Susanne has received over 30 national and international awards including the Canon Master, 1st Place International Photography Awards and several awards at Px3 She exhibited at Soho Photo Gallery, New York with her Wonder Woman series. Susanne exposed her portraits at the Fence in Boston. In 2021 her work was exhibited at the HeadOn Photo Festival on Sydney’s Bondi Beach and at the Photo Festival in Pelt. She has also exhibited at Deelen Art in Rotterdam, Reflex Modern Art Gallery in Amsterdam, Smelijk en Stokking and the Hollandsche Maagd Gallery in Gouda and Fontana Fortuna Gallery in Amsterdam.

Anna Volpi | Honorable Mention | Anna Volpi is an Italian-American photographer based in northern Italy. Her personal work focuses mainly on the body and human interaction, as well as social issues. She is a photography teacher at Nshot Academy (www.nshotacademy.com @nshotacademy) in Verona, a guide for Aperture Tours (www.aperturetours.com @aperturetours), and the president of the Biennale della Fotografia Femminile (www.bffmantova.com @bffmantova). Her work can be seen on www.annavolpi.com  and on IG @anna_volpi_photos

Ivan Horvat | Honorable Mention | I am Ivan, born 1964 in Slovenia. I am living in Germany for 50 years now. I drew and painted a lot when I was young. I got in touch with photography at the age of 20, at that time with a Canon AE1 program. However, family and many other things then intervened, so that photography had to take a back seat. My partner died three years ago and since then I’ve been trying to close the gap with my new old hobby “Photography”. My focus is conceptual and aesthetic nude photography. Many of my pictures tell stories that can have very different meaning, a different story – depending on the viewer. Photography is my passion – not taking photos but making pictures. It is hard for me to limit myself to one personal style yet, I think I am still searching for it. That explains the variety of my pictures. Is it important having an unique style to become a good artist? I am not sure even I am aware of the fact that every famous artist has an own distinctive style. But to reach a goal sometimes means to have arrived, to finish the journey and to surround yourself with the familiar things and familiar thinking. Sometimes that might be fulfillment and happiness but some of us want to keep on moving. Open minded for new impulses, new ideas and changing direction at the numerous crossroads of life I am “Ivan in Abstracts”, searching for the sense of life, for myself, my style – a never-ending journey and the footprints I leave are the pictures which I create.

SALEM MCBUNNY, LAURENT RINGEVAL, THEO DECKER, HOI KISYU, MICHAEL SEIF, ATLE SVEEN, ERIC BRUNELLE, ALEXANDRU CRISAN, MARK HASKINS, ALEX SHER, CRIS SIAL, LUCRECE HAMON, CATHERINE FALLS, PIERRE BURNAUGH, KEVIN BACHER, TERENCE BOGUE, DANIEL HAEKER, ALESSANDRO SPEDITO, TERENCE THORPE, ALEXANDRE GHESTEM, SANDER VOS, ANDREAS THEOLOGITIS, RICHARD MAXIM, ANITA PETRA HAMREMOEN, MICHAEL SEIF, ATLE SVEEN, KEVIN BACHER, DIRTY ARCHANGEL, MARCIN GLABUS, CRIS SIAL, LOGRAPH, DANIEL HAEKER, ERIC BRUNELLE, JOSEPH O´NEILL, GABOR KOKENY, JOSÉ RAMÓN MONTES, HEIKO RÖMISCH, JOHAN LETELLIER, JOËLLE TSCHUI, JOËLLE TSCHUI, CASSIOPEIA YAGER, ANDREAS IERIDES, ANDREAS THEOLOGITIS, BART VAN LIER, EDUARDO DIEGUEZ SAN BERBARDO, GABOR KOKENY, KEVIN BACHER, GASPAR MARQUEZ, KARINE COLL, MICHAEL POTTS, MARK HASKINS, OVI D.POP, PAOLA FRANCESCA BARONE, STEFAN NEAGU, PAUL KROH, PETER VAN STRALEN, SUZETTE DUSHI, RICARDO DE VICQ, SIMONA CAPRIOLI, SANDER VOS, SUZETTE DUSHI, TAMMY BAR-SHAY, ZUZANA ZONOVÁ, ALEXANDER CHALDRYAN, BASTIEN GIRAUD, DANIEL HAEKER, ANDRIS APSENIEKS, BRIAN CANN, DEJAN MIJOVIĆ, DAN McCORMACK, LAURA DALETTE, MARIA SAFAREWICZ, MARK HARRIS, ERIC DU BELLAY, FREDERICKA FOSTER, LEON SAPERSTEIN, MICHEL PETIT, PEKKA INNANEN, PETER GEDEON, PETER HICKSON, RODRIGO IZQUIERDA, PIETER DE KONINCK, SALVADOR GODINEZ, SHAVIT VOS, STÉPHANIE CHOTIA, VINCENZO PIPITONE, WIKA WOJCIKIEWICZ