Johan Letellier | 1st Place | In 1995, during a trip to Lapland, Johan Letellier experienced a profound revelation upon discovering the photographic work of Henri Cartier-Bresson. While maintaining his profession as a plumber, Johan decided to enroll in a photography workshop to familiarize himself with black and white printing techniques. Over time, he started capturing various significant events through his lens, with his artistry eventually being showcased in several exhibitions. For two decades, Johan held the role of a dermatological photographer, all the while nurturing his passion and honing his skills in artistic photography..

Chiara Felmini | 2nd Place | Born in Turin in 1965, she has been a photographer since the age of 8, when she received her first camera as a gift (which she still owns); since then, she has never stopped looking at the world from behind a lens with an evergrowing interest in travel and the environment. Animals have been part of her life, professionally and otherwise, for over 30 years and photographing them has been an absolutely natural path. It was only later that her love for travel led her to discover a passion for documentary and reportage photography. As a photographer, she tells stories, and engages in aesthetic and emotional research; the constant search for light, for color, for the moment, but above all for interaction with the people she meets, provides her with a great impetus for sharing and understanding human nature – an activity that has now become indispensable for her.

Jiri Sneider | 3rd Place | He was born (11.12.1979) and raised in Český Krumlov, where he still resides. Photography began to fascinate him around the year 1997. He has always been drawn to black and white photography, hence this constitutes two-thirds of his work. His main focus has been on portraiture and traveller documentaries. His photographic skill has further developed recently thanks to his travels to places such as Ukraine, Bangladesh, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Japan, among others. These destinations have provided a multitude of themes and situations involving people in their homes, at work, on the streets, and during religious rituals. His photographic work, which he considers an extension of his home, presents a unique perspective of the Czech Republic. His portraits, full of emotion, utilize both natural light and studio lighting. His wish is for viewers to pause for a moment and reflect on the facial expressions, feelings, and natural appearance of the individuals portrayed.

Steven Kruit  | Honarable Mention | Steven Kruit is originally from Amsterdam, The Netherlands but after his study International Business from the Maastricht University, he was posted for his work in South East Asia. Working as the country manager Bangladesh for a large European Fashion Retailer he knows the region around India and Bangladesh pretty well. As he likes both travelling and photography, being posted in such an unexplored region is such an advantage. Steven says: “Most people know Bangladesh only from the stories in the newspaper, but Bangladesh has so much more to offer than that. As I have lived in Dhaka for allmost twenty years now, I understand the people, the culture, the language. This gives me every holiday and weekend the opportunity to discover the unexplored parts of the country.

Frieke Janssens  | Honorable Mention | Over the past 25 years, Frieke Janssens has acquired a reputation as a photographer of surreal staged tableaux and group portraits, often originating in a specific concept, and almost always stemming from an inexhaustible interest in human diversity. Notable series include, among others, Smoking Kids, Your last shot, Diana’s, Animalcoholics, and recently Lightness. In the same way that an oil painter builds up a work layer by layer, she too meticulously creates each image, down to the smallest detail. In every picture we can recognise the same artistic touch, the same technical perfection, combined with a playful duality between reality and fiction. At first glance, her images attract the viewer because of their pared-down beauty. Yet once one really starts to look in earnest, one realises that there are always multiple layers of meaning. It seems as if the people portrayed are trying to tell us something.

ELISA MILLER, ALAIN SCHROEDER, EVA MUELLER, DAVID BONI, SVETLIN YOSIFOV, ALEJANDRA LOPEZ ZABALLA, GONÇALO LOBO PINHEIRO, BENJAMIN ANGEL, BRIAN CASSEY, ERIC THOMPSON, JONATHAN ANDREW, TIM FRANCO, TREVOR COLE, PATRIZIA BURRA, JULIE LANG, KATERINA KOUZMITCHEVA, LIZ LONG, ISTVAN KEREKES, VICKY MARTIN, PAOLA FRANCESCA BARONE, IVAN FERRER, RICHARD SHARUM, EMILIANO SANTAPAOLA, DANIEL HAEKER, DANIEL HAEKER, CARLO TRAINI, CÉDRIC LALO, HSUAN CHUNG, HIRAK BHATTACHARJEE, LIONEL EGGER, MARCO MARCONE, JOELLE CHMIEL, ANTOINE BUTTAFOGHI, ANDREAS THEOLOGITIS, ERIC BRUNELLE, APOSTOLOS KALOUDIS, CHERAINE COLLETTE, JOSEF BÜRGI, WATSAWAT KOKTABIM, STEVEN XIAO, CATALIN ARCU, FRANCE LECLERC, KAREN SAFER, DEBA PRASADROY, DANNY VAN DER ELST, ALEXANDRU CRISAN, MICHELE CHICHIERCHIA, PETER HICKSON, ARI JAAKSI, DIANE FENSTER, JULIE FOWELLS, SVETLIN YOSIFOV, HALEY BELL, HERMANO NORONHA, KAREN COX, DIANA BLOOMFIELD, KATY OTTO, LORI POND, JULIE FOWELLS, KARINEH GURJIAN, LEANNE TRIVETT S., LIZ LONG, LOÏS KOELEWIJN, JOËLLE TSCHUI, MARYNA KOSTIUKEVYCH, TREVOR COLE, NATASCHA DEA BURDEINEI, MARLENE HRUBESCH, RODRIGO IZQUIERDO, IZASKUN VALMASEDA, DINA GOLDSTEIN, HAIKUN LIANG, GAVIN LIBOTTE, RODRIGO IZQUIERDO, ANTON PANCHENKOV, ROBERT LIE, JOHN MARTINEZ, ALFONS WOLF, KAY ERICKSON, PENG ZENG, SONIA PAYES, MICHAEL TAPIA-GONZALEZ, ELLIE RICH, TERENCE BOGUE, LOTHAR TROELLER, FLORIN ION FIRIMITA, CHRISTOS KYRIAZIS, ROBERT LIE, VIKTOR GOLDMAN, ALEXANDRE BRISSON, SILVANA RETTER