2025 Color Photography Contest winners
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The 2025 Color Photography Contest winners have been announced, highlighting colorful diversity around the world. The contest, hosted by the 1839 Awards, aims to celebrate images that honor color photography and elevate the art of photography worldwide.
This year’s panel consisted of judges from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Phaidon Press, Vanity Fair, Artsy, University of Zurich, Dwell, Christie’s, and more. “Among the works entered into this year’s contest, those images that evoke emotion, challenge perception, and offer windows into entirely new realities rose to the top,” the contest organizers explained.
The contest selects three professional and three non-professional overall winners. It also selects winners of 14 different categories, including animals, architecture, conceptual, landscapes, people, photojournalism and more.
Participants could submit a series of two to five images to be judged as a group, or choose to enter individual photographs. You can see the winning series and photographs, as well as more of the category winners, on the 1839 Awards 2025 Color Photography Contest website.
1st Place Professional Overall Winner
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Artist: Nicola Fioravanti
IG handle: @hacklabo
Title: Morocco, Sentimental Atlas
Description: This project is a heartfelt tribute to the country I hold dear. In Morocco, colors are not merely seen, but experienced. It is also a deeply personal journey, one that seeks to understand the land where the woman I love was born.
2nd Place Professional Overall Winner
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Artist: Jatenipat Ketpradit
IG handle: N/A
Title: TSAM · The Dance of Gods
Description: A sacred Tibetan Buddhist ritual, Tsam embodies the divine battle between
good and evil. Through intricate masks, lavish costumes, and precise choreography, monks
channel wrathful deities to purify and protect. This series unveils the mystique of Mongolia’s rarest masked dance tradition.
3rd Place Professional Overall Winner
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Artist: Abdelrahman Alkahlout
IG handle: @abd.pix96
Title: Unbroken Spirit: Worship Amid Destruction
Description: A powerful scene of Palestinian civilians praying on the rubble of a mosque
destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Under a smoke-filled sky, they continue their worship in a place once a sanctuary of peace, now reduced to ruins—symbolizing resilience amid relentless destruction.
1st Place Non-Professional Overall Winner
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Artist: Diana Cheren Nygren
IG handle: @dianacherennygrenphotography
Title: Mother Earth
Description: I have mounted scenes of habitation behind acrylic, set within future
landscapes shaped by climate change. Painted frames allude to Earth’s next chapter. Scenes of human habitation set against a future post-human landscape ask whether humanity can adapt to what is in store for the planet.
2nd Place Non-Professional Overall Winner
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Artist: Xuejun Long
IG handle: N/A
Title: Journey of Life 20
Description: The photo shows a group of flamingos flying over Lake Magadi in Kenya.
Once a freshwater lake, it has now become a highly concentrated salt pan that is severely
alkaline and toxic to most forms of animal and plant life – except for flamingos, which prefer to forage on the surface.
3rd Place Non-Professional Overall Winner
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Artist: Trina O’Hara
IG handle: @trinaoharapainter
Title: Flowers for Caravaggio
Description: For seven years I immersed myself in Caravaggio’s world. I copied (in paint)
his entire body of work. I made it my mission to see all of Caravaggio’s paintings in the flesh. His vision shaped mine. Now, when sunlight hits a vase of flowers, I don’t just see it, I see life through Caravaggio’s eyes.
Gold – Architecture, Professional
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Artist: Svetlana Fadeeva
IG handle: @fadeevaphotography
Title: Doha
Description: This photo was taken in the morning on the grounds of the Qatar National Museum, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel.
Gold – Film/Analog, Professional
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Artist: William Mark Sommer
IG handle: @williammarksommer
Title: Pink Donut
Description: Home can be found in many places from the house you live in to the local
donut shop. I remember as a child being amazed by all the donuts in the case, all the color and sizes, and how my father loved the pink ones. Through this nostalgic memory, I was brought home.
Gold – Nature, Professional
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Artist: Carla Rhodes
IG handle: @misscarlarhodes
Title: Dancing In The Moonlight
Description: Gliding like a ghost in the moonlight, a flying squirrel dances across the starry
sky, while the moon casts abstract shadows on my house. After months of late nights and
obsessive observation, I made the image I envisioned—a single frame revealing the hidden
magic just beyond our windows.
Gold – Landscapes, Professional
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Artist: Stuart Chape
IG handle: N/A
Title: Glacial blue
Description: This series was photographed from a light aircraft and captures the blue
waters of braided blue glacial rivers flowing into lakes from the high mountains of the
Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park in New Zealand. The blue colouration of the water is due to fine silt particles in the water.
Gold – People, Non-Professional
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Artist: Arkadiusz Wójcik
IG handle: @awophotographingtheworld
Title: In the net
Description: In the early morning we planned to shoot in a small fish market. Meanwhile, we met a group of people sewing and repairing fishing nets. They do this once every few months so we were extremely lucky
Gold – Animals, Non-Professional
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Artist: David Vaughn
IG handle: @davidvaughnphotos
Title: Family Portrait
Description: Southern India looking for the tiger to photography and this mother and 3 cubs drinking from a small pond and I had to wait until they all looked my way and then it happened.
Gold – Event, Non-Professional
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Artist: Dylan Tom
IG handle: @dylantom10
Title: Fire Gods of The Malabar Coast
Description: Theyyam is a Ritual art form practiced in Kerala,India. It enacts the life and legend of local heroes who became martyr for the cause of the people and later revered as
Demigods. Fire is a main protogonist which depicts the life and life after death of the legend. the act takes places deep in the.
Gold – Photojournalism, Non-Professional
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Artist: Jeremy Skirrow
IG Handle: @undrgrain
Title: Dust and Despair: A Coastal Cry for Water
Description: In rural Peru, around 40% lack reliable water access. Communities like
Huanchaco rely on costly, unreliable truck deliveries due to poor infrastructure. Despite APEC 2024, rural areas face water and waste challenges, deepening inequality and harming agriculture, businesses, and daily life.
Our DPREVIEW Tribute:
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview closed on 10 April 2023. This difficult decision was part of the annual operating plan review that parent company, Amazon, shared earlier this year.
Over the course of 25 years, DP Review built up a reputation as being one of the most informative places to go for information about that new camera or lens you’re after. DP Review began as an independent reviews site based in the UK in 1998, the brainchild of Philip and Joanna Askey, but it was eventually purchased by Amazon in 2007 and relocated over to Seattle in the USA in 2010.
Cheers DPReview – thanks for the great work and content that guided photographers, videographers and techno junkies the world over!
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