The 1839 awards 2026 winners are in. The 1839 Awards has named the winners of its 2026 Photographers of the Year contest. Judges handed out Gold awards in 41 categories across professional and non-professional divisions, from architecture and photojournalism to wildlife, conceptual work and film. Entries came from 79 countries, which matches the competition’s record for international participation.
The awards take their name from 1839, the year the daguerreotype process was formally announced at the French Academy of Sciences. That announcement helped move photography into public life. The photo contest uses contemporary work to mark that history.
Photo contests like this one often reward technical ambition, and Multilayer Mosaic Wins 2026 Astrophotography Prize shows how layered technique can turn a single subject into a striking award-winning image.
1839 awards 2026 winners: top honors
Giacomo Marchione (@marchione.giacomo) won the top professional title, International Photographer of the Year, for The Invisible. The series documents marine life after dark, when plankton rise from the depths toward the surface each night.
Dammy Twitch (@dammytwitch) took International Discovery of the Year for What If We Lived Among Gods. The project is a medium-format analog series shot entirely on 120 film. It imagines a Nigerian everyday life in which gods and ordinary people share the same space.
An international jury selected the 1839 awards 2026 winners. Its members came from institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Bonhams and Phaidon Press. The full list of 1839 awards 2026 winners is published on the competition website.
Professional categories
In wildlife, Xiaoping Lin (@xiaoping.photo) submitted Pass By. A large fish chases a smaller one out of the water, and both pass a startled egret. The frame captures a fleeting moment of confusion in the water.
Leah Barad (@leahbphotos) won in travel with Morning on the Lake, which shows a young boy paddling his first canoe.
Sebastian Kahnert (@sebastian_kahnert) earned the storytelling category with Social Geometry. He shot from overhead with a three-meter monopod, holding a consistent perspective across the series. Each frame shows how people arrange themselves around food, ritual and gathering, from a solo café visit to a contemporary dining room.
Hamish John Appleby (@applebyphotographymelbourne) took the photojournalism prize with The Human Waterline. The project follows how communities depend on water, from livelihoods and food to pollution, waste and scarcity. Appleby photographed several communities for the series.
Roberto Pazzi (@roberto_pazzi_photo) won in the people category with A Childhood Between Cattle and Dust. The series follows the Mundari herders of South Sudan. In their cattle camps, children collect and dry dung, then pile it up to burn. The resulting ash, as fine as talcum powder, is rubbed onto bodies and cattle twice a day and also used as bedding.
Bevil Templeton-Smith (@bevilts) entered the macro category with Angle of Extinction. He grew crystals on glass slides and photographed them in polarised light through a 1970 Leitz Orthoplan microscope. The color comes from interference rather than applied dye. The field of view measures three to four millimeters, yet a print of the same image reaches 1.5 meters wide.
In landscapes, Anne Neiwand (@fineartphotography_anneneiwand) submitted Little Bird. A raven stands alone on a glacial snowfield, its iridescent black plumage the only dark note against the white. Behind it, cracked ice glows electric blue.
Emily Hlavac Green won the film and analog category with Year of the Cicada. The series follows her return to Aotearoa after a decade in New York. Its photographs move through domestic rituals, changing landscapes and generations, and examine how distance reshapes memory.
Natalya Pyrogova’s Half second before took the event category. The entry captures the moments before an incident and rescue.
Documentary and cultural work has its own showcase in Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2026 Winners Showcase, which gathers striking moments from around the world for anyone interested in street and reportage photography.
Andrew Raven Richardson (@andewraven_) won in animals with Sweethearts in the Window. For one morning in Mayfair, the entry notes, Sweethearts appeared in every window.
Derry Ainsworth (@derryainsworth) took architecture with Dragon Gates of Hong Kong. The series documents a Feng Shui principle built into coastal high-rises. Voids called dragon gates, written 龍門, let spirit dragons pass from the mountains to the sea. Each image contrasts dense modern towers with that older tradition.
Mark Gray (@markgrayphoto) won the abstract and aerial category with Swarm. He photographed Lake Tyrrell in Australia after winter rains began to recede, when the lake showed vivid colors and textures.
Non-professional categories
Among the 1839 awards 2026 winners, Graeme Guy (@wildlifephotographyguy) won the non-professional wildlife category with Red-bearded Bee-eater 2. Malaysia has five bee-eater species, and the forest-dwelling Red-bearded Bee-eater is among the hardest to see. Guy’s frame shows one flying to a favored perch with a captured insect.
Harriet Pratten (@harrietpratten) took the street category with New York Eye. Her entry describes a market after the auctions, where a woman in a headscarf and a New York Yankees cap checks her smartphone among glimmering fish scales while a gull perches at the bow.
Shanthi Sivananthan’s The Golden Harvest won in storytelling. Two women share a moment in a room filled with corn. Thousands of hanging cobs catch warm amber light and form a golden texture around their work at the textile loom and the harvest.
João Coelho (@joaocoelho_photography) won the non-professional photojournalism category with The Phoenix of Oblivion. As the sun sets, men and women comb a burning waste site for scrap metal, braving smoke and embers to earn a living.
Chia-Chieh Yang’s Eyes to the Sky captured the end of Buddhist Lent in a village in Laos. Young novice monks gather at a temple to watch a single homemade rocket launch. As it climbs, their gazes lift together.
Michael Potts (@MRP_Visionaries) won in non-professional nude black and white with The Keeper of Stories, a series made in Iceland with a model identified as V.
Marketa Zvelebil took the non-professional black and white nature category with Galloping through the Sea.
Alex Polli’s Urban break won in architecture. The image pairs rigid geometry and monochrome tones with the organic form of a single, sculpted tree.
Xuejun Long won the non-professional aerial category with Journey of Life. Long shot the series at Lake Magadi in Kenya between 2023 and 2024, documenting the power and beauty of the natural world from above.
Sources & Links
- @marchione.giacomo
- @dammytwitch
- @xiaoping.photo
- @leahbphotos
- @sebastian_kahnert
- @applebyphotographymelbourne
- @roberto_pazzi_photo
- @bevilts
- @fineartphotography_anneneiwand
- @andewraven_
- @derryainsworth
- @markgrayphoto
- @wildlifephotographyguy
- @harrietpratten
- @joaocoelho_photography
- @MRP_Visionaries
Source: dpreview.com
Frequently asked questions
Who won International Photographer of the Year at the 1839 Awards 2026?
Giacomo Marchione won the top professional title, International Photographer of the Year, for his series The Invisible. The series documents marine life after dark, when plankton rise from the depths toward the surface each night.
How many countries did entries in the 1839 Awards 2026 come from?
Entries came from 79 countries, which matches the competition’s record for international participation. Judges handed out Gold awards in 41 categories across professional and non-professional divisions.
Why are the 1839 Awards named after the year 1839?
The awards take their name from 1839, the year the daguerreotype process was formally announced at the French Academy of Sciences. That announcement helped move photography into public life.
Where can I find the full list of 1839 Awards 2026 winners?
The full list of 1839 Awards 2026 winners is published on the competition website. The winners were selected by an international jury that included members from institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Bonhams and Phaidon Press.
More in
Photography
All Photography
More like this
Stunning New York Reflections and Spiral Architecture Lead 2026 Street Photography Awards
The Miraculous World of Plankton by Jan van IJken: Microscopic Viewings of the Underwater Creatures ...
Chicago Legends Ovie Carter and Bob Black Shine in "Voices in the Mirror" Documentary
Pulitzer-Winning Photographer Jerry Gay Captured Firefighters' Grit and Ted Bundy's Infamy
Mayumi Takeuchi's Underwater Miracle Captures Grand Prix at 74th Nikkor Photo Contest
