Discover the results of the Street Photography Awards by The Independent Photographer. The Street Photography competition aims to celebrate and reward photographers for being the best at observing and recording life on the streets.
Whether the subject was the photographers’ own urban environment or as they explored other territories and cultures, we were looking for those spontaneous, fleeting moments and it is our great pleasure to present the work of these incredibly talented artists!
Judge: Richard Sandler is an American street photographer and documentary filmmaker who has made iconic work in New York City for over five decades. His photographs have been published in The Eyes of the City and are held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Congratulations to all Winners and Finalists!
"Dreamland" by Alain Schroeder - 1st place. Prize: $1000
Varanasi, India
"4.30 pm, afternoon siesta in the narrow streets of the old holy city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Day and night, alone or in groups, people sleeping are an integral part of the Indian landscape. In what we would consider rather unusual places, they find it perfectly normal to curl up in the middle of an intersection, on a stone by a temple, or on a cart in front of a snack shop at the train station."
"This is my kind of masterpiece. the formal composition and the people within the frame are in a perfect, yet uneasy, balance. the light within the picture is varied and painterly and subtle so that the air feels dream-like and evocative. The stoppage of time, at that split second, makes total sense: this moment must be seen, this picture must be taken! Then there is the crazy 'collage-like' feeling of the left side of the frame, where a man from some other photograph, perhaps, seems to have wandered into the frame, announcing yet another layer of reality. The best pictures, like this one, ask more questions than they answer." — Richard Sandler
"Untitled" by Daniel Ramos – 2nd place. Prize: $600
Mexico City
"This photograph is part of an ongoing project regarding the beautiful and harmonious chaos that exists in Mexico City."
"One can only thank the photo gods for this perfect orchestration of this complicated frame. Chaos has been transmuted into order for an instant. It’s the thing that only cameras with shutters (and A.I.) can do. In the flow of time, a moment like this is so fleeting, so hard to steal. The great street photographer Garry Winogrand has been quoted as saying, 'There is nothing more mysterious than a fact clearly described.' This picture is one of those facts: cotton candy is being made, the sun is low in the sky and the fact of existence is more profound than its content." — Richard Sandler
"Shelter From the Storm" by Jonathan Jasberg – 3rd place. Prize: $400
Kolkata, India
"As the small lanes and streets of Kolkata, India flood due to heavy monsoon rains, people and dogs seek higher ground."
"A truly stunning image, rich in color: from the vibrant turquoise and carmine walls, echoed in the stripes on the bags that hang precariously from the bicycle, to the indigo shorts of the man on the right. Perfectly timed and composed, the trio of dogs, in the center, and a fourth sliding into the frame add an element of dynamism and spontaneity to the shot and evoke Elliot Erwitt’s classic depictions of the subject, it captures the atmosphere of the Kolkata streets in a manner reminiscent of the great Raghubir Singh, one of the finest street photographers of his time." – The Independent Photographer Editors
"A close shave" by Arpit Mehrotra – finalist
Kolkata, India
"Untitled" by David Keith Brown – finalist
Chennai, India 2019
"Untitled" by Gian Marco Venturi – finalist
Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Italy
"Puppets" by Johannes Maechtel – finalist
Trinidad, Cuba
"Subway Light Play" by John Yuhas – finalist
Chicago, USA
"An image of a commuter taking the stairs to catch the subway in Chicago, USA."
"The Playground" by Joseph-Philippe Bevillard – finalist
Galway, Ireland, 2021
"A Traveler girl posed in front of my camera at a community playground."
"A delicate balance" by Regula Tschumi – finalist
Ghana
"On the way to the market, I discovered this painted wall that immediately captivated me. But it wasn’t until a few days later that I went back to the site to take photos. As I wanted to attract as little attention as possible, I first observed from afar what the women were carrying on their heads. Only when I saw a good scene coming would I approach the wall briefly and take a few pictures. This photo was one of them."