FIRST PRIZE – GEERT DE TAEYE
 

“I really like the strange atmosphere on this photo, and would love to know more about it – the story, the location etc… Composition, light and framing all work together to build the strength of this image, along with the intriguing decoration above the police.” – Christophe Jacrot

“‘The decisive moment’, coined by Cartier-Bresson, is a well-known phrase in photography, but there is something of the ‘moment before the decisive moment’ in this image. From the slightly distant vantage point, and with smoke and light emanating from an unseen and unknown source around the corner, this image is charged with tension for what happens next. Paired with a flawless, fine art technique and an obvious nod to contemporary events, it makes for something scintillating.” – Life Framer

SECOND PRIZE – TOMASO LISCA
 

“The story here is very touching – a simple image, without pretension, that really makes sense. The topic of ‘Night Life’ is so perfectly illustrated. Great colors, great light of course and a great idea!” – Christophe Jacrot

“A wonderful response to the topic that describes the innocence, ingenuity and determination of these young boys. Light here symbolic for opportunity in life.” – Life Framer

KAROLIINA KASE
 

“Bathed in alluring, lustrous colors associated more with the street than the bedroom, we witness a moment of still tenderness between two lovers – night life unfolding through the touch of human skin. Karoliine sensitively frames her subjects to create something both quiet and powerful, familiar and totally enchanting.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – Before I photograph familiar people or places, an image of the subject comes to me. My process involves executing this vision as precisely as possible. After I have shot the image, I evaluate whether or not the photo is an accurate representation of my experience with the subject. The narrative I have derived from a kind of psychoanalysis of that person is either accurately represented or it is not. In this way I attempt to interpret my unconscious thoughts and behavioural patterns in my work, as well as to confirm or disprove my theories about people.

Often, my photographs lack a continuous narrative. I frequently photograph absurd situations or work in foreign environments, meaning that I rely on the viewer’s recognition of the impermanence of being to lessen individual self-imposed significance. I connect my subjects with their surroundings through composition, seeking to create a contrast with the solitary nature of consciousness. I focus on symbolism and the momentary silence between the subject and the camera. When I shoot people, I give them formal directions which betray the nuances of their body language. In their faces, I search for humanity and sincere emotion, attempting to elicit empathy in the viewer.

GARRET SUHRIE
 

“This view of lights and overhead cables criss-crossing the night sky is abstractly beautiful, strangely mesmerizing. It’s difficult to decipher without Garret’s statement – revealing the glowing spiral we see as the rotors of a police helicopter as it circles a suspect below. Distorting the obvious image of the skirmish unfolding, trading action for abstraction, Garret creates something that’s clever and unexpected, and totally memorable.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – Police Helicopter Circling Suspect, Compton, CA.

KIMHOO SO

“The 2019-20 Hong Kong protests made headlines across the world, troubling in the brutality with which the protesters were met by the state’s police. Viewed by most of us from a safe distance, Kimhoo’s image throws us into the heart of the action, his around-the-corner framing, the raised weapons and streaks of flame creating a palpable sense of fear and tension, and the complimentary colours of blue and orange further raising the drama. Across the street in an alleyway we see more civilians retreating from the march of police. The image provides an immersive glimpse into the frightening reality of this human rights battle.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – Cockroaches – the term that Hong Kong police named the more than 2 million Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement protesters. While the original idea of this term was only to disgrace and stigmatize the whole social movement and its followers, it does capture some features of the protest.

The city was on fire after the government replied with police brutality, government supported gangster attacks, the death of two college students and sieges of universities. Despite this, Asia’s biggest financial center still functions normally during the daytime. Business, schools and the stock market still operate as usual. But it was a different city when the sun fell. The crowds gathered in the hearts of the city. They mobilized from block to block. Protests, conflict and blockages were everywhere. The city has never been united in this way. Adults, students, housewives and even families were joining waves after wave. They are green and unexperienced, but lovely and determined

ROMAN OLINCHUK
 

“There’s something exquisite about this image, the viewer peeking out from a sheltered tunnel of wildlife along with the scene’s subject, onto a bustling city below. The dichotomy between the natural and manmade worlds, the quiet and the clamor, creates a wonderful sense of peaceful escape, and a reminder of the necessary symbiosis of the two in our modern lives.” – Life Framer

OSKAR ALVARADO
 

“It’s always good to see conceptual responses to a topic and this image, from a series exploring insomnia, is a great example. Capturing both the weightlessness of a dream state and the tedium and claustrophobia of sleeplessness (with the lump in the sheets perhaps being the body of a peacefully sleeping lover) there’s something beguiling about this scene – something ethereal and in tune with the feelings it sets out to describe. Oskar’s control of lighting is sumptuous, and the decision to stage it in what feels like a gallery setting is an intriguing one that further plays with ideas of perception.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – From the series Insomnia. This series explores my personal experience with insomnia, where biological interruption of nocturnal sleep ritual gives way to a new territory of confluences. The moment in which consciousness and unconsciousness meet, where reality and fiction blur boundaries and coexist in the mind in a recreation of two parallel worlds that conform our identity. The transition between what we appear to be and our true self, which becomes visible in privacy.

The reality of each person, sometimes perturbing, takes possession of his soul in the gloom of night. Awake souls who become inhabitants of a space-time do not usually frequent. Where reminiscences of the past are mixed with frustrations, imaginary ghosts and appellants fears head toward us to a future of changing contours.

People trapped in unwanted lives, people who maybe try to flee from himself, they definitively abandon themselves or who roam aimlessly through in concrete spaces in a sort of scenery of fragilities. Images that built a dreamlike world, disturbing. Fragments of life staged at night, in the complicity of night lights of the city or in the apparent calm of anonymous rooms

AZIM KHAN RONNIE
 

“While there is often something trite about overhead shots of cities and the light trails of traffic, Azim creates something wholly compelling – in part because of the excellent, expansive framing, but mainly because of the scene it describes: it’s not the highway and fast-flow of vehicles that is of interest, but the drama of life below – markets, speeding mopeds, people congregating on corners that summate to describe the vast scale and endless pulse of the city.” – Life Framer

JEAN-FRANÇOIS BOUCHARD
 

“There is something oddly beautiful about this abandoned truck – Jean-François cleverly lighting it from within to emphasize the bullet holes that riddle its body work, mirroring the night sky full of stars above. It creates a quiet peacefulness at odds with the destruction, a coexistence of ‘beauty and ugliness’ that Jean-François eloquently describes in his statement, and that echoes the world at large – full of moments of awe and wonder as well as acts of rage and wanton nihilism.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – From the series In Guns We Trust. In the Arizona desert, aficionados of military-grade automatic weapons use cars, trucks, shipping containers, mannequins as targets. They even use explosives and cannons, all legally and privately owned. I became fascinated by the devastation, burnt flora and the eerie quietness of the shooting range at night once the deafening shooting stops. Great beauty and ugliness coexist creating a metaphor of the American experience.

THÉO GOSSELIN
 

“A wonderfully cinematic shot that stokes our imaginations – concocting a story for this lone figure, trudging through the empty night with a guitar slung across his shoulder. The warm orange glow and burst of strange light – be it lens flare or the call of a distant galaxy – gives the image a sense of magic realism, a heightened drama unfolding before us.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – From the series Nocturnal Animals. I stole those moments of night life during my journey across the USA, driving around and meeting people and sharing our stories. Movies are real.

LUCIANO D’INVERNO

“Taken from a series entitled Cattedrali Del Silenzio (Cathedrals of Silence) this superbly lit and colored image of a non-descript industrial building feels foreboding – describing that feeling of being alone in the deserted suburban hinterland, that eeriness of dilapidated buildings, or those that pulse with activity during the day. The rectangular tower in particular looks ominous and monolithic, and the title of the series perhaps nods to the idea of consumption being the new religion.” – Life Framer

ANGELA STRASSHEIM
 

“Capturing her subjects in the warm glow of city lights, this beautiful, subtle image captures the quiet drama of the everyday, particularly for those young adults exploring love, freedom and heartache for the first time. We are onlookers to a moment of intimacy, Angela providing the viewer a beautifully naturalistic view into the ennui of growing up.” – Life Framer

ISHAQ MADAN

“Framed against a still, empty night we see a pocket of life – a hand reaching out for connection, its owner confined to a small concrete box. Artfully staged and brilliantly executed, there is a sense of claustrophobia and loneliness that creatively encapsulates something of the last 12 months for many.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – Lucid Dreams. Drowning myself in the work of Edward Hopper and Saul Leiter inspired me to create this. A beautiful cloudy night helped nail what I had in mind as the stillness of night and calming breeze all had a role to play.

VELIA DE LA CRUZ

“Framed in two distinct halves, this is a lovely image that conveys a personal story within the staggering immensity of the city. Soaked in the warm glow of artificial light, and with what looks like a smile on her face, this image (and its description) convey a sense of hope and positivity, despite the modest surrounding and what the image of someone looking out of a window might initially say to many of us living through lockdowns.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – On the shores of the Cerro del Topo Chico in Monterrey, Nuevo León in Mexico, Zinia, a little girl from the south looks out of a window of the house where she now lives with her aunt Antonia, after emigrating there to continue her studies.

FELIX MASSEY
 

“Felix’s panorama accentuates the destruction wrecked on this community, the precariousness of our places and possessions in the face of natural disasters, with more detritus and debris slowly revealing itself in the twilight. It’s a quite alarming scene, juxtaposing the widespread damage with the normalcy of this couple reclining on deckchairs like they might be around a barbecue, but one that also hints at our resilience. The loss may be gut-wrenching, but we always rebuild.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – This photo was taken in the aftermath of the fires in California. This elderly couple tragically lost their home and stables.

CAROLINE MARDOK
 

“Protests for social justice have been a key theme of the last 12 months, and many of us have taken to the streets to join them. This image, from a youth and trans-liberation march in New York, captures one such protester amongst police officers, and draped in the Stars and Stripes, with a cape and look of defiance in her eyes, she is far more of a superhero than those clad with weapons and body armor around her. While the image doesn’t convey an action, it is nonetheless arresting, and the ‘13’ on the traffic light, while perhaps not a conscious choice of Caroline to capture, adds an interesting dimension – 13 being symbolic of bad luck, and also perhaps a nod to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and what has come since.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – The youth and trans-liberation, New York, 2020.

SHIRA GOLD
 

“Shira’s image is stark and arresting, a gorgeous natural sculpture against the abyss, captured in high-key flashbulb lighting that makes it almost glisten. But it’s all the more intense when read alongside her statement – the sense of isolation and emotional devastation of her mourning apparent in the framing of the scene. It’s a simple but profoundly powerful image.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – From the series Shock. This series of images depicts my entry into mourning. At once private and confessional, its images expose the profound devastation I experienced in the midnight of my mother’s passing. In the aftermath of her death, my life was stripped bare, as though colour had been extracted from my world, rendering me alone in the darkness.

CONNY HAMMARSTROM

“Abstract but instantly recognizable as the blurred lights of vehicles at night, there is something aesthetically beautiful about this image – in the hazy forms and blotted covers – that captures the trancelike feeling of driving at night, or perhaps drifting off to sleep from a passenger seat.” – Life Framer

Photographer statement – Designated Driver.

EDUARDO NAVE SILVESTRE

“Capturing the facelessness of the crowd, these non-descript people are picked out in the warm orange of streetlights, but also the cold blue of phone screens, placing the scene in our contemporary time, and also asking questions of what it might be they’re crowding to witness.” – Life Framer

KRISTOF VADINO
 

“Captured from the back of a small boat and blurred from the movement of water, this is an immersive image that I would love to know the story behind. It conveys something adventurous, a little scary, but most of all intriguing.” – Life Framer