All About Photo Awards 2026: Winners Selected by Steve McCurry

All About Photo Announces the Winners of the 2026 All About Photo Awards – The Mind’s Eye

All About Photo is pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 All About Photo Awards – The Mind’s Eye, marking the competition’s 11th anniversary with acclaimed photographer Steve McCurry serving as juror. This year’s selection features 45 winning images that reflect the beauty, complexity, and urgency of the world today.

Representing 15 countries across four continents, the winning photographs demonstrate the wide range of contemporary photography. Chosen by McCurry, the final selection brings together documentary, conceptual, and poetic approaches, offering a vivid portrait of the medium as it stands today. From the United States to Spain, India to Indonesia, and China to France, the images travel across borders while remaining grounded in place, memory, and lived experience.

A Broad View of Photography Today

The 2026 winners present a layered and expansive view of contemporary photography. The selected images span subjects and settings as diverse as Colonial Williamsburg, the borderlands of West Africa, the grasslands of Tibet, and the urban energy of Mumbai, Havana, and Beijing.

Each work adds to a larger narrative shaped by human presence, cultural memory, and visual storytelling. Some photographs address urgent realities, while others explore identity, ritual, history, and the quiet beauty of everyday life. Together, they show how photography continues to function as a universal language—one that can record, question, and transform the world around us.

Top Prize Winners

First Place goes to Matt McClain for Window to the Past, a quiet and cinematic reflection on time and history. Captured through a misted window in Colonial Williamsburg, the image blends past and present into a single contemplative frame.

Second Place is awarded to Brooke Shaden for Obscura, a conceptual self-portrait that examines identity in the digital age and blurs the boundary between authenticity and performance.

Third Place goes to France Leclerc for Celestial Ladies, a striking composition that balances form, ritual, and coincidence in a moment of stillness.

Fourth Place, by Javier Arcenillas, captures an intimate scene aboard a Tunisian train, where light, color, and composition reveal solitude within motion.

Fifth Place goes to Beamie Young for Bringing Home the Birds, a poetic black-and-white photograph set in Cuba that evokes childhood, freedom, and tradition.

Merit Award Gallery

The Merit Award Gallery extends the story even further. Among the honored works are photographs that confront labor conditions, climate fragility, and political unrest, alongside images that turn toward spirituality, tradition, and cultural continuity.

Other works embrace a more poetic sensibility, capturing fleeting moments such as a cyclist reflected in a drop of dew, a diver suspended among whales, or a beam of light illuminating a remote chapel. These images remind us that the extraordinary often exists within the everyday, waiting to be seen.

The full Merit Award winners are: Tittu Shaji Thomas (India), Wahyu Budiyanto (Indonesia), Buck Holzemer (USA), Max Chu (China), Thaddäus Biberauer (Austria), Florian Wurzinger (Austria), Khaichuin Sim (Malaysia), Jordi Cohen (Spain), Shrikanth Poojari (India), Gavin Libotte (UK/Australia), Chris Yan (China), Zhang Lintao (China), Thibault Gerbaldi (France/United States), Jiri Kostal (Czech Republic), Takeshi Yamamoto (Japan), Andrew Newey (United Kingdom), Md Tanveer Rohan (United States), Eric Seidner (United States), Marco Di Marco (Italy), Prescott Lassman (United States), Gabi Steiner (Austria), Tommi Viitala (Finland), Cesare Simioni (Italy), Asako Naruto (Japan), Kerry Faulkner (Australia), Archie Cludven (China), Fenqiang Liu (United States), Robert Lie (Indonesia), Hervé Boutrouille (France), Marie Kent (France), Seppo Tuomaala (Finland), and Tebani Slade (Australia).

Steve McCurry’s Selection

In choosing this year’s winners, Steve McCurry presents not a single visual style, but a broad and nuanced view of photographic practice. His selections highlight images that are immediate yet timeless, grounded in specific moments while resonating more universally.

The result is more than a competition outcome. It is a collective visual narrative of the world as seen through the eyes of today’s most compelling photographers.

Recognition and Reach

Open to photographers worldwide and across all genres, the All About Photo Awards – The Mind’s Eye continue to champion visual storytelling, emotional depth, and originality. The 2026 winners receive $5,000 in cash prizes, along with international exposure through AAP Magazine, online exhibitions, and global media distribution.

Founded in 2015, the competition has become a respected platform for emerging and established photographers alike. The annual award recognizes work that is not only visually compelling, but also socially, culturally, and environmentally resonant.

The title The Mind’s Eye is inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s idea of the alignment of “one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart.” That philosophy remains central to the awards, underscoring an approach to photography where observation, emotion, and composition come together to create meaningful work.