Slideshow: All About Photo’s 2022 competition winners

All About Photo’s 2022 competition winners

Recently, All About Photo awards announced the winners and finalists for their 2022 competition. Jurors, including Tom Price, last year’s 1st Place Winner, selected 41 winners from 21 countries spanning 4 continents. The top 5 winners split a $10,000 USD cash prize pool.

All selected winning images are displayed in the online All About Photo’s Winners Gallery and will be printed in the AAP Magazine Special Edition All About Photo Awards 2022 issue.

1st Place Winner: ‘Afghanistan Air Force’ by Marcus Yam (United States)

About this Image: Afghanistan’s air force is a rare U.S.-backed success story. It may soon fail.

A soldier surveys the terrain out of the window of a UH-60 Black Hawk during a resupply flight toward an outpost in the Shah Wali Kot district north of Kandahar, Afghanistan, on May 6, 2021. The Afghan Air Force, which the U.S. and its partners have nurtured to the tune of $8.5 billion since 2010, is now the government’s safeguard in its fight against the enemy.

Since May 1, the original deadline for the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban have overpowered government troops, wrestling away control of territories and further denying Afghan security forces the use of roads. As a result, all logistical support to thousands of outposts and checkpoints — including re-supplies of ammunition and food, medical evacuations or personnel rotation — must be done by air.⁣

2nd Place Winner: ‘Kebabiyana’ by Debdatta Chakraborty (India)

About this Image: This photo of was taken at Sri Nagar, Jammu & Kashmir, India on 14.02.2021

3rd Place Winner: ‘Woman from Evia’ by Konstantinos Tsakalidis (Greece)

About this Image: I was in the village of Gouves in northern Evia, along with other colleagues, where the fire was heading on the morning of Sunday, August 8. When the fire started to threaten the village, I thought that taking pictures from a distance would not tell the whole story. So, I left the observation point, inside the village, where we could see (along with other media colleagues) how the fire was spreading panoramically and headed to the houses, in order to capture the reactions and preparations of the residents, who had not evacuated the village (as requested by the authorities) so they could protect their village. I thought that if the fire really approached the houses, these would be the images that would most vividly describe the disaster and the consequences of the climate crisis we live in.

I had intended to leave the place where I was to move my car to a safer place as the fire moved down the hill in the direction of the houses and that was when I saw from a distance a woman dressed in black moving awkwardly outside a house. I approached to see what was happening because it was one of the first houses in front of the forest. I heard her shouting towards the house, looking for her husband. Then she called me into the yard of the house and told me emotionally about all the hard work they had put into their home (which was now in danger of being lost to the fire) and the lack of government intervention to put out the fire, as she was telling me this, the flames swallowed up the pine forest behind the house. That’s the moment I took the picture. That moment was very intense and moving.

After that, I talked to her neighbors so they would take care of her because she seemed to be losing consciousness and informed them that her husband was still in the back of the house, on the side where the fire was coming.

Merit Award: ‘Inmates Look Out of a Cell’ by Tariq Zaidi (United Kingdom)

About this Image: Inmates look out of a cell in the Penal Center of Quezaltepeque. El Salvador. November 2018.

The government introduced a series of ‘extraordinary measures’ in 2016 designed to curb gang violence, such as suspending visits, cutting off telecommunications and ending recess time for prisoners. In such an over-crowded prison there are many human rights concerns, not least of all the living conditions being a breeding ground for contagious diseases.

Merit Award: ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ by Pedro Luis Ajuriaguerra Saiz (Spain)

About this Image: Pachliopta polyphontes is a species of butterfly from the family Papilionidae that is found in Sulawesi and on the Moluccas.

In the photograph, the compound eyes are striking, each one formed by a large number of simple eyes that allow the butterfly to obtain a mosaic image and the kind of orange crest that reminds us of the crest of a Mohican, hence the similarity with Michael Mann’s movie “The Last of the Mohicans”. The drops of water give it an even more unique appearance

Merit Award: ‘Tea Harvest’ by Trung Pham Huy (Vietnam)

About this Image: A group of farmers are picking up tea leaves, under the season of blooming phoenix flowers, in suburb of Bao Loc, the city in central highland of Vietnam.

Merit Award: ‘The Kid of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq’ by Antonio Denti (Italy)

About this Image: The soldier moved towards the kid suddenly and unexpectedly. His hand reached for the kid’s face. For a brief moment. I could not see the soldier’s face – as not one inch of his skin was left uncovered by his full armour – but I felt he meant it with some kind of melancholic affection: like older people sometimes do to the young, with a mixture of worry about their future and desire to encourage them. In that instant, against the silence of the gutted city, I felt I could almost hear the noise of the herculean effort of growing up”.

Merit Award: ‘Air’ by Daria Troitskaia (Italy)

About this Image: This is one part of the series, representing Air. The full series is called The Elements and currently I’m working on it. I chose to show Air through the power of wind, by using black fabric that was floating around the model.

Merit Award: ‘Coronavirus Therapy – Swimming’ by Paolo Quadrini (Italy)

About this Image: On March 11th, 2020 the Italian government prohibited all movements of people within the national territory. I spent 82 days at home on lockdown.
I live alone and every day was uncertain. After savoring weeks of solitude and contemplation, I felt vulnerable and inconsistent, looking for a new prospective.
I was not sure what next day would hold and what news to brace for next, but my home, the finite space where I was confined, was withholding all what I was.
I chose to navigate this uncharted territory exploring the deepest, truthful side of me, the one that just wants to exist. Here is my personal wacky approach to defeat fear and loneliness, a tribute to my strength, my desires, my rebellion.
This is my dissonant, visceral attempt to become my own refuge.
A surreal silent cry.

Merit Award: ‘Songline No. 1’ by Roland Blum (Liechtenstein)

About this Image: Songlines is a new chapter of my ongoing work Poetry of Silence. Songlines is dedicated to the Etosha Pan in the north of Namibia.Only a few rain drops in combination with the unique light are enough to transform this abstract landscape into a sea of different colors.To be able to orientate oneself in this abstract landscape from the air one has to create a mind map, linking key locations and sites in the form of traces and patterns.The result are silent Songlines in form of visual poems – a tribute of this incredible and unique landscape.

Merit Award: ‘Absent Innocence’ by Bruno Araluce Courballee-Thevenin (Spain)

About this Image: Palestinian is seen using a slingshot against Israeli soldiers during the clashes Palestinians clashed with the Israeli army during a demonstration in the village of Kafr Qaddum.

Merit Award: ‘GANGBORDER’ by Javier Arcenillas (Spain)

About this Image: Gang members from the San Francisco Gotera prison welcomed into the Yo Cambio program of the Government of San Salvador to keep the most violent gang members occupied and without conflict.

Merit Award: ‘Secret Garden’ by Fenqiang Frank Liu (USA)

About this image: In Winter Park, Florida, the oak tree in this photo with its beautiful hanging moss was cut down later due to its unhealthy condition. One day in the Spring of 2020, I was so lucky to have captured the great egret and the oak tree before it was removed! The oak branches and hanging moss framed the egret while I waited for it to take off. Finally, my patience was rewarded, and I was able to capture an exquisite moment.