Italian photographer, Massimiliano Faralli, is the overall winner of this year's Urban Photo Awards, with his incredibly creative shot titled Jurassic Street that pictures the silhouette of a dinosaur and smaller velociraptor on the wall of a parking lot, as a lady stands shocked opening the boot of her car.
Coinciding with the Trieste Photo Days 2022 festival, as well as dozens of exhibitions showcasing images from the Italian-based awards competition, the Urban Photo Awards announced its winners on October 29 and the images are spectacular!
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The Urban Photo Awards 2022 has unveiled the winning images and photographers from this year's edition of the international photo contest, showcasing all elements of Urban and modern photography, in a physical format expanding beyond online portfolios through dozens of photo exhibitions of the best-ranked images.
The complete judging panel and jury for the 2022 photo contest comprised documentary photographer Jérôme Sessini, Travel Photographer of the Year winner at the Sony World Photography Awards: Gali Tibbon, art director of Trieste Photo Days: Angelo Cucchetto, among numerous other magazine editors and international industry experts in the field of photography, art, and design.
Selected by the president of the jury and Italian photography legend, Nino Migliori, photographer Faralli's prehistoric vision in an urban parking lot was among the first images to be ranked in the Streets, People, Spaces, and Creative categories in the Single Photos section of the Urban Photo Awards.
Jury president Migliori described Faralli's winning image as being “constructed in such a way as to refer to immediate cinematic themes, therefore able to tell a story in a possible game between fiction and reality.”
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Winning the Projects & Portfolios category was Belgian photographer, Alain Schroeder, with their series titled Muay Thai Kids. The project illustrates the awful and unfortunate ongoing extremity that is Thailand’s child wrestlers, young children being forced by their families to participate in fierce Muay Thai fighting matches, earning money from competitive betting. The photo series was selected by Italian jury member and two-time World Press Photo winner, Shobha, who shares that:
"Alan Schroeder’s project is a work that reminds me of all the years I lived in Asia, where the focus of my work has always been aimed at minors. The victims of those countries are often children, from sexual abuse to child exploitation, to child trafficking in organs, to exploitation for economic purposes. As in this project, children are just numbers, machines to make money, to enrich an unchanged system that does not tend to wake up from an obsolete and violent program."
Schroeder has won multiple awards in several previous editions of the Urban Photo Awards contest, and judge Shobha also expressed that she appreciated “not only the undoubted quality of the photos but above all I want to give strength to this work because it denounces the exploitation of minors, bringing attention back to the problem. Each denunciation is a wish for a possible change and a new vision where children could one day become our teachers."
Thai photographer, Sakulchai Sikitikul, with their series titled Life Explore Soul was selected as the winning project for the URBAN Book Award, as chosen by president jury member and documentary photographer, Susan Meiselas.
“with the framing of a photograph, the relationship between images and the sequences as pages turn. Life Explore Soul invites this level of engagement for a viewer, through its juxtapositions, directing our eyes with multiple focal points, perspective shifts, and mysterious elements.” shared Meiselas speaking of the series.
The title of Best Author was claimed by multi-international award-winning American photographer, Jonathan Jasberg, in recognition of his reportage, in particular with his series Cairo: A Beautiful Thing Is Never Perfect, which was also awarded an honorable mention in the projects and portfolios category.
Jasberg's long-term project based in Cairo, Egypt, is a collection of complex images which often raise more questions than they answer. Featuring candid daily scenes and stories from Cairo on a visual journey through the fascinating city.
Be sure to visit the Urban Photo Awards website to see the full gallery of winning images and rankings of the selected works and portfolios that are to be exhibited.
You may also be interested in these 5 tips for urban fashion photography, as well as 5 tips for better urban landscape photography. Check out our guides to the best cameras for street photography, and the best camera bags and cases for taking your gear with you on the go.
