From over 108,000 images submitted by photographers from more than 160 countries and territories, Hasselblad Masters has just announced its 7 winners for the 2026 competition.
Across every category, the awarded images combine instant visual impact with lasting depth. The photographers spark curiosity, shift perspective and leave space for interpretation.
".What this year's Hasselblad Masters submissions demonstrated, with rare consistency, is that the most compelling photography does not simply record, it constructs," explains Kalle Sanner, Executive Director at the Hasselblad Foundation and Grand Jury Chair.
Art
'Waste Colonialism (Sapi-Sapi Piyungan)' by Yudha Kusuma Putera
Rooted in everyday life and inspired by its complexity, Putera turns a keen eye toward the social issues that hide in plain sight, exploring the tensions between humans, nature, and the systems we build around us.
The winning images are part of a project examining how developed nations export their waste to developing countries, where labour and costs are lower.
This logic repeats on a smaller scale too: within cities, landfills are built on the outskirts, kept out of sight and out of mind. At Putera's Piyungan landfill, a city's waste is sorted by scavengers and consumed by cows, quietly piling up into a second hill.
Architecture
'DaySleeper | Movieland' by Kevin Boyle
Boyle was shaped by the open skies and close-knit communities of the Canadian prairies. After the loss of his father, he returned home, only to find the places he once knew hollowed out and silent, their gathering spaces boarded up and left to disappear.
For over ten years, his photographic journey has been a profound tribute to the abandoned architecture of North America's local communities.
The winning series is comprised of photographic montages, with each part of the building lit with flashlights and blended in post-production to create an ethereal "portrait" of once important gathering places.
Portrait
'Otherness' by Svetlana Jovanovic
With a psychology background, Jovanovic's portraiture is driven by a deep curiosity about identity — how we experience the world, construct our sense of self, and see ourselves through the eyes of others.
Her style brings together fine art portraiture and a commitment to visual beauty, believing that the conceptual and the aesthetic are inseparable: each gives the other meaning.
The winning images are part of Otherness, an ongoing long-term project exploring identical twins and the tension between shared identity and individual presence. While twins share so much, it is the small differences that emerge over time, the subtle ways each person's character becomes visible within the shared image, that lie at the heart of the work.
Landscape
'Ephemeral Visions' by Rohan Reilly
Rooted in the discipline of a composer, Reilly's images strip away complexity to reveal the essentials, which are texture, tone, and stillness.
His signature long-exposure technique transforms moving water and shifting skies into silk-like surfaces, while vast negative space and low saturation give his work a poetic, meditative quality that transcends documentation.
The process is one of patience and preparation: studying weather patterns, returning season after season, and waiting for the precise conditions that cannot be engineered but only earned.
Project//21
'Dwellers of the Night' by Panitbhand Paribatra Na Ayudhya
Na Ayudhya's work is rooted in a quiet dedication to the ocean, documenting its life, its fragility, and the ecosystems that sustain it, in the hope that what is seen through his lens will not be forgotten.
The series was captured in the waters of Anilao, Philippines, where pelagic and larval marine life migrate from the depths each night to feed under the cover of darkness.
For the ribbon eel, a diffused warm light conjures a subtle sunset behind the subject — crowning it as a master of the night. Some of these creatures spend their entire lives in the open ocean, making the pelagic ecosystem as fragile as it is extraordinary.
Street
'Morning Ritual' by Gosse Bouma
Bouma is a photographer whose work is driven by a quiet pursuit: to offer moments of tranquility in a world that rarely slows down. His distinct style lies at the intersection of urban geometry and natural elements, pairing the hard lines of architecture with the soft, unpredictable textures of weather.
Each photograph is infused with the intention of invoking serenity amidst the chaos of everyday life, creating visual experiences that invite stillness and reflection, even if only for a fleeting moment.
His winning series, taken across the Netherlands, turns to the street market as its subject, a space where people of all ages and backgrounds meet, exchange a few words, share warmth, and move on. In capturing these small, unhurried encounters, Bouma preserves something increasingly rare in contemporary life: a genuine sense of togetherness.
Wildlife
'The Forest I Roam' by Alfred Minnaar
Minnaar's creative process often begins with observation and patience. Rather than simply documenting his subjects, he seeks to understand their behaviour, environment, and relationship with the surrounding ecosystem.
The winning images of a tiny goby living amongst coral were created to challenge our perception of scale and encourage viewers to look closer.
Rather than focusing solely on the fish, the photographer wanted to use it as a point of reference within a much larger world. By placing the goby within its environment, the reef itself becomes the subject, inviting viewers to imagine its vastness from the perspective of one of its smallest inhabitants.
For more information, visit the Hasselblad website.
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