The winners of the OpenWalls Spotlight Awards 2026 have been announced, and this year’s champion images hit you straight in the feels, evoking all kinds of nostalgia and longing for friends and family, but also for years gone by.
Themed around homecoming, this year’s edition of the competition – which is organized by the British Journal of Photography – saw an impressive, deeply thought-provoking series delving into aging and the changes that life brings, along with ample single frames exploring the significance of returning to a place, a memory or a version of oneself.
American photographer Nancy Floyd took the crown in the Series category with Weathering Time, a profound documentation of her life and the changing faces, places, pets, trials and tribulations it has entailed over a period spanning more than 40 years.
To date, the ongoing series, which turns 50 in 2032, has chronicled Floyd’s youth through to the “dawn of her old age,” with the images also reflecting the wider experiences of her generation, including cultural and technological shifts in society. A fascinating long-term study, Floyd plans to continue the project “for as long as she’s able to.”
The series' emotional weight lies in its honesty. Rather than simply romanticizing the passage of time, Weathering Time leans into its realities, capturing the quiet, often bittersweet changes that shape us over decades.
There were 24 winning images in the Single Shot category, among them standout works such as Tony, a portrait by Joseph P Smith named after its subject.
In the image, we see Tony standing beside the defunct remains of a machine in his former workplace that tore off his right arm when he was just 16 years old. Now approaching old age, Tony reconciles with the place that “reshaped his body and future.”
The wider selection of winning images explores homecoming in all kinds of ways – from physical returns to emotional reckonings – with photographers documenting themes of family, identity, memory, loss and belonging through both intimate portraiture and documentary storytelling.
OpenWalls is an international photography award highlighting emerging and established photographers across two categories: Series and Single Shot. For the last six years, winning images have been displayed at Galerie Huit Arles in Arles, France, alongside the Les Rencontres d’Arles festival.
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