“Photography of the Year 2025” emerges from a year of images, voices, and perspectives that have shaped Grid Photo Gallery’s exhibitions. Conceived as a meeting point between open participation and prior distinction, this virtual exhibition brings together photographs submitted specifically for this call alongside selected winning works from earlier shows in 2025. Images that once stood out within a defined theme now reappear in a broader arena, joined by new proposals from photographers around the world. The result is a dynamic and layered collection, where recognition and discovery coexist, and where diverse approaches to the medium reflect the richness of contemporary photography. This online gallery not only celebrates outstanding images of the year, but also traces a visual dialogue across Grid Photo Gallery’s evolving curatorial journey.
Winning images
Jurica Galić Juka
Back to the Past
The photograph was taken in a cattle camp of the Mundari people in South Sudan. A member of the community is decorating the horns of Soreta Ankole cattle, renowned for their immense horns. What makes this image distinctive is the almost magical backdrop, created by the interplay of the setting sun and the smoke from burning dung, which the Mundari use to repel mosquitoes.
Eduardo Modolo
Sobreviviente
A tree whose twisted forms reveal the suffering and strength with which it has endured the harsh climate and strong winds of Chilean Patagonia.
Aviaaja Schlüter
Parents’ Sacrifice
I was in all my puffy gear, goggles, big gloves, and big boots, walking through the cold and windy weather to get to the emperor penguin colony from our camp. Here I found emperor parents sheltering their young ones with their bodies to give them cover from the cold wind. What a powerful moment!
Frank Chan
Icon: The Village, Guilin
Through the clouds, golden light spills across the valley, illuminating the jagged silhouettes of the mountains and casting a timeless glow over the settlement below. This work transforms a celebrated landscape into a vision of harmony between human presence and nature’s grandeur, serenity within scale, permanence within impermanence. About the Icon series Icon is a global series of panoramic photographs reimagining the world’s most celebrated landmarks through my distinctive vision. Each work distills scenes often alive with movement into moments of quiet grandeur, inviting the viewer into an immersive dialogue with place, light, and atmosphere. Photographed with a medium format Hasselblad system, the series achieves exceptional depth, tonal richness, and fine detail qualities that elevate every print for large format presentation.
Abdelrahman Alkahlout
Faith Among the Rubble
Displaced Palestinians perform prayers atop the rubble of a mosque destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza Strip, holding on to faith amid devastation and displacement.
Jurica Galić Juka
Bite of Glory
The photograph captures a moment from the traditional Indonesian festival Pacu Jawi, a bull race held in the muddy rice fields of West Sumatra. The contestant stands on a wooden plough, gripping the reins as a pair of bulls charge through the mud, splashing everything around. This thrilling race, celebrated after the harvest, symbolizes strength, endurance, and the unity of local farmers.
Johan Willems
Cheetah with cubs
This photo was taken during our safari in December 2019 in the Masai Mara NP. We were lucky that the cheetah with its cubs was close to the road.
Thomas Andy Branson
The Chorus of Silence
On the windswept edge of the Falkland Islands, far from the noise of the world, a colony of King Penguins stands in quiet harmony, timeless and unshaken. Captured in black and white, the image distills this remote realm to its essence: grace, resilience, and the haunting silence of life at the farthest reach of the earth.
Timon Halbach
Between Mountain and Myth
Neuschwanstein Castle rises from a blaze of autumn forest at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. This scene captures the dialogue between human integration and the premanence of nature. A place where landscape becomes legend.
Joel Reyero
The Dance of the Stars
This image was taken during a dive off the southernmost shores of the Mitre Peninsula, one of the most unexplored areas of Tierra del Fuego’s Isla Grande. At the end of the dive, during the safety stop at a depth of about three meters, I came across this delicate scene: a pair of blue starfish resting on the undulating sheets of Macrocystis pyrifera, the large seaweed that dominates the underwater forests of this remote region.
Todor Tilev
Sunrise at lake Boora
I went to Lake Boora in County Offaly in Ireland very early in the morning. The combination of the fog and rising sun was magical, but something was missing. Suddenly two Gesees showed up and I did not hesitate to take this picture.
Michael Potts
Untitled (V and the Columns)
From a recent trip to Iceland with model V and this unique geological feature. There’s a fairly steep drop to a river below just beyond her (she felt safe). On 3 hours sleep and having developed a fear of heights, I wasn’t feeling very centered, but I saw the columns and asked her to place herself carefully in that spot.
Poung Young Kwak
Codes Hidden in the Land – Aragón, Spain
Photographed in the Aragón region of Spain, this work presents agricultural land as an abstract, painterly surface shaped by cultivation. Viewed from above, fields and plots dissolve into flowing curves, layered textures, and shifting tones of red, green, and gray, recalling the rhythm of repeated brushstrokes. The boundaries between parcels reveal the accumulation of time, labor, and seasonal change embedded in the soil. In this aerial perspective, the land is no longer perceived as a purely functional agricultural space, but as an organic structure formed through the continuous interaction between human intervention and natural forces. The irregular contours and gentle movements suggest a sense of rhythm rather than mechanical order, allowing the landscape to appear as if it were quietly in motion. Through this image, the artist reveals agriculture as a visual record of lived time—where nature and human activity coexist and shape one another.
Timon Halbach
Ash and Light
A volcanic plume rises into the sky as the first light of morning spills across the ridges of Mount Bromo in East Java, Indonesia. The scene balances violence and serenity, ash and illumination, reminding us of nature’s dual power to destroy and to inspire.
Vanesa Pedraza
What the Fabric Holds No. 2
This image was inspired by 1970s fashion and expressing someone’s identity through clothing.
João Pedro Tavares
Tagus river
The Tagus River is considered the largest river in the Iberian Peninsula, stretching over 1,000 kilometers and flowing into the sea near the capital of Portugal.
James Issam Mengad
Rage Against the Machine
A Vietnamese woman on a scooter crosses paths with a group of military personnel on a bridge during golden hour. This dynamic image captures the essence of urgency and determination, juxtaposing the Vietnamese woman’s strength and role as the pinnacle of society. A symbol of feminism in a patriarchal society.A Vietnamese woman on a scooter crosses paths with a group of military personnel on a bridge during golden hour. This dynamic image captures the essence of urgency and determination, juxtaposing the Vietnamese woman’s strength and role as the pinnacle of society. A symbol of feminism in a patriarchal society.
Timon Halbach
Silent Prayers
Inside an ancient temple in Bagan, soft beams of evening light fall across two young monks. One stands in quiet prayer while the other reads by candlelight. The calm atmosphere reveals a spiritual tradition that continues to shape daily life.
Gilat Ben-Dor
Into the City
“Into the City” is a monochrome study of atmosphere and anticipation. Captured on a misty morning, the nearly empty platform stretches into the fog, where architectural lines and vanishing perspective merge into quiet mystery. The composition draws the viewer into a moment suspended between departure and arrival, exploring how light and shadow shape our perception of space and transition.
Vanesa Pedraza
What the Fabric Holds No. 1
This image was inspired by 1970s fashion and expressing someone’s identity through clothing.
João Pedro Tavares
The public restroom
Public restroom used in events in the historic village of Sortelha.
Danaia Konstantinova
Hers
A portrait that challenges the way women are often pigeonholed as objects of beauty and admiration rather than acknowledged as individuals with complexity and agency. The subject, rather than presenting herself for consumption, asserts a boundary and reclaims authorship over her own image.
Poung Young Kwak
On the Ridge of the Wind
Photographed in the Icelandic Highlands, this image highlights the striking contrast between human presence and geological time. The ochre-colored volcanic terrain, marked by lingering patches of snow, reveals a landscape shaped over thousands of years by wind, ice, and erosion. Walking along the ridge, two figures appear small and transient against the vastness of the land. The curved surfaces of weathered soil and melting snow record the slow rhythms of natural change, while the movement of the figures introduces a brief, human-scale moment within this expansive timeline. Rather than serving as a backdrop, the landscape becomes an active presence—one that frames the encounter between human vulnerability and the enduring force of nature. Through this scene, the artist reflects on humanity’s position within the natural world, suggesting not dominance or control, but a quiet passage through an immense and continuously unfolding environment.
Deon van Rooyen
Early morning lily trot.
An early winter’s morning on the Chobe River in Botswana where an African Jacana starts its day on the lilies.
Kseniia Chumakova
Bloom
A minimalist portrait exploring the delicate connection between people and nature. The figure, partly obscured by organic forms, becomes a quiet reminder of how fragile and intertwined this relationship is.
Megan Young
Night in Jiufen
Taken on my Mamiya 6 in Jiufen, Taiwan, in May 2025. When we arrived in Jiufen earlier in the day the streets were overflowing with visitors. As the day turned into night, the crowds trickled out. And the lanterns were the only thing lighting the paths.
Simone Campedelli
Firekeeper
A masked worker stands before a burning pile of palm leaves in rural Morocco. His gaze cuts through the smoke — a quiet mix of fatigue, pride, and resilience. A moment of raw, everyday ritual shaped by fire, labor, and survival.
Stanislav Hekrla
Caught by winter
When autumn passes the baton to winter, we are often caught off guard by the suddenness of the change.
Sofia Stead
La naturaleza se abre paso
A tree grows from the center of a concrete cylinder and stretches toward the circle of sky. The structure attempts to frame it, but all the lines point outward: human architecture turned into a corridor for nature to follow its own path.
Haoyang Luo
Once
Captured in the vast Inner Mongolian grasslands, this shot celebrates the cinematic scale of the steppe. Between the rolling green hills and distant mountains, the riders and their horses evoke a timeless sense of tradition and quiet purpose. I love how the soft light catches the pasture, framing a candid glimpse into the rhythm of life in the wild.
Kseniia Chumakova
Tara
A serene mountain landscape captured from an elevated viewpoint: rolling green hills, dense forests, and a winding river cutting through the valley under a luminous, cloud-filled sky. The image explores stillness, vastness, and the quiet rhythm of untouched nature.
David Read
Boy in the Bubble
Inside a transparent sphere that floats on water a young boy walks forward propelling the sphere. over the water.





































