Spectacular Winning Images of The Siena Creative Photo Awards 2021
Here is the list of winners of the Siena Creative Photo Awards 2021. Photo of the year won by Iranian photographer Masoud Mirzaei for his photo “The Lake”. It was selected among tens of thousands of images submitted by photographers from 137 countries. The Creative Photo Awards competition includes 17 categories for contemporary photographers, whose innovative approaches to photography challenge the viewer’s expectations and offer surprise and delight at every turn.
The winning images for each category will be showcased at the exhibition “I Wonder If You Can” during the Siena Awards Festival, from October 23rd to December 5th.
Photo of the year – The Lake by Masoud Mirzaei
“Lake Urmia, the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth-largest saltwater lake on Earth, is located between the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan.”
More: Siena Creative Photo Awards, Facebook h/t: 121clicks
Food & Beverage – 1st Classfied: Fish by Claudio Dell’osa
“The undisputed star of the shots that I propose in this selection is the light. Everyday objects and typical products of our land emerge from Caravaggio style backgrounds, monochrome and very dark, illuminated by flashes of light.”
Food & Beverage – Runner Up: Forbidden Food by Ana Straze
“The idea was to research and experiment with completely common objects like fruits and vegetables. I discover materials and observe the best combinations with the details that fit together. As well as joining and subtracting elements, I am trying to find different patterns and give them a new meaning while keeping in mind their essential is still being themselves. With the Forbidden Food series I’m trying to discover the limits of aesthetics.”
Product – 1st classified: Car by Andre Boto
“This image is the result of the search to create a background that emphasizes and gives all the importance to this model car and the light that shines on it.”
Product – Runner up: The Waves by Carlo Marchi
“So my mind sinks in this immensity and foundering is sweet in such a sea! This is my personal interpretation of Absolut Citron Vodka bottle.”
Music – 1st classified: The Sound of Solitude by Eric Politzer
“Cuba has one of the best arts, especially performing arts, education systems in the world. This is fitting, as music always has suffused the air wherever you go in Cuba. This photo captures the type of musical excellence you can find in a concert hall being played in a defunct Havana movie house.”
Music – Runner up: Visual Symphonic by Amber Griffin
“The cohesive combination of individual artists unifying to form a visual depiction of the intensely majestic synthesis of our national Symphony Orchestra.”
Fashion – 1st classified: The Colorful Fragile Bubbles by Zejian Li
“Although communication is more and more convenient now, we still feel very lonely, and our deep feelings are as fragile as the bubbles we blew when we were children.”
Fashion – Runner up: Free Fall by Arun Mohanraj
“I always wanted to create something away from the ordinary in fashion shoot. When an opportunity arrived as a commission for a fashion shoot for a web portal, I decided to do underwater shoot with a few models in different attires and experiment with their expressions. We bought some retro design wear to add a sense of timelessness to the images.”
Beauty – 1st classified: Composed by Robert Piccoli
“In this image I wanted to explore the concept of beauty from within. Beauty is a state of being calm, peaceful and untroubled. It is essentially, part of your body, mind and soul. She emanates a sense of equilibrium.”
Beauty – Runner up: My Love Has the Prettiest Rose Petals by Kristian Piccoli
“The profusion of pink rose petals in this image speak to me of gentleness and enduring beauty. Beauty lingers in the fragility of the petals.”
Open Theme – 1st classified: Losing Our Minds by Eddy Verloes
“My series “Losing our Minds” was taken at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis: a bizarre, but extremely fascinating period. Man loses his mind because a stormy situation presents itself that is new and challenging for him. Fear tries to overpower him, he freezes, starts to reflect on the world and on the punishment that Mother Nature seems to send us. We have treated our Mother Earth too lightly, demanded too much of her in our egoism.”
Open Theme – Runner up: Together in the Face of Uncertainty by Miguel Muñiz
“The year 2020 will be remembered as the year of the pandemic, especially hard for the elderly. An elderly couple enter the sea in the summer of the pandemic, the two facing the front towards a wall of fog… Uncertainty comes to mind, I keep staring and I see your hands intertwined… Together there is hope.”
Experimental – 1st classified: Hotel Paradise by Giulio Fabbri
“his image represents the positive side of the spirit of adaptability of mankind; the people are real figures with an apparently normal and peaceful life despite the habitat in which they live is a disturbing-looking urban agglomeration.”
Experimental – Runner up: When Claudine Drinks Coffee …by Matthias Jung
“I love to combine the security of being at home with physical freedom. The houses are from Menton in France. The landscape is from the Island of Sylt in Gemany. The full title is “When Claudine drinks coffee she often thinks of the sea”.”
Still Life – 1st classified: Rembrandt Still Life by Olga Rudenok
“I like the light Rembrandt draw on his paintings very much. And it seems this light is perfect not only for the portraits Rembrandt draw so magnificent. It is ideal for the still life picture too.”
Still Life – Runner up: Still Life With Dandelions by Iwona Czubek
“Still life with dandelions refers to Dutch painting. The photo was taken in 2020 in a home studio, with tripod and daylight. I used a Canon 6D camera and a 85 mm lens.”
Portraiture – 1st classified: Robbie by Steve Wise
“Robbie was burned in an accident in his bedroom when he was 4 years old. It resulted in burns to 95% of his body and the loss of his fingers. He has had a tough life but continues to work hard and live as normal an adult life as possible.”
Portraiture – Runner up: African Flower by Reiny Bourgonje
“Little African girl processed in the painting of the artist Eelke Jelles Eelkema who lived from 1815-1839 in The Netherlands. The dress is made of recycled plastic.”
Animals/Pets – 1st classified: Priceless by Pedro Jarque Krebs
“$60,000 USD a kilo, that’s what a rhino horn costs on the black market. More expensive than gold. But life is priceless. Unlike elephant tusks, which are made of ivory, rhino horns are made of keratin, the same material as nails. But the ignorance and superstition of some humans give it non-existent medicinal properties. As in everything, as long as there are buyers, there will be sellers. This will only end in education.”
Animals/Pets – Runner up: Chameleon in the Bedroom by Jo Sax
“Blue panther chameleon camouflaged in a bedroom against a blue vintage floral wallpaper background. Shot on Hassleblad H5x with mixed lighting .”
Architecture – 1st classified: Eternit by Ingun Alette Maehlum
“Eternit boards was the perfect building material. The cement mixed with asbestos was supposed to be maintenance free and became very popular, particularly along the coast where the weather can be rough. In the seventies it was discovered that the asbestos was highly dangerous when handled. In Norway it was forbidden in 1978. Still there are eternit board houses spread around the country.”
Architecture – Runner up: Insomnia by Claudio Sericano
“At night everything stops, the lights go off and people rest. The sleepless man observes the darkness from his window, waiting for the world to restart.”
Wedding – 1st classified: The Flying Bride by Soven Amatya
“Jewish weddings are fun, with so many moments and emotions. No wedding is complete without The Horah. It’s a very lively dance and usually ends up with the bride and groom being thrown in the air.”
Wedding – Runner up: Light and Shadow by Fabio Mirulla
“Lights and shadows in the historic center of Siena. The geometries that can be found in the city are perfect to frame couples on their wedding day.”
Nature & Landscape – 1st classified: Palm Grove by Hans Wichmann
“The photograph was taken from the deck of a cruise ship on the Nile River in Egypt. As I always had my camera with me when I was on deck, I was able to capture this scene which a few seconds later was gone. It is reminiscent of ancient days, 2,000 years ago.”
Nature & Landscape – Runner up: Gunung Bromo by Jun Epifanio Pagalilauan
“Mount Bromo is an active somma volcano and part of the Tengger mountains, in East Java. At 2,329 meters (7,641 feet) it is not the highest peak of the massif, but the most famous. The area is one of the most visited tourist destinations in East Java, and the volcano is included in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park.”
Conceptual – 1st classified: Innocence by Jairo Alvarez
“Where to walk when no path seems clear? Or is it that trapped in our thoughts we are not able to see the infinite possibilities of the landscape?”
Conceptual – Runner up: Taste of Freedom by Debratna Ghosh
“The photo draws a line of contrast in the freedom of expression between different subjects. The pleasures of freedom in the two different scenarios are opposite but connected in the same generation forced to exist in different worlds.”
Abstract – 1st classified The Fork #28 by Filippo Drudi
“I like forks, I’m fascinated by them. Sinuous, elegant, feminine and symmetric, yet menacing and seductive. I wanted to look deep into it and find out its many personalities. In this photograph – part of my project “The Fork”- I wanted to bring out the geometric, almost abstract qualities of this daily object.”
Abstract – Runner up: Bozell II by Ibrahim Nabeel Salah
“A work inspired by my city, Amman, which consists of seven mountains surrounding the Citadel Mountain in central Amman.”
Series – 1st classified: Spin Club Tapestry by Astrid Reischwitz
“My project “Spin Club Tapestry” explores cultural memory by embroidering photographs, inspired by the tradition of spin clubs in Northern Germany. I grew up in a small farming village in Northern Germany. A village that is bound to its history and that stands out through its traditions even today. Long ago, village women met regularly in “Spinneklumps” (Spin Clubs) to spin wool, embroider, and stitch fabrics for their homes.
I imagine their conversations as they worked, the beautiful stories that lifted their spirits, as well as the stories of sadness, sorrow and loss. In modern times, village women continued to meet in this tradition, but shared stories over coffee and cake instead of needlework. In this series, my composite images take the form of tapestries, combining images of embroidered Spin Club fabrics with new and old photographs from the village. I connect the present and the past by re-creating and re-imagining pieces of the embroidery. Spin Club tablecloths, napkins and wall hangings (some dating back to 1799) have been passed down from generation to generation. By following the stitches in these fabrics, I follow a path through the lives of my ancestors – their layout of a perfect pattern and the mistakes they made.
Along the way, I add my own mistakes. The fabrics also reveal the passage of time, stained and distorted after sometimes decades of use. The patterns I have stitched myself into the paper are only abstractions of the original Spin Club designs, fragments of memory. After all, memory is fleeting, and changed forever in the act of recollection. Sometimes the stitching is incomplete, creating an invitation for future generations. Every decision we make is influenced by our history, our environment, and the society we live in. The tapestry of my life belongs to me but is stitched through with the beauty and heartache of past generations.”
Series – Runner up: Remembering the Twilight by Molly Mccall
“My recent work expands an ongoing investigation of the interaction of memory, the passage of time, a sense of place, and of identity through the visual interpretation of “Into the Twilight” by Irish poet William Butler Yeats in 1899. Yeats wrote “Into the Twilight” at a very dark period in Ireland, and believed that the country was on the verge of a reawakening. He compared this period poetically to twilight, a magical, transformational time when the day is full of possibility.
The poem eloquently speaks to the coming of enlightenment, the divine power of nature, and the transformational force that converges as a result of joining the two. My interest in this poem came through my Irish ancestry. The stories of the magic and lore of Ireland permeated my childhood and were ever present within the lives of my parents and grandparents, and their grandparents as well. As my work revolves around memory, I am keenly interested in how it forms our sense of being and how that can be affected by the contradictions that the past and the present pose. I found this poem to speak to both the past and the present in light of the current of change and unrest that has taken over the world today.
As a visual artist, I have found the qualities of photography, darkroom and digital manipulation, and the malleability of fine-art materials—paint, wax, and pencil—to be uniquely sympathetic to my investigation. These allow me to intercede in the moment that a fixed image presents, juxtaposing within it a deeply subjective view of reality, formed in the shadow of remembrance. This body of work combines darkroom photograph prints created from my own photographs and vintage photographs that I have found.
The images are printed, then toned with coffee and painted with oils, then become part of the overall collage with vintage book pages and pigment-printed acetate photographs. These materials are layered in two-page-spread layouts echoing the format of a book without words. There is one image for each of the 16 stanzas in the quatrain-style poem with the title of each image representing a stanza of the poem. The elements of new and old together create a metaphorical allusion suspending the imagery into a timeless state connecting nature, time, and memory.”