AAP Magazine #49 - B&W 2025
B&W
Announcing Winners and Merit Awards
Winner's Gallery
Astrid Verhoef
Balance
As a fine art photographer Astrid Verhoef explores her connection to the natural world in a metophorical fashion. She emphasizes the contrast between the human presence and the natural. At the same time she wants to create scenes that can only exist because of the combination of the two.
This image is part of new, recent work. Shot in Spain. One of the few images that was created in collaboration with an extra model besides the artist herself. (models: Didi Krahmer & Astrid Verhoef)
First Place winner
$500 Cash Prize
Netherlands
Balance
Antonio Denti
Harder Lives
On the edge of the desert. (Near Zagora, Morocco)
Souvenir makers at work on the edge of the Sahara Desert, as in the small town near-by their families live on. ''Harder Lives'' is part of a wider project called ''Everything and Nothing'' that tries to capture the moving essence of the little lives - our little lives - in the backdrop of the global economy and of a massive new industrial revolution in very different settings... (continues in next caption)
Second Place Winner
$300 Cash Prize
Italy
Harder Lives
Lynne Breitfeller
Untitled
Third Place Winner
$200 Cash Prize
United States
Merit Award's Gallery
Russ Rowland
Wonderland #2
Julia Dean
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Shabbat
Orthodox Jews walk toward the door of their temple at sundown in Los Angeles on Feb. 21, 2025 to observe Shabbat.
Julia Dean
United States
john carey
Chefs in Lockdown -James Martin at The Kitchen, Chewton Glen
Chefs in Lockdown - a series of portraits. On March 21st 2020, in response to the Covid 19 pandemic, the UK Government forced restaurants to close their doors. This was an unprecedented moment in time. I wanted these portraits to be 'of the time'. Shot in black and white to reflect the fact the colour had been drained from the restaurants, I wanted the images to be real, raw and completely stripped back. I also wanted the chefs to be still, very still. as the restaurants had temporarily stopped.
john carey
United Kingdom
Lorenz Berna
Daughter of Lalibela
Wrapped in a worn shawl, a young girl leans against an old wall. Her contemplative gaze speaks quietly of traditions passed down through generations, where spirituality is an essential thread woven early into daily life.
Margaret Halaby
The Looming Dark
Margaret Halaby
United States
Elena Donskaya
Old style
Yanitsa Genova
Untitled
William Ropp
Ethiopia 2017
In short, William Ropp, as a “sculptor of shadows”, uses darkness and light as tools to chisel African portraits that transcend mere likeness. He reveals an intrinsic nobility, not of title or wealth, but of spirit, dignity and human depth.
William Ropp
France
Klaus Lenzen
steam IV
An impressive steam cloud from a coking plant extinguishing tower in Duisburg(Germany)
Sebastián Machado
Untitled #1
In my childhood home, a family tradition says that the ashes of our dead are scattered in the garden and the apantle that runs through it. Ashes from the riverbed stems from that story to create a series of photograms. By moonlight, immersed in the stream, I expose photosensitive paper with plants, sediment, and water to a beam of light. The resulting images don’t seek to represent absence, but to invoke it—to draw it from the depths.
Thibault Gerbaldi
The Path to Adulthood
Among the Hamar of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, the bull-jumping ceremony marks a young man’s passage into adulthood. Over several days, clans gather, rituals unfold, and the community plays its part—women singing and dancing, elders observing, peers preparing. Each gesture, scar, and ornament tells of resilience shaped by centuries of tradition. In these images, the weight of continuity meets the uncertainty of change, in a region where ancestral rites are still lived, not remembered.
Florian Kriechbaumer
Colossal Legacy
Kenya's Amboseli National Park and its surrounding areas are home to a very special kind of elephant: The Super Tuskers, bulls whose tusks weigh in excess of 100 pounds each, often reaching all the way to the ground. There are said to be only around 20 left on earth, with the most famous one of them all being Craig, a majestic 53-year-old elephant believed to have the largest tusks of any African elephant alive today.
Eric van den Brulle
eric-van-den-brulle.jpg)
Reincarnated Tibetan Monk ©Eric van den Brulle
Reincarnated Tibetan Monk transmitting Buddha mind through his eyes - shot in Amdo Province, Tibet
Ralf Dreier
Untitled
Giuseppe Cardoni
The magic of Circus
The circus is a large extended family in which are all more or less related to each other held together not only by affection but also by the great passion for their "Art".My main interest was to tell more about the atmospheres than the "performers" by focusing on the moments of preparation, pause, concentration, rather than the show which is however mentioned. In this way it seemed to me to preserve at least in part the mystery and the magic that captures the spectator when the curtain opens.
Prescott Moore Lassman
Arrested Protestor and Horse
These photographs are from a series documenting protests, marches, and other acts of resistance in Washington, D.C., my hometown. While the picture painted by the photographs may seem bleak -- with an array of government forces overwhelming the protestors -- the photographs nevertheless call for continued resistance. In the current political situation, this message of persistent action, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is particularly important.
Alex Gabchoug
School Of Hard Knocks
This is a portrait of a man I met whilst out doing some street photography. His eyes and his weathered look drew me in to wanting to take his photograph. He was very obliging and I bought him a coffee and piece of cake to thank him.
Alex Gabchoug
United Kingdom
Monika Maroziene
Masquerade
The Curonian Spit, with its amazing and unique landscape created by wind and sea, has been part of my life since childhood. Its rare wildlife and fascinating sand dunes, reminiscent of the Sahara Desert, alongside the powerful sea, have always inspired me. Women – powerful, endless, giving, mysterious, dramatic, dangerous, calm, fragile, ironic, and poetic – remind me of every tiny sand particle sliding in the wind. Women have so many faces and are never fully understood.
Beamie Young
Mobius
Ferns
luciano gerini
Old city power station 4
Time change, old building became obsolete and, sometime, get a new life, here as a museum whit a view on neightborought
luciano gerini
Italy
Kevin Lyle
City Life 20472
Cities are often full of drama, some more than others. The intensity of the drama within city life is balanced by simple, less dramatic vistas that may provide food for thought, humor, comfort or wonder. I present some of these simple observations.
Ylva Sjögren
Untitled
Thank You!
