AAP Magazine 58 B&W: Stunning Winning Images Revealed

Black and white photography has an extraordinary ability to transcend time. By removing the distraction of color, it invites us to look more closely—to discover emotion in a gesture, rhythm in a landscape, tension in a shadow, or beauty in the smallest detail. It is a language built on light, contrast, texture, and imagination, one that continues to inspire photographers across generations.

For AAP Magazine #58: B&W, we invited photographers from around the world to explore the creative possibilities of monochrome. The response was remarkable. After reviewing an exceptional collection of submissions, I am delighted to present the 25 winning photographers, whose work represents 12 countries across 3 continents. While each artist brings a distinct voice and vision, together they reveal the extraordinary breadth and vitality of contemporary black and white photography.

What struck me most during the selection process was not simply technical excellence, but the ability of these images to linger. Some tell powerful human stories, others celebrate the quiet poetry of everyday life. There are intimate portraits, evocative documentary moments, striking architectural compositions, and landscapes transformed by light into something almost abstract. Each portfolio reminds us that black and white is not the absence of color—it is a deliberate creative choice that distills a photograph to its emotional and visual essence.

As Editor of All About Photo, it is always a privilege to discover photographers who challenge the way we see the world. The portfolios featured in this issue demonstrate that monochrome photography remains one of the most compelling forms of visual expression, capable of being both timeless and deeply contemporary.

I invite you to spend time with each of these winning portfolios. Look beyond the surface, follow the subtle interplay of light and shadow, and discover the unique stories these photographers have chosen to tell. I hope their work inspires you as much as it inspired all of us.

The Winner is Anastasia Pagonas (United States) with the image Francis

Francis in his father’s Mercedes wagon. Didi doesn’t like that Phili smokes in it, but it’s good to maintain autonomy in a marriage. Not too much, not too little; a cigarette’s length. Francis is done with our adventure, reading his book and ready to go home. California, 2025.

I work in expressive collections showing, through image and word, the stories and impressions of the life I lead in the American Southwest, trips home to New York and visiting friends across the United States. It is typical for me to photograph families because it was my profession for many years and because as a mother of three I am embedded within mothering culture. My photographs tend to be dispatches from that world – it’s restraints and ecstasies, it’s quiet banality that is sometimes acceptable and sometimes not, so what are we going to do about it? Photograph is one answer. My fundamental form is the photo box where a variety of sizes, colors, cameras and experiences spontaneously collide, interrelate and are housed for utilitarian storage.
The process offers me what I heard photographer Trent Davis Bailey recently call “an alternative way of remembering.” I don’t title my collections just as I don’t title my journals or my rock collection. My pictures are records; odes to living, and a way for me to interact with my environment. To talk back. I’m predominantly living a family life right now, but I have lived an episodic life – a fundamentalist religious cult for 12 years, country dive bars looking for love (shout out Denim and Diamonds), basement punk shows with a fake ID, buses and trains that would take me from my immigrant father’s New Jersey apartment into NYC so I could fi nd something more exciting than Maury reruns and Greek radio. Pictures, always, to tell the tale. I have seen wonderful things.

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The 2nd Place Winner is Eric Kunsman (USA) with the series 'Life-Lines Throughout the United States'

This work is a companion series to my project, "Felicific Calculus: Technology as a Social Marker of Race, Class, & Economics in Rochester, NY." It demonstrates how communities across the United States are facing similar challenges. Many individuals across the country are being left behind by technology, whether in terms of communication or internet access. In our society, having access to these tools is essential for accessing support services and securing employment. Without such access, individuals risk being left behind, widening the gap between the lower and middle classes. Outdated technology can also be used to unfairly label individuals or areas of a community as social markers without a complete understanding of the situation. People I've met who still rely on payphones have expressed frustration at being judged when using them. They explained that they typically use payphones to check in with their families or get support.

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The Third Place Winner is Tzion Essel (United Kingdom) with the series 'Of Birds and Being'

This series brings birds and human beings into a visual dialogue, drawing them into moments of comparison, contrast, and unexpected kinship. Through gestures, postures, glances, and acts of movement, the photographs trace subtle correspondences between species, revealing fleeting moments where the boundary between species begins to dissolve.
The work considers birds not only as subjects of wonder, but as mirrors through which we might better understand ourselves. In bringing these lives into relation, the series invites reflection on coexistence and on the possibility of renewing our attentiveness to the natural world.

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Merit Award Gallery Winners

Dev Kumar (Malaysia)

Calm Before the Chew was photographed in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda, during an intimate encounter with a mountain gorilla. Just before taking another bite of vegetation, the gorilla paused with its eyes gently closed, revealing a moment of remarkable calm and quiet reflection. Presented in black and white, the image removes the distraction of colour, allowing the textures, expression, and quiet dignity of one of the world’s most endangered primates to take centre stage. As part of my series, Quiet Encounters, this photograph reflects my approach to wildlife photography: seeking intimate moments that reveal the individuality, emotion, and presence of wild animals, inviting viewers to connect with them beyond their strength or rarity.

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Jaeseok Lim (South Korea)

Curved architecture and its reflection create a symmetrical field of form, light, and shadow. At the point of a shadow-drawn triangle, a lone figure anchors the gaze and brings the image into balance. Though rooted in a real place, the scene reads as an abstract composition.

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Michael Trueblood (United States)

Cross/Walk is an ongoing project of black and white New York street photography that has evolved over many years from 2004 through 2026. This image was made on the Upper West Side during a snow storm in January, 2018. Most of the images capture everyday life, but sometimes the photographs document and reflect social and political issues. It is impossible to capture New York completely, but the photos should reflect a city of diverse cultures, an environment that is constantly changing, and a New York that is intense, beautiful, and fascinating.

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Isabelle Kettner (Netherlands)

I am a Dutch photographer whose work is made on foot. What began as a way to cope with loss and tension became a way of looking closely, one that has led me to walk with nomadic communities through remote parts of the Sahara and Sahel. My ongoing project Drylands approaches their movement not as transience but as a way of staying connected to place. I move by choice, while the people I travel with face increasing pressure to settle. Too often these regions are reduced to stories of conflict and crisis, instead, I see a tradition that continues to adapt as it is lived. Days in the field usually involve walking twenty to thirty kilometres, so mobility matters. I work solely with a Leica Monochrom and a 50mm lens, allowing me to move unobtrusively.

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Antonio Denti (Italy)

Prison of Bata, Equatorial Guinea.
The air felt like pulverised lead so charged it was with grave human issues. Issues of crime and punishment. Of forgiveness and of the impossibility to forgive. Of the unbearable heaviness of existing. And obviously, most importantly, the issue of freedom. It must be the most important human good, if hard. Without it, no other good can be good. It is because we are free that we can even lose our freedom. The world outside could be imagined as if through slits in the prison's walls. Suddenly an electric wave crossed the courtyard and all we heard as we quickly left was them chanting: Libertad.

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Kathryn Audet (Canada)

This personal photographic series is an intimate exploration of my grief, memory, and the silent spaces left behind after the passing of Jennifer in November 2024. Jennifer was far more than a family friend; she was a maternal figure to me and a cherished bonus grandmother to my daughter, Elizabeth. Her presence was our beacon of stability, even after a severe car accident when Elizabeth was seven left her with a life-altering brain injury—a tragedy that for years left me carrying an overwhelming weight of guilt and blame.
This featured photograph is the very first image I created for the series, capturing the sense of loss and the vast, empty space left in her absence. Through my lens, I attempt to navigate the family secrets and untold stories that vanished with her. What remains is a visual testament to a bond woven into the very fabric of our existence—proving that while her secrets now live as silent echoes in our history, the love we shared is eternal.

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Lera Zilbershtein (Russia)

Two brothers, different yet alike from the series 'About brothers' © Lera Zilbershtein

About brothers explores how a sense of belonging is formed through everyday experience. Created during the artist's second year of living in Slovenia, the series follows two brothers as familiar places in their new environment gradually become part of their shared childhood, revealing how home is shaped through memory, repetition, and time.

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Tommy Jiang (China)

During the annual March Street Festival in Yunnan, local communities gather at the racecourse to celebrate with traditional performances and activities. During the swing performance, I noticed a spectator smoking nearby. The rising smoke intertwined with the figures flying high in the air, creating a surreal moment that reminded me of people floating among clouds. Through this image, I wanted to capture not only the joy of a traditional festival, but also the unexpected poetic moments that emerge from everyday life.

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Thibault Gerbaldi (France/United States)

In a coastal shelter in Sri Lanka, fishermen repair their lines and wait as a tropical storm approaches. Made in November 2025, hours before Cyclone Ditwah struck the island, these photographs show how the climate crisis is lived not only through devastation, but through disruption: in the halted work, the uneasy waiting, and the uncertainty faced by those whose lives depend on an increasingly fragile coastline. In these villages, fishing is sustained through intergenerational knowledge and family ties.

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Paul Adams (United States)

The winning photograph was taken on the North Coast of Orkney Island, Scotland. All photographs are original Photogravure prints printed on an Intaglio press.

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Troy Colby (United States)

The Fragility of Fatherhood is a series in collaboration with my family exploring the role of being a father, and how fragile and delicate these positions we are given can be.

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Paul Gibert (United States/Spain)

This series of images arose out of my wanderings around hotels in downtown Los Angeles. What they revealed to me is both a sense of history and anonymity. The quiet hallways, the isolated alcoves and generic rooms all lead to the possibility of a furtive encounter. The older the buildings the more these feelings reveal themselves to me. The images in this series are an attempt to capture those sensations.

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Lena Sokolova (Russia)

This year, my daughter had her kindergarten graduation. The children and parents had been preparing for it throughout the year. Several photo sessions were arranged for the graduation albums. That winter morning was one of them. Our photographer asked me to help with the equipment because he knew I was also a photographer. While he was taking pictures of the children, I watched them and chatted with them. I wanted to capture these exciting and beautiful moments from our children’s lives for all of us. The children understood the importance of the event and were getting ready. They came up in pairs and waited for their turn on a small chair. The other children waited by the open door, peeking in. It all looked very sweet and touching.

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Eric Renard (United States)

The late afternoon sun casts long, dramatic shadows across the landscape in “Urbanity II”. Two stark white columns rise with an almost monumental presence, their smooth surfaces catching the rays of sunlight and glowing with an ethereal quality. This pristine geometry is powerfully contrasted by the inky silhouette of a man, his form a dark, anonymous shape framed against the luminous expanse of one of the columns.
The black and white palette strips away the distractions of color, forcing the viewer to confront the interplay of light and shadow, the solid mass of architecture against the ephemeral presence of humanity, and the quiet drama unfolding within the urban environment.

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Kelly O'Leary (United States)

A chance encounter with a magical, albeit fleeting, setting. Having visited the Salt Lake, Utah area for the very first time the year prior, my return trip had me scouting the higher elevations, leading to this serendipitous discovery and impromptu series. I was taken aback by the astounding views from the edge of a reservoir in the Ogden Valley as daylight began to fade, casting its final light upon the distant Wasatch Mountains—their marvelously sculpted forms reflected in the frigid, placid waters below. In the chill of winter, the air stood still, permeated by a profound silence and an overwhelming sense of calm, until the last glimmer of light dissipated over this pristine landscape. These images were such a gift—a reminder that nature's most extraordinary moments often arrive unannounced and vanish just as quietly.

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Rikk Dunlap (United States)

No matter how hard we try to hold on, time weakens our grip and forces us to let go of those carefree days of our youth, then drives us headlong into a life of challenges and demands. With this series, I used different setting and subjects stitched together with the common thread that each of us leaves something behind that often goes forgotten. All were shot in black and white to create the tension of emotional distance, like memories crumbling to dust. For the tricycle, I chose an abandoned house that had partially collapsed in on itself. It had been taken over by animals who showed little tolerance for this temporary intruder haunted by nostalgia. Shooting a series is like using multiple protagonists to tell their version of the same story. The success of that series happens when the viewer invests themselves to connect the photos and draw out the theme.

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John Gubertini (Italy)

The opening image introduces the central themes of the series through an ambiguous symbol that may evoke both faith and conflict, inviting viewers to reflect on the fragile traces left by history, memory, and human presence.
The Aftermath of Faith explores the traces left behind when belief, memory, and human presence begin to fade. Rather than documenting religion itself, the series reflects on what remains after conviction has disappeared: abandoned places, symbolic objects, and silent landscapes suspended between history and imagination. Through black-and-white photography, these spaces become metaphors for absence, resilience, and transformation, inviting viewers to question whether faith truly vanishes or simply changes form through memory and the landscape. Rather than offering answers, the images invite quiet contemplation, leaving space for each viewer to discover their own meaning.

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Max Chu (China)

In the summer of 2025, I arrived at the Amdo Horse Racing Festival in Tibet, a grand annual cultural celebration held at an altitude of 4,500 meters. Amidst the boundless and free grasslands where people were singing and dancing, I noticed a young girl waiting inside a car for her family. As I approached the vehicle, she leaned her head out of the window and gave me a smile of pure innocence—a moment that remains unforgettable to this day. This captivating portrait creates a seamless and symbolic symmetry. The photograph transcends a simple visual illusion; it explores the dualism of inner innocence and the vast external world, mirroring the deep cultural resilience and pure soul of the region. Through this singular, fleeting moment, the image stands as a poetic fragment of a larger documentary project dedicated to chronicling the authentic daily lives, community vitality, and rich humanist spirit of the local people in Tibet. The sharp contrast, intricate textures of her hair, and her candid, serene gaze invite viewers to look beyond the surface and connect with a timeless human narrative.

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Brice Weaver (United States)

Place and Persistence II is one photograph from a series of in-camera double exposures made on 35mm film. Each image combines a Southern California landmark, including Scripps Pier, the Coronado Bay Bridge, the San Diego skyline, and the observation tower at Torrey Pines, with the dry, fractured surface of Clark Dry Lake in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. By bringing these places together, the series creates landscapes that feel both familiar and impossible. The resulting images blur the line between reality and imagination, transforming recognizable landmarks into visions of an uncertain future. Through these layered landscapes, the work explores environmental change, the fragility of the places we inhabit, and the enduring relationship between people and the natural world.

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Jim Lustenader (United States)

Menace, refuge, dread, joy, release, seclusion, anonymity, isolation: just some of the possible feelings created by the interplay of light and shadow. The balance gives a scene its unique character, highlighting or obscuring, lending definition and dimension to fragments of a composition. In this image, a woman makes the passage from dark to light via an escalator, riding from the depths of the Paris Metro to the brightness of a late fall afternoon.

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Ylva Sjögren (Sweden)

The style of the image Sfumato is inspired by Renaissance techniques, where shades blend softly into each other, creating a dreamy and smoky impression.

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Richard Evnen (United States)

Marya Mayan sings, “You don't find art. Art finds you.”
These photos are mostly little scenes of people or places that spontaneously impress me, often while wandering in magical places. For me, these are mulit-dimensional experiences, each one emitting a feeling with an apparent or imaginable story. I favor a documentary approach to my work though I do not mean for my portfolio to be a record. Even so, the composite of these things exposes my weltanschauung.

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