tipa-cameramore-2026

camerAmore. TIPA PHOTO CONTEST 2026 – Winners Announced

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The results of the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) – Picter photo contest, “camerAmore”, are in.

We invited photographers via TIPA magazine websites and publications to send us images that reflected their special relationship with photography, focusing on their camera, camera gear, and how photography creates a special relationship with both their inner creative drive and outer connection with the world. We received thousands of images from avid photographers around the world showcasing their creative interpretation of the call for images in three categories: “My Camera and I”, “Camera in Action”, and “What’s in My Camera Bag”.

Contest Categories

There were three submission categories that explored this relationship: “My Camera and I”; “Camera in Action”; and “What’s in My Camera Bag.” 

This year, the Overall Winner was chosen in recognition of its conceptual strength and technical and compositional excellence, making it a first among equals alongside the category winners.

Ten images were chosen from each category by our jury, from which the category winners were chosen, with nine others receiving Honorable Mention awards. The submitted images displayed a wide range of techniques and interpretations that proved that photographers from around the world share a passion and love of the art and craft of photography as they showcased the creative use of their photo and imaging gear.

The catchphrase: “Photography, the Universal Language” is as true now as it has ever been.

Our congratulations go to the winners and our very special thanks to all those who took the time and creative energy to participate.

The winners are: 

Click on images for zoom-in

Grand Prize Winner

Grand Prize Winner:
(from Camera in Action category)

Julien Gidoin, France
No Title

Photographer’s Statement:
This photo by Jules Le Moal, taken on film, was shot during a “Black Lives Matter” gathering in Paris, France (Editor’s note: Julien is the photographer in the foreground on the right).
Julien Gidoin’s work exists at the intersection of documentary cinema and photography. Having worked for many years as a cinematographer, he has developed a particular attention to time, distance, and the posture of looking. For him, photography is not a spectacular gesture, but a moment of pause, often taken on the margins of a shoot, when the camera is set down. His images emerge from duration and repetition. He photographs situations he knows, faces encountered and encountered again, favoring a discreet presence and relationships built over time. This approach results in restrained images, mostly in black and white, where the framing remains stable and avoids any form of dramatization.

At the core of his work lie questions of visibility, abandonment, and collective responsibility, particularly through series produced in public spaces, alongside people living on the streets or at the margins of institutions. Without seeking to explain or to save, Julien Gidoin claims photography as an act of resistance to indifference — a way of remaining present in the face of what persists, even as social and public structures unravel. Photography thus becomes a tool to transform a quiet, deep anger in the face of social inequalities into a concrete gesture: to walk, to meet, to look, and to give time to those who are no longer seen.

Category: My camera and I

Category winner:

Gilbert Murray, England
A simple selfie taken in a mirror.

Photographer’s Statement: I was given a German rangefinder camera by my father for my birthday at 11 years old. That was the start of my love affair with cameras and photography. I learned as much as I possibly could about photography at school and in my local library.

London in the 1960s was a tough time for people of colour. Austerity meant there was no money for film and developing. London in the 70s was a much more exciting proposition and working full time meant I had money to spend on photography and also I had the first opportunity to visit my mother who had returned to Jamaica. 70s rural Jamaica was a real eye-opener. The landscapes were hot and colourful and filled with people that looked like me. Leaving my mother’s house at daybreak to take photographs the only people I would meet on the road were young children sent to fetch water and older Jamaicans on their way to the market to sell their home grown produce. If I were a prize winner I would like to revisit and document the changes in rural Jamaica from the Jamaica I knew 50 years ago.

As a photographer I have a camera with me at all times. I have been fortunate enough to document events that have made two front pages in the National press, I have been introduced to the late Princess Diana on two occasions and won various completions. It’s a wonderful thing to tell a story in a single image.

Honorable mentions

Adina Salome Harnischfeger – Germany
Self-portrait with my camera

Angela Spicer – USA
The Professional 100

Dave Cohen – USA
Infinite

Edoardo Ramon – Italy
My camera(s) and I

Kerwin Mallari – Philippines
MIROIRS NO. 3

Paula Brown – Canada
So many ideas

Renee Daley – Jamaica
ALWAYS WITH ME

Serkan Çolak – Turkey
Fathers and sons

Stefan Neagu – Romania
Stefan Neagu

Category: Camera in action


Category winner:

Claudio Vignola, Italy
Under the moonlight

Photographer’s Statement: I was there with no assignment, no press card. Just a camera and a question that had haunted me for years: what happens before the goddess walks the runway?
That backstage was organised chaos, neon lights, hands adjusting hair, screens recording, flashes firing. Everything orbited around her: twenty years old, probably fresh from her mother’s apartment somewhere in Eastern Europe, her face still halfway through its transformation. And yet already untouchable. Already other.
In that moment I understood I wasn’t documenting a fashion show. I was witnessing a metamorphosis. That precise, imperceptible instant when a girl stops being herself and becomes the idea that others hold of her.
The screens around her showed her face, multiplied, fragmented, stolen in real time. But she was elsewhere. Sealed inside that focused silence that only those about to step onto a stage truly know, that suspended space between who you are and who you must become.
I pressed the shutter. Not to capture her, but to hold that threshold moment still. The instant when the soul, the soul of the model, is still visible, before the runway swallows it whole.

Honorable mentions

Ercin Erturk – Turkey
Vatikan Devlet Başkanı Papa 14. Leo, İstanbul’da

Jacek Cislo – Poland
I will immortalize this scene forever

Maizal – Indonesia
MY MIRROR SELFIE PART 2

Mark Levitin – Israel
Result

Manh Ngoc Nguyen – Germany
Linz Marathon

Rania Christou – Greece
Double Click

Serdar Alakus – Turkey
Cage

Shafayet Hossain Apollo – Bangladesh
A Photographer in the Glow of Devotion

Kaushik Majumder – India
Like CCTV

Category: What’s in my camera bag

Category winner:

Binta M’Baye, Poland
My Gear, My Reflection

Photographer’s Statement: A face made from the cameras and lenses I carry, laid on the wooden floor I know so well. This arrangement is a quiet self-portrait — each piece of gear a part of how I see, how I work, and who I am when I create. It’s intimate and personal: these objects are not just tools, they are extensions of myself, shaping every image I make and reflecting the way I move through the world with a camera in hand.

Honorable mentions

Antonio Farto – Spain
Objects of a Life in Photography

Chandra Maharani – Indonesia
Improvised Gear

Nancy Afua Agyeman – Ghana
The Old Olympus

Gilbert Murray – United Kingdom
My ancient Billingham.

Irina Shilnova – Russian Federation
Identity Inspection

Ismail Odetola – Nigeria
One tote bag one camera

Louis Stebler – France
Fluffy bag

Michelle Webster – United Kingdom
Simple BUT Effective

Nairy Shahinian – Armenia
Nourishments for the Soul and the Body

The photos by the Category and Honorable Mention winners will be featured by TIPA member magazines and web sites. Our congratulations go to the winners and our very special thanks to all those who took the time and creative energy to participate.