Selected from 2,377 submissions from 92 countries, spanning six categories – Portraiture, Landscape, Architecture, Photojournalism, Conceptual and Best Emerging Photographer – this year’s thirty nominees are a celebration of some of the best contemporary photography the world has to offer. But whose work deserves to win?
This is your chance to have your say. The FSPA judges will be announcing their category and grand prize winners at the FSPA Awards ceremony in Osnabrück, Germany on 14 October. We are giving you the chance to choose your favourite nominee in each category, for a special People’s Choice Award which will be announced alongside the judges’ selections.
How to vote
The entries from the five finalists in each category are now being showcased here.
To vote for your favourite photographer in the ‘Portrait’ category, visit the Facebook gallery and like your favourite images from each photographer’s series. You can like as many or as few of the images as you want!
Find out more about each photographer’s project below:
‘Dolls’ by Eberhard Weible
“Under the assumption that small children see their dolls as living beings, I used a photomontage technique to give the doll heads human eyes and mouths.”
To vote for this photographer, visit the Facebook gallery.
‘Suburban Interiors’ by Antonello Veneri
“Suburban Interiors is a long-term project, looking at the Brazilian people living in suburban areas, favelas and communities of principal cities of Brazil, for example Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, São Paulo.
Usually photographers and journalists enter in this areas to take photographs of the violence or poverty. I want to tell another story, made of intimacy and daily life. What is there and who is inside the houses in these suburban areas of Brazil?”
To vote for this photographer, visit the Facebook gallery.
‘Ethiopiques’ by William Roop
“In this series, I walk a knife-edge of my very own between naturalism and artificiality, between the depiction of humankind in relation to nature and stylisation. In most cases, the people of all generations in my works seek direct eye-to-eye contact with the viewer.
The intense aura of the protagonists exerts a magical attraction that casts a spell over the viewer. The Ethiopians in my images appear vulnerable and impressively introverted, yet simultaneously radiate strength and self-confidence. The curious placement of people in alien landscapes and vegetation leads to mysterious images that are packed with enigmas.
The balanced compositions, focused placement of highlights, finely nuanced colours and a subtle harmony of form and content lend the photographs a convincing intensity.”
To vote for this photographer, visit the Facebook gallery.
‘Are you there?’ by Rodrigo Illescas
“They act in their intimate theater – but the theater is also the whole city and the actors are legion, the drama crowned by silence embrace many days and many nights.
In this complete immobile abstraction where even pain and terror are absent, living creatures seem to listen and watch over some of their organs: the heart, the secret and irreparable course of blood.
Windows opened to nowhere, empty the time with wild and crude light. The body breathes, not faster, but deeper. And their hearts endure. Because it seems that the heart can endure anything, anything, anything…
They are there, in silence, fragmentary. They are a part of history and an incomplete part of their own history. But they are there; guests of their own worlds that put them at the center of the scene. We live in a hyper-connected society, but the question is what kind of communication we intend to have with the other – because it seems to be more like a “varieté that fills life” than the great theater of the world.”
To vote for this photographer, visit the Facebook gallery.
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Be part of this year’s judging and vote for your favourite to receive the People’s Choice Award at this year’s awards ceremony for the Felix Schoeller Photo Award. Visit the Facebook gallery to vote.
Sponsored by Felix Schoeller Group: This feature was made possible with the support of Felix Schoeller Group, a world leader in photographic paper since 1895. Please click here for more information on sponsored content funding at British Journal of Photography.