39 Award-Winning Black-And-White Photos From The 2025 Exposure One Awards

Why These Monochrome Winners Hit So Hard

Black-and-white photography is basically the art of making tone do all the talking. When you remove color, the viewer stops getting distracted by “pretty” and starts noticing what actually builds the image: contrast, midtones, edges, and the way light sculpts a subject.

That’s why award juries keep rewarding monochrome work: it forces clarity. A strong black-and-white photo usually has at least one of these: clean geometry, bold texture, high emotional signal, or a moment that can’t be faked. (Sometimes all four, which feels unfair to the rest of us.)

The 2025 Exposure One winners span architecture, street, portraiture, nature, fine art, and moreyet they share a common superpower: they don’t rely on color to be interesting. They rely on choices.

How to “Read” a Black-and-White Photo Like a Pro

Want to appreciate these images beyond “wow, that’s moody”? Here’s a quick viewing checklist you can use while scrolling:

1) Start with the light, not the subject

Ask: Where does the light come from, and what does it reveal? In monochrome, light is often the story engineguiding your eye and deciding what feels important.

2) Look for structure: lines, shapes, and negative space

Black-and-white loves geometry. If the composition is strong, it still works when you squintbecause the shapes and spacing hold up.

3) Check the tonal range

Many winning images stretch from deep blacks to clean highlights, but the best ones also control the midtonesthe “quiet” grays that carry detail, mood, and realism.

4) Notice what got removed

Great monochrome images often feel “simpler” because the photographer either waited for the frame to clean upor edited with restraint. Fewer distractions means more impact.

The 39 Award-Winning Photos (With What Each One Teaches)

Here are the standout award-winning images and credits, presented with a quick “what it teaches” takeaway so you can enjoy the art and borrow the craft.

1. International Photographer of the Year: “Lux” Arturo Gómez Sierra

   What it teaches: Minimalism can feel enormous when symmetry and light land with intention. Think of it as “quiet” that still echoes.

2. Abstract Photographer of the Year: “The Forgotten History” Lee Ching Kai

   What it teaches: Abstraction works best when it’s rooted in something realtexture and damage become a metaphor, not just a pattern.

3. Abstract Silver: “Traces” Alexandra Thannhäuser

   What it teaches: Repetition creates rhythm. In monochrome, repeating forms can feel like a visual heartbeat.

4. Abstract Bronze: “Conceptual Installation” Gregory Buck

   What it teaches: Shine and shadow are a duet. If your highlights sparkle, your shadows must stay disciplined.

5. Aerial Photographer of the Year: “Bulevardi” Paulo Dos Santos Sousa

   What it teaches: From above, cities become graphic design. Strong aerial monochrome depends on bold lines and clean separation.

6. Aerial Silver: “Moonlit Silence of Eboliang” Zhengjie Wu

   What it teaches: Night scenes don’t need color to feel cinematictonal contrast and a single point of light can carry the whole mood.

7. Aerial Bronze: “Devils pitchfork” Jandré Germishuizen

   What it teaches: Landscapes turn surreal when you emphasize shape over place. Let dunes, ridges, and shadows do the talking.

8. Architecture Silver: “Look up, Budapest, Hungary” Jana Hejzlarova

   What it teaches: Architecture loves a strong perspective. In monochrome, pattern + vanishing point = instant pull.

9. Architecture Bronze: “Timeless Line” Pierluigi Gualano

   What it teaches: Texture is history. Rust, steel, and repeating arches become a timeline when you let the grays breathe.

10. Conceptual Photographer of the Year: “Inverted Realities” Alexandra Thannhäuser

    What it teaches: Conceptual work wins when it’s readable fastbut rewarding when you linger. Clarity first, cleverness second.

11. Conceptual Silver: “Skatepark” Jozef Danyi

    What it teaches: Motion and geometry can share the spotlight. Use contrast to separate subject from structure without losing energy.

12. Conceptual Bronze: “DE-ICED” Alessandro R. Moser

    What it teaches: Industrial scenes can feel poetic in black-and-whitemist, metal, and winter tones become pure atmosphere.

13. Domestic Animals Photographer of the Year: “Loneliness” Chico Lima

    What it teaches: Small subjects become monumental with controlled background and intentional tonality. Simplicity is a spotlight.

14. Domestic Animals Silver: “Icelandic Horse” Jules Oldroyd

    What it teaches: Fur and mane textures are basically monochrome candy. Side light turns animals into sculptures.

15. Domestic Animals Bronze: “Lusitano – Portugese Horse” Jeff Schewe

    What it teaches: A portrait isn’t only for people. Strong animal portraits depend on eye detail and clean tonal separation.

16. Event Photographer of the Year: “Jumping into Chaos” Thomas Ebner

    What it teaches: Timing is a language. Freeze the peak moment and black-and-white will amplify the rawness.

17. Event Silver: “Flying Beer, Heavy Riffs” Thomas Ebner

    What it teaches: Chaos needs an anchor. Even in high-energy frames, give the eye something stable to grab first.

18. Event Bronze: “Hair Rasing Ride” David Liam Kyle

    What it teaches: Documentary moments don’t need perfectionjust truth. Contrast can turn everyday scenes into instant memory.

19. Event Bronze: “Road Less Traveled” David Liam Kyle

    What it teaches: Anticipation is a strategy. Spot the moment, pre-compose, then move fast when reality shows up.

20. Fashion & Beauty Photographer of the Year: “Ling” Adam Amouri

    What it teaches: In beauty work, monochrome makes skin, hair, and shape the headline. Lighting is the styling assistant.

21. Fashion & Beauty Silver: “Brune” Adam Amouri

    What it teaches: Understatement can be louder than glam. Let shadows suggest, not explain.

22. Film/Analog Photographer of the Year: “Where the Wild Things Are” David Zlotky

    What it teaches: Large-format thinking slows you downin a good way. Deliberate composition often reads as “timeless.”

23. Film/Analog Silver: “Edge of the Universe” Mahlon Todd Williams

    What it teaches: Suggestion beats explanation. A strong analog image can feel like a memory you’re not sure you lived.

24. Film/Analog Bronze: “Free diver watching scuba divers” Pedro Arieta

    What it teaches: Underwater monochrome thrives on silhouette and separationclean shapes against soft gradients feel otherworldly.

25. Fine Art Photographer of the Year: “Sugar Gallery” Jozef Danyi

    What it teaches: If you control the costume and the light, you control the mythology. Monochrome makes concepts feel ritualistic.

26. Fine Art Silver: “Paper Wish” Amber Botterill

    What it teaches: Soft materials photograph like emotion. Fine art monochrome often wins by being tactile.

27. Fine Art Bronze: “Beneath the Sea” Karen Haberberg

    What it teaches: Surrealism gets stronger when it’s visually consistent. Keep tones cohesive so the idea feels believable.

28. Landscapes Photographer of the Year: “After the snow” Philippe Ricordel

    What it teaches: Landscapes don’t need sunsets to be dramatic. Snow + shape + negative space is a whole mood.

29. Landscapes Silver: “Silence” Stefano Pasquini

    What it teaches: Quiet scenes benefit from gentle contrast. Not every winner is high-dramasome are high-restraint.

30. Landscapes Bronze: “Morning Light” Jim Guerard

    What it teaches: Fog is free special effects. Use it to simplify backgrounds and guide attention to what matters.

31. Minimalism Photographer of the Year: “A Foggy Day” Alexandra Thannhäuser

    What it teaches: Minimalism isn’t emptiness; it’s editing. One figure, strong lines, and controlled haze can feel epic.

32. Minimalism Silver: “A Scene at The Sea” Jingyi Zhang

    What it teaches: The sea is a masterclass in gradients. When you let tones roll smoothly, you create calm on purpose.

33. Minimalism Silver: “It All Starts With a Lullaby” Thomas de Franzoni

    What it teaches: Minimal frames often succeed through suggestionleave room for the viewer’s imagination to do part of the work.

34. Minimalism Bronze: “Run” Marusa Puhek

    What it teaches: Contrast can tell a story instantly. When you pit light vs. dark cleanly, movement feels mythic.

35. Nature Photographer of the Year: “Vulture perched on a log during the rain” Fabrício Peixoto Da Silva Mello

    What it teaches: Wildlife doesn’t have to be “cute” to be compelling. Texture + posture + weather equals character.

36. Nature Silver: “Sharkfin, Mt. Whitney and Moon” Thomas Kelsey

    What it teaches: Big scenes still need clean hierarchy. Pick a main shape, a secondary anchor, and let the tones separate them.

37. Nature Bronze: “First sunsets of summer in the city” Stefano Pasquini

    What it teaches: Urban nature moments can feel timeless when you prioritize light direction and silhouettes over “place.”

38. Portrait Photographer of the Year: “Siblings” Beatrice Heydiri

    What it teaches: Black-and-white portraits win when emotion reads in the eyes and posturetone simply clears the distractions.

39. Portrait Silver: “Freckles beauty” Martin Krystynek

    What it teaches: Detail is a feature, not a flaw. Monochrome can elevate skin texture into a signature visual element.

What You Can Steal (Politely) for Your Own Photos

If these winners have you itching to shoot monochrome, here are practical takeaways you can apply immediatelywithout needing a new camera, a new lens, or a new personality.

Chase contrast, but don’t crush your midtones

High contrast is exciting, but “award-worthy” often means controlled. Let blacks be black, highlights be clean, and midtones carry the subtle detail that makes an image feel real.

Use light like a sculptor

Side light and directional light reveal texturehair, fabric, stone, fog, rain, wrinkles, and all the little details that color sometimes hides.

Make composition do the heavy lifting

Many of these winners are basically geometry with a pulse: repeating arches, strong diagonals, symmetrical frames, or one subject placed perfectly against negative space. If your composition is strong, monochrome will reward you.

Edit with intention (not vibes)

A good black-and-white conversion isn’t a filter you slap on and walk away from. It’s tone shaping: shadows, highlights, and the way different colors translate into different grays. Treat it like a craft step, not an afterthought.

Experiences & Lessons From Chasing Monochrome (Extra )

Photographers who fall in love with black-and-white usually describe the same weird (and wonderful) side effect: you start seeing the world like a lighting diagram. You’re not walking down the street thinking, “What a nice blue sky.” You’re thinking, “That sky is a giant softbox and the sidewalk shadows are doing something interesting.” It’s a little bit like learning a new languageexcept the vocabulary is made of highlights, midtones, and the occasional deeply dramatic shadow that makes you stop mid-step like you just spotted a celebrity.

One of the most useful “experience hacks” is to practice with a personal rule: pick a day (or even just an hour) where you’re only allowed to hunt for two things: shape and light. That’s it. No complicated stories. No “I’ll fix it later.” Just shape and light. You’ll quickly notice how often a scene becomes instantly stronger when you move a few feet to clean up the background, or wait ten seconds for someone to step into the right patch of brightness. This is exactly why street and event images can explode in black-and-white: the moment hits, the tones hit, and your brain doesn’t have to negotiate with color.

Another common experience: the first time you try serious monochrome editing, you realize your image isn’t “bad”it’s just tonally confused. Shadows might be too open (gray soup), highlights might be too hot (white panic), and your subject might blend into the background because everything lives in the same middle-gray neighborhood. The fix is rarely a magic preset. It’s micro-decisions: darken the background a touch, lift the subject’s face slightly, tame the brightest highlight so it stops screaming, and add just enough local contrast that texture shows up without looking crunchy. In other words, you learn to direct the viewer the way a good storyteller directs attention in a sentence.

If you want an experience that changes how you shoot forever, try this: take a familiar locationyour kitchen, your street corner, the park you’ve visited a hundred timesand photograph it in monochrome with three different moods: bright and airy, dark and cinematic, and soft and quiet. Same place, different light and tone. You’ll start noticing that black-and-white isn’t one style; it’s a whole playground. That’s why the Exposure One winners feel so varied: some images punch you with contrast, others whisper with gentle gradients, and both approaches can win when they’re intentional.

The final lesson photographers often report after a few weeks of monochrome obsession: you become less attached to “pretty” and more attached to “meaning.” A portrait doesn’t need perfect color harmony if the expression is honest. A landscape doesn’t need a neon sunset if the fog is sculpting the trees like a stage set. And an abstract frame doesn’t need anything except strong design and a reason to exist. Black-and-white has a sneaky way of making you raise your standardsin a good way. It asks: “Do you actually have a photo here… or do you just have a colorful snapshot?”