The Urban Photo Awards has recently announced the complete list of finalists for this year’s competition. We are delighted to present the top 48 images that successfully made it to the finals and received awards in various categories, including streets, people, spaces, creative, and more.
Photographer Natalya Saprunova has earned the title of the overall winner of the Urban Photo Awards 2023 with her photograph titled “Going to save themselves from the abnormal heat.” This shot was chosen by the president of the jury, Alec Soth, from among all the first-ranked images in other categories within the Single Photos section.
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#1 Street, Winner: Tough Life By Andres Ramos Palacios
The life of a tourist is not always easy. Imagine arriving in Hanoi with jet lag and the next day, early in the morning, taking a three-hour bus to Halong Bay. Once there, you stand in a long queue for the boat and spend the day cruising among majestic rock formations, exploring caves that evoke the Earth’s prehistory and bathing peacefully on dreamy beaches. After lunch (dessert included), who wouldn’t feel the need for a nap on deck to escape for a while from so much beauty?
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
Bored Panda got in touch with Andres Ramos Palacios, who won the first prize in the Streets category of the Urban Photo Awards 2023. We wanted to ask some questions about the photographer’s work and the winning image “Tough Life.”
First, we asked what inspired Andres to capture the scene depicted in his photograph. He told us: “At the time of taking this photo I was more and more interested in capturing scenes of tourists, a phenomenon for which I consider that street photography has the possibility to understand in its many facets. In this case, I was struck by the halo of beauty emanating from the woman lying down and the people around her, emulating some kind of ritual.”
#2 People, Remarkable Award: Out Of The Water By Salvatore Montemagno
There are people who always live their lives with the clear and annoying sensation of feeling out of place, of never being at ease …. not even within themselves.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#3 Street, Honorable Mention: Alone By Jasper Tejano
A boy tries to comfort himself from the overwhelming tour experience of the roaring falls of Niagara.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
Asked how he navigates the balance between capturing authentic moments and respecting the privacy of his subjects in urban environments, the photographer answered: “I adhere to the legislation of each country, on the one hand (which usually allows these photos), and to the elementary respect between people. If someone kindly asks me to delete his photo, I do it. I also do not take pictures of people in disadvantaged situations.”
#4 Street, Honorable Mention: Spectacular Noise By Alessandro Deluigi
Rimini, Italia. Un ragazzino, seduto in cima ad uno scivolo, si era tappato le orecchie al rumore assordante delle spettacolari Frecce Tricolori Italiane.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#5 People, Remarkable Award: Superman To The Rescue By Sehmuz Bayhan
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We were wondering how important, according to Andres Ramos Palacios, the storytelling is in street photography, especially in the context of urban life. We found out that: “I think it’s a fundamental part of a certain type of street photography, but sometimes it’s taken too literally. I think photos can suggest (not tell) little stories or interactions between people, which enriches them, but not tell stories as such. On the other hand, there are merely aesthetic photos that tell nothing and are very valuable.”
#6 Civic Museum Sartorio In Trieste, Special Prize: Tempra By Martina D’Agresta
A feminine noun with a double meaning: a heat treatment of metals aimed at improving its properties strength and bending mechanics or a set of psychic and spiritual qualities of an individual with a marked connotation of solidity and vigor.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#7 People, Remarkable Award: Redwalk By Marcel Van Balken
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Last, but not least, we wanted to know what winning the 1st prize in the street photography category of the Urban Photo Awards means to Andres. The photographer shared with us: “It’s my first major award, so it has been a reaffirmation of my confidence as a photographer and my intuition for spotting good photos. However, you have to put it in context as a single award-winning photo can mean just one lucky moment, so it’s important to build a body of work that gives consistency to your portfolio.”
#8 People, Honorable Mention: Nunset By Daniela Calò
A sunset by the sea acquires an even more radiant significance thanks to a small group of sisters who greet it with joy, faith, lightness and above all with a smartphone to take selfies. If I didn’t dream it, for a moment I became like them, with them, among them, an happy butterfly.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#9 Creative, Honorable Mention: Horror Movies Story By Hardibudi
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#10 Street, Honorable Mention: Sakulchai Sikitikul
Songkhla Thailand
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#11 Creative, Remarkable Reward: Runner – Labyrinth By Jozef Danyi
Runner-Labyrinth It’s a runner’s story. It’s a game of light and black and white. A small runner in the middle of a large scenery looking for an exit from the labyrinth. The labyrinth is made up of parts of the buildings in the town of Bruntál, where I live. We wish her good luck… Created 2022.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#12 Spaces, Remarkable Reward: Curve By Yi Tang Wang
Taichung National Theater in Taiwan is the representative work of famous architect Toyo Ito. The interior of the building is supported by 58 curved walls, it’s a greatest structural challenge.The curvilinear vocabulary of the theater’s facade walls speaks to the building’s interior. This photo uses the curve of the building’s exterior to divide the surface of the light and dark blocks in the middle, showing the virtual and solid on the building wall. The minimalist geometric compositions and bright tones are very modernity. The insignificance of passers-by shows the grandeur of the building.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#13 People, Remarkable Award: The Place Of The Solitaires By Diana Sosnowska
This self-portrait was taken in Brooksville, Florida, in 2023. The photograph is part of a project titled Another Weeping Woman. It is an ongoing project that started in 2019. It investigates the realms of human behavior through the eyes of fictional characters created by the photographer. Part of an ongoing investigation that seeks to challenge the consistent and dominant narrative of female irrationality that permeates our visual and written culture, the project draws inspiration from a multitude of literary works where transgressive femininity is profoundly celebrated. As the title suggests, each of the characters faces reality through ways of pain, solitude and melancholy. The photographs wish to unsettle the viewer and invite them to fabricate their own narrative, one that feels familiar with their own experience of womanhood. The project consists of carefully staged self-portraits, whose aesthetics have been informed by the literary evidence, taken in a range of locations that includes Florida, Italy, Scotland and Spain.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#14 People, Honorable Mention: Diving By Maxim Korotchenko
People enjoying diving in a new diving pool.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#15 Streets, Remarkable Reward: Risky Train Journey By Jubair Ahmed Arnob
Home-bound people crowd onto the roof of a train to travel to their villages, ahead of the Eid-Al-Adha celebrations at the Railway Station in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#16 Projects & Portfolios, Honorable Mention: In Visible Light By Sam Ferris
‘In visible light’ is a personal street photography project shot between 2013 and the present that interrogates my perceptions and experiences of living in Sydney – a city where the cost of living has never been higher and the sense of anxiety never more acutely felt. The more I am on the street photographing, the more I feel it is important to document this time and place I live in as a bystander, as witness to a city on the verge of something. A city where we are bombarded daily by the fallacies of a vapid, sensationalist media; a city where we are obsessed with status and feel constant uncertainty about what we have, if it’s enough and what we’re missing out on; a city where multiculturalism and diversity is celebrated while, simultaneously, resurgent nationalist and conservative values take a foothold ; a city that still bears the scars of the Martin Place siege and Cronulla riots; a city where the interests of businesses and the political agenda of government now outweigh the lifestyles that were once cherished; and a city where it is easy to find yourself lost.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#17 Spaces, Honorable Mention: Blue On The Beach By Angius
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#18 Spaces, Winner: Ortona By Graziano Panfili
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#19 Urban Press Award, Winner: Parisian Night Stories By Krzysztof Bednarski
Parisian Night Stories embarks on a visual journey through the pulsating heart of Paris after dark. The candid moments encapsulate the essence of nocturnal Paris, a vibrant pot of energy. Night wanderers, dreamers and adventurers, all intertwined by the rich cultural heritage and artistic legacy of the city. From the buzzing cafés of Montmartre to the jazz clubs of Saint-Germain, Parisian nightlife has played an influential role in shaping artistic movements. From laughter to romance, the series attempts to capture the spirit of the pulsating Parisian nightlife.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#20 Civic Museum Sartorio In Trieste, Special Prize: Nowhere To Go But Everywhere By Francesco Aglieri Rinella
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#21 Streets, Remarkable Reward: Multicolor By Charles Chojnacki
Main bus station
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#22 Streets, Remarkable Reward: Tokyo Metro Ticket Booth By Argus Paul Estabrook
A photograph of a Tokyo Metro ticket booth and attendant in Japan.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#23 People, Remarkable Award: Nunzia, 96, At Her Home In Garfagnana, Italy By Fred Borghesi
Nunzia is my grandma. I always wanted to take a portrait of her at her home, where she lived for more than 70 years.
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#24 People, Remarkable Award: Piotr Kamiński
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#25 Urban Book Award 2023 Winner: Cafuné By Rafael Fabrés
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#26 Creative, Winner: The False Illution By Andre Boto
Pollution is a real problem that affects us all. There are often attempts to camouflage or minimize this problem. The big manufacturing companies and the powers try to hide a problem that is real and brings sequels, creating the illusion that it is a distant problem, but in fact we are facing it already today and we leave with a great disadvantage to solve it at this moment.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#27 People, Honorable Mention: Call In Blue By Patrizia Calì
An old patinated blue telephone box, brings memories from the past.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#28 Spaces, Honorable Mention: Wael Elhammamy
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#29 People, Winner: Going To Save Themselves From The Abnormal Heat By Natalya Saprunova
There is a peak of heat on the Kola Peninsula behind the polar circle for the month of June. With +30°C, it is 18°C above maximum averages which has been kept for 10 days. Young girls go to bathe in a stream near the family country house in Lovozero.
Being part of the last indigenous of Europe, the Saami of Russia lost their nomadic autonomy with the rise of Soviet power. Reindeer herders in the tundra on the Kola Peninsula, the Saami were forced to live in apartment buildings in Lovozero village, considered as a reserve. Settled to work in kolkhozes, the saami language and the traditional costume were prohibited. Today, there are 1500 saami people, and some 200 speak the language, most of them are elderly. Proud of their traditions, they strive to preserve their culture while adapting to modernity and global warming in the Arctic region.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#30 Spaces, Remarkable Reward: Alex
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#31 Streets, Remarkable Reward: And Then The Winter Came By Pierpaolo Mittica
The only light in a shop with a power generator during a blackout in Kyiv. After almost a year of war the situation in Ukraine is dramatic, Russia in recent months has started to strike power stations to put the population in the dark and cold during the harsh Ukrainian winter. More than half of the population is currently living without electricity, water and heating, particularly difficult is the situation in the capital Kyiv and its suburbs destroyed in the first months of the war.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#32 People, Honorable Mention: The Right To Know By Roberta Vagliani
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#33 Urban Photo Arena, Winner: Becoming An Adult By Romain Miot
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#34 Streets, Remarkable Reward: Cartino By Nurlan Tahirli
People walking on the wall, on the shore of the sea with the mountain landscape in the background. The backlit scene created a silhouette and made the mountains more evident. The lamps look like placed low, while actually they are set on the ground to light the pavement, but they reach above the wall by creating a cartoon like view.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#35 Streets, Remarkable Reward: Winter Play By Stanislav Sitnikov
Young men playing street football in winter.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#36 Streets, Remarkable Reward: Nightfall By The Sea By Antonio Denti
The magic hour by the sea that will shape their hearts.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#37 Civic Museum Sartorio In Trieste, Special Prize: Memento Mori By Giovanni Sacco
Memento mori, remember that you have to die, is a Latin saying that stresses the impermanence of all things, and reminds that all things, including us, must die.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#38 Civic Museum Sartorio In Trieste, Special Prize: The Failure Of Reason By Andrea Bettancini
The Montecatini colony in Cervia was designed in 1937 by a Jewish architect Eugenio Faludi a year before the promulgation of the Italian racial laws. The censorship imposed on him after the “Declaration of race” in 1938, erased the memory of the paternity of this magnificent example of Italian rationalist architecture.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#39 Projects & Portfolios, Honorable Mention: Turn Round By Tomasz Liboska
Turn Round is a long-term project about Upper Silesia, the largest industrial region in Poland.
Intensive industrial development of Upper Silesia began in the 18th century, following in the footsteps of the industrial revolution that transformed Europe. The vast reserves of black coal provided jobs and income to the region. The traditional economy—based mainly on agriculture—slowly declined. Over time, Upper Silesia became a land of coal mines and steel plants. Soon, cities expanded and the Upper Silesian agglomeration comprising over a dozen of towns was formed. After World War II, during the communist era, the region turned into a local El Dorado—a land of mineral riches.
In particular, heavy industry was the lifeblood of the communist regime and was seen as an icon of the country’s modernization. Upper Silesia witnessed a vast influx of people migrating from all over Poland. Tens of thousands of people were hoping for work and better lives here.
Alas, the socialist economy turned out to be a hidden time bomb for the region. After the great Solidarity movement revolution, when Poland joined the capitalist market economy, it was Upper Silesia that suffered the harshest consequences. Many factories shut down, and people were left without jobs or prospects. The smoking chimneys quickly disappeared from the horizon, and with them, many residents. The cities steadily emptied; some people returned to their hometowns, while younger people migrated to other countries in Europe.
Today, the region still exists as the industrial center of our country yet it is also searching intensely for a new identity. Dynamic socioeconomic changes are giving Upper Silesia a new character. And yet not everybody benefits equally from these changes. If you turn around for a moment, you can still see the past prowling right behind you.
Turn Round is the project, which, in 100% of time, was carried out on the bike. I like to cycle around, discover little paths and cul-de-sacs. There is no planned strategy. I am riding my bike wherever I feel like at a time. Many photos are made when I cycle to or from work. This is how I usually find my subjects. Some of them I have known for a long time, I like to go back to them. Other meetings are more incidental. I feel quite at ease approaching people and try to make good use of it. I initiate conversations, look for contact, encourage interaction.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#40 Creative, Honorable Mention: Complete Route By Ali Zolghadri
The man is running on the path. There are many ways for this man, but he has chosen a sure and perfect path to reach the goal.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#41 Spaces, Remarkable Reward: Okanyva By Nurlan Tahirli
The Haydar Aliyev Center in the mist. The white colored structure gets merged into the bright atmosphere on a foggy day and is getting lost. Architect: Zaha Hadid.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#42 Creative, Remarkable Reward: La Défense By Vincenzo Migliorati
Fotografando in viaggio, a distanza di spazio e tempo, cosa ci resta poi dell’esperienza in sé, delle impressioni vissute e dello scorrere del tempo? Questa immagine, realizzata a Parigi al famoso quartiere La Défense, racconta di quegli istanti.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#43 Creative, Remarkable Reward: Random Arrangement By Valentina D’alia
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#44 Projects & Portfolios, Winner: The Post-Industrial Rust Belt By Borowiec Andrew
For almost four decades I’ve photographed the social landscape of the Rust Belt, America’s vast industrial heartland, which extends from upstate New York to the shores of Lake Michigan in the west and into Appalachia south of the Ohio River, and which has been in steady decline since the 1980s. Houses have disintegrated, entire blocks of downtowns have been boarded up, and factories have been dismantled. People accustomed to a life of hard work have lost their jobs, their homes, and their place in the world.
After working with black and white film for thirty years I began to work in color, first with film and, more recently, with a medium-format digital camera that allows me to make large prints with a great amount of detail that serves to amplify, clarify, and sometimes complicates the photographs’ meaning.
The photographs are, in part, about the specific identity of a landscape—its topography, its architecture, its history, the arrangement and decoration of back yards. At the same time, I try to make pictures whose details serve as clues to understanding the values, aspirations, hopes, and dreams of the people who live in that landscape. And setting aside geographical differences, the circumstances of the post-industrial Rust Belt reflect an increasingly ubiquitous inequality found throughout Twenty-First Century America, where most people aren’t as well off as they used to be, or as they would like to be.
At the same time, I hope that the pictures also show signs of hope. The inhabitants of factory towns are tenacious and resilient. While they may have to live next door to an abandoned factory out of economic necessity, they nonetheless struggle to achieve some semblance of the American Dream under less than ideal circumstances.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#45 Spaces, Remarkable Reward: ‘Desert Rose’ Doha (Qatar) – Jean Nouvel By Oscar Rialubin
The iconic building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, is based on the form of the desert rose and is composed of large interlocking disks of different diameters and curvatures. Desert Rose – National Museum of Qatar was awarded the Best Roofscape prize by Wallpaper Design Awards 2019.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#46 Spaces, Remarkable Reward: Erminio Vanzan
Image taken from one of the London Eye gondolas, looking down.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#47 Civic Museum Sartorio In Trieste, Special Prize: Lelo By Alain Schroeder
“Lelo Burti” is a Georgian sport, which combines elements of wrestling and rugby and is played once a year on the Georgian Orthodox Easter Sunday in the small village of Shukhuti.
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
#48 Streets, Remarkable Reward: Rimon Mia
Image credits: Urban Photo Awards 2023
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