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AAP Magazine Unveils Winners of ‘Colors’ Competition
All About Photo (AAP) Magazine has announced the winners of its AAP Magazine #51: Colours competition, an issue dedicated to exploring the profound impact and expressive potential of colour photography. The competition showcased the work of 25 talented photographers from 16 countries across four continents, highlighting how colour can transform ordinary scenes into extraordinary visual stories.
The face of the Mundari
The Mundari veneer themselves with ash to protect their cows from insects.
– ‘Pastoral Peoples and Practices’
My series, Pastoral Peoples and Practices illustrates how many people are inextricably connected to their livestock and beasts of burden.
The peoples of the Ilemi triangle (the Omo valley of Ethiopia, Central and Eastern Equatoria and Northern Kenya) are all pastoralists. Their bond with their livestock is inextricably connected to their environment and their subsistence farming systems have a small ecological footprint. This area is very vulnerable to climate change and the impacts of drought have desiccated their environments.
Cattle, sheep and goats are their livelihoods and all their wealth is dependent upon them. The animals are used in barter for guns, dowry’s for wives, blood for nutrition, milk as part of their daily diet and occasionally they slaughter cattle for meat. The Mundari of Central Equatoria and the Kara of the Omo have many traits and traditions in common.
They often practise transhumance, moving their herds in response to rains and fresh grazing. They often take blood from their cows, sometimes to mix with milk and sometimes to simply drink it from a calabash. The Mundari gather the fresh dung each morning, dry it and use it to fuel their fires.
The ash from the fires is then used to massage their Ankole Watusi cows to mitigate against bites from tsetse flies and mosquitoes. They also veneer themselves with ash for the same reasons, hence they appear ghostly as they herd their cattle and fade into the nebulous haze of smoke generated by the fires.
The Kara keep their goats and sheep close to their villages which in recent years have become very arid due to climate change and the damming of the Omo river which they depended on for flood recession cropping. The goats, when herded, create clouds of dust which is atmospheric but it is also indicative of increasing desertification. Their connections with their animals are inimitable as are their interactions with the environments in which they live.
@trevcole (IG)
Title of the image: The Yellow Man of Aleppo
Title of the series: Colors of Resilience
In Aleppo, Abu Zakkour — known locally as The Yellow Man — has dressed exclusively in yellow since 1983. Against the backdrop of a city scarred by war, he has become a living symbol of endurance and individuality. His bright presence turns ordinary streets into a declaration of joy and resilience, a reminder that identity can be an act of resistance.
www.laurinstrele.com
Instagram: @laurinstrele
– Title of the Image: Faith Amid Genocide
– Title of the Series: Faith Amid Genocide
Displaced Palestinians perform a collective prayer over the rubble of a mosque destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza. Amid the devastation, the vivid colors of the scattered prayer rugs stand in stark contrast to the gray ruins, symbolizing resilience, unity, and unwavering faith in the face of genocide.
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abd.pix96/
MERIT AWARD GALLERY
A Global Spectrum of Talent Featured
The selection process emphasised originality, technical excellence, and emotional depth, revealing colour’s ability to spark emotion and connect viewers globally.
In addition to the top three, the Merit Award’s Gallery features a diverse group of photographers from around the world. Winners hail from nations including the USA, France, Nigeria, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Iran, China, and others.
Image Title: One Eyed Cat
This was shot during the height of the pandemic. I work as a bartender so I was among the first to be laid off. With endless free time and government money, I spent my days walking or riding my bike around the empty streets of Salt Lake City, UT making photographs. This was one of those mornings.
Title of the image: Nuit indienne – untitled 01
Title of the series: Nuit indienne
…” As night falls on Vârânasî, I wander alone through the narrow streets of this strange city. I let my feelings rise to the surface, as if in response to the mystery that emanates from this nocturnal atmosphere. I was already familiar with the muted, silent night – the deep imagination of an encounter with oneself. But here I discover a solitude shared with what seems to be a universal presence. The life hidden through the luminous windows calls out to me from deep within. I wander through the Indian night of Vârânasî…”
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057507534344
@xavier.blondeau
Image: Telephone, Iowa
I took this photo in Iowa in January 2024. For two weeks, I travelled across the Midwest, enduring extreme weather conditions.
Title of Image / Series:
Somewhere In Between – A Portrait Series of Ladé: Navigating Migration, Identity, and the Edges of Belonging
Project Description:
This portrait series presents Ladé not as an individual subject, but as a vessel for a shared narrative —
one that speaks to the layered realities of many African immigrants. It reflects the ongoing negotiation of identity, the weight of displacement,
and the quiet resilience required to navigate constant movement: across borders and policies, between cultures and cities, and through shifting versions of self.
https://www.instagram.com/akande.o.mayowa/
Title of the image: 69
Title of the series: Numbers Don’t Lie
No diamond, no dugout, no problem. In these
photos, baseball uniforms appear where you least expect them. The mix of team spirit and
urban moments blurs the boundary between play and reality.
https://edovephotos.myportfolio.com/home
With this series, I wanted to show my fascination of facade/interiors versus scale.
Website – https://panvelvet.com
Instagram @panvelvet
Shades of Style
In a small Ethiopian town, a man stands by a turquoise wall, his straw hat and colorful glasses reflecting a quiet pride and individuality. Between color and shadow, fashion becomes a subtle act of self-expression amid the rhythms of everyday life.
@ecoralphotography
Image: Bizarre Branches
Title of the series: Color as a feeling
I don’t plan series in advance. They emerge naturally over time as I notice patterns or emotional threads between certain images. A single photograph may belong to more than one series if it resonates with different aspects of my work. What excites me most is just being in the process with my camera and watching how images start to relate to each other without planning it.
These images were taken between 2024 and 2025. They don’t form a series but they are connected by a strong focus on color. I see color as more than a visual element. It carries mood, emotion and meaning. It can soften a scene or create tension. Sometimes it shifts how we feel about an image entirely.
Each photograph stands on its own but shares the same direction. This selection reflects moments where color felt essential to the story or atmosphere I wanted to create.
Colors of Life
Life in Varanasi begins in the early hours of the morning. People gather at the sacred Ganges River to perform their rituals. The riverbank is always bustling and vibrant; along the ghats, one can see people bathing, praying, and washing their clothes. In this frame, life flowing through the colorful laundry stretching toward the sky tells the viewer the endless stories of Varanasi’s people.
https://www.instagram.com/neseari/
Title of the image: A Ganges Tale
Title of the series: Spiritual Liberation
Sadhus embody spiritual renunciation amid the city’s vibrant chaos. Draped in saffron robes, they meditate and perform rituals by the Ganges, navigating narrow alleys, bustling ghats, and cremation grounds. In this sacred city, where life and death intertwine, their presence reflects a timeless quest for transcendence.
Varanasi, one of Hinduism’s holiest cities, holds unparalleled significance as a gateway to moksha, or liberation from the cycle of rebirth. The Ganges, considered a lifeline of spirituality, cleanses sins and connects devotees to the divine. Here, ancient traditions and rituals thrive, making Varanasi a living embodiment of faith and eternal devotion.
– Website link/Social media www.tgcrossroads.com @tg_crossroads
TITLE OF THE IMAGE: Alba y Zazzu
TITLE OF THE SERIES: Retaguardia
Retaguardia is a photographic project that dwells in the edges of mass society, in the periphery of the normative, in its penumbra. Far removed from dogma and convention, it unfolds a portrait of post-pandemic youth identified with the counterculture surrounding punk music and aesthetics: a mosaic of faces and expressions that seek each other in the mirror of the past to shape their present. From there, the author weaves a dialogue between times and generations.
https://umbriabrito.com / @milton_bananas
Title of the image : Color of death
Title of the series : Toxic River
In this region of southern Spain, the waters of the Rio Tinto, near the copper mines, are laden with heavy metals. They take on incredible colors when seen from the sky, incredible but evil colors… – Rio Tinto, Andalusia.
Website / social media : www.ojlphotographies.com / https://www.facebook.com/OJLPhotographies / https://www.instagram.com/ojlphotographies/
Title: Chore
Title of the series: It matters Short explaining
image: Antanas, the man in the photo, let me into his world, a home with less luxury, but everything counts.
That morning, I was invited to participate in a food parcel campaign organized by MAX Netherland.
His calm demeanor, the tranquility of the surroundings, the red cloth.
They are symbols of dignity in a world that seems hopeless to many.
The power of connection lies not in possessions, but in the small details of our existence.
And I felt the pain. Not for what I saw, but for what we often choose not to see.
Perhaps happiness begins with appreciating the ordinary.
Series: Travelling is inseparable from my practice. It is an opportunity to discover who I am. By travelling to other places, I seek precisely the things we have in common.
It is also a way for me to remind myself of the gratitude of a simple existence in places elsewhere in the world: things I take for granted in the West.
My inspiration comes primarily from my encounters with fellow human beings, the contradictions in our lives or environments.
The chosen photograph shows how we need contact with our outside world. Often colorful with a social perspective on everyday life.
Website: https://www.janjanssenfotografie.nl
Instagram: janjanssenart
Title of image: “Lily”
Title of the series: “The Garden of My Tenderness”
In this series, I deliberately moved away from the familiar palette of floral hues to explore emotion through color rather than form.
Each image was manually hand-painted in a digital environment, not as retouching, but as an act of painting, shaping light and shadow as if with a brush.
The flowers here become living organisms – translators of my inner states.
Their tones shift from the cold shades of awakening, like life returning after frost, to rare and unexpected colors not typical for these species.
Yet all these moods are bound by a single feeling – tenderness.
It was within this fragile and luminous state that the entire series was born.
@oxana_omelchuk
Title of the image: Crater
Title of the series: Crater-1
Indonesia is one of the most volcanic active countries in the world. When we visited, the volcano happened to be emitting smoke, and the morning light was beautiful, allowing us to capture this photograph.
Lingering Shaddows
The photography series “Lingering Shadows” is an attempt to capture the
simple yet complex and hidden moments that women experience in their
everyday lives. These images use the color blue to emphasize the often
invisible fatigue—an endless cycle of tasks that, despite their importance,
sometimes feel futile and unproductive. The dominant presence of blue
conveys a deep sense of coldness and isolation.
The goal of this series is to invite viewers to rethink the aspects of women’s
lives that often go unnoticed. Simple moments, such as drinking tea,
preparing food, or a brief pause amid the daily chaos, take on new meaning in
these images, representing the emptiness, futility, and underlying
complexities in these seemingly ordinary experiences.
These photos are not only a personal narrative but also a reflection of the
collective experience of women around the world.
Title of the image: Anger
– Title of the series: Four Colours and One Movement
This image belongs to Four Colours and One Movement, a project that relates, through images, four colours to the transformative movement whereby each of them changes negative qualities into positive ones during meditation within the Buddhist tradition. In it, colour symbolism is frequently used to present abstract concepts through visual images.
Thus, blue transforms anger into wisdom of patience; yellow transforms pride into wisdom of balance; red transforms the delusion of attachment into the wisdom of discernment; and white transforms the delusion of ignorance into the wisdom of ultimate reality.
In addition, the images created try to capture symbolic representations from nature which are related to the qualities mentioned above.
Anger is represented by thunder and by Vajrapāni, one of the main Bodhisattvas, whose colour is blue. He wields lightning and is also known as ‘Thunder’.
https://www.alexnowiczewski-photo.com
@alexnowiczewski
Image: Hands of Belonging
Series: Notes of Inclusion
At The Dorna Centre Home for Autism, Brass for Africa offers inclusive music lessons that provide children with autism and intellectual disabilities a place where they truly belong. In Uganda, where these children often face discrimination, music becomes a powerful tool for self-expression and connection.
As the lessons progress, children from the surrounding community without disabilities join in, creating a truly inclusive space. Together, they learn, play, and build friendships, breaking down barriers and celebrating their differences. For all the children, music is more than just learning an instrument. It is a path to inclusion and belonging.
Instagram: @MarijnFidder
Title: The Girl in the Painting
The inspiration for the photo were the works of the great artist René Magritte, who often used simple, realistic forms and placed them in strange situations.
The title of the photo suggests that it shows a girl. But how do we know? Can we be sure? Is what we see always the same as what really is?
The message of this photos is to encourage the viewer to reject obvious associations and think for a moment. Find the hidden meaning that is deep in our souls. Add our own ending to an unfinished story.
Image: The Witch’s Gaze
Series Title: The Colors of the Night
In the heart of the constellation Eridanus, the blue light of Rigel reflects off interstellar dust, shaping one of the most fascinating nebulae in the winter sky — the Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118).
This image, titled “The Witch’s Gaze”, was created to capture the subtle beauty of reflected starlight and the fragility of light traveling hundreds of years before reaching us.
The nebula, faint and surrounded by cosmic dust, was photographed under dark skies through long hours of exposure and careful processing to preserve both its natural color and gaseous texture.
The result is a balanced and natural portrait where the light of a distant star reveals the mysterious outline of a cosmic witch.
https://www.instagram.com/simone_curzi_skylover/
Title of the image: Beholders No.1
Title of the series: Beholders
The key point of this Beholders project is to personify the surveillance camera. By using various color and posing them, those cameras’ imaginary roles, emotions and personalities are exposed to the audience. The surveillance camera is the city’s observer, but citizens who are observed seldom look the cameras face to face. Thus, I would like to create an equal relation between people and surveillance cameras by photographing them from the perspective of portraiture. I hope to enable the audiences to face surveillance cameras right in front of them, and to figure out their “expressions”.
Website link/Social media
AAP Magazine noted that the issue pays homage to the persistent allure colour has held for photographers since the 1840s, recognising those artists who continue to push the boundaries of its storytelling potential.
The award for all 25 winning photographers includes publication in the physical AAP Magazine #51 Colours issue and a feature in the All About Photo Winners Gallery. Additionally, the top three winners will share a $1,000 cash prize.
This collection is a visual journey for readers, inviting them to discover colour as a spectrum of expression, from the most vibrant and bold use to the most subtle and poetic.
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