25 Striking Black and White Winners from the 2025 AAP Magazine Awards

We’re thrilled to spotlight the 25 winners of AAP Magazine #49: Black and White Awards, a powerful collection that showcases the timeless elegance and emotional impact of black and white photography. Selected from a vast array of international submissions, this year’s winners represent 11 countries across 3 continents, reflecting a rich diversity of vision, culture, and storytelling.

Photo by: Antonio Denti

The winning images cover an expansive range of genres—from street photography and documentary to fine art and conceptual work. Each photograph is a masterclass in the expressive potential of monochrome, exploring themes like identity, silence, memory, contrast, and geometry. Some artists focus on intricate textures and structural form, while others dive into abstraction, raw emotion, or symbolic visual narratives. Whether captured on analog film or crafted with digital precision, the images resonate with striking clarity and artistic depth.

What makes this collection truly compelling is its celebration of black and white as both a medium and a message. Without the distraction of color, viewers are drawn to the emotional essence, tonal subtleties, and visual rhythm within each frame. From quiet moments to bold compositions, the photographs capture a spectrum of human experience in stunning simplicity.

In addition to publication in the prestigious print edition of AAP Magazine, the winners receive international recognition through features on All About Photo’s digital platforms, reaching a global audience of photography professionals and enthusiasts. This acknowledgment not only validates their creative efforts but also propels their work into the wider photographic world.

These 25 striking black and white photographs are more than just winning entries—they are a testament to the enduring power of monochrome imagery and a bold reminder that some of the most powerful stories are told in shades of gray.

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#1. 1st Place Winner: "Balance" by Astrid Verhoef, Netherlands

"The artwork ‘Balance’ was shot in March 2025, at the beautiful Peninsula de Jandia, Fuerteventura, Spain. For all my artwork I’m exploring my relationship and connection to the natural world, usually portraying a figure that always seems to linger somewhere between the natural and an artificial element preventing her from truly connecting. Like a trace from the world she can’t leave behind."

#2. 2nd Place Winner: "Harder Lives" by Antonio Denti, Italy

"Souvenir makers at work on the edge of the Sahara Desert, as in the small town near-by their families live on. ”Harder Lives” is part of a wider project called ”Everything and Nothing” that tries to capture the moving essence of the little lives – our little lives – in the backdrop of the global economy and of a massive new industrial revolution in very different settings. In this case a small village in Morocco that used to live off very little (dates, palms, small herding, minor caravans) and now shifted to global tourism as all kinds of people travel there from all places in the world to see the magic marvels of the Sahara."

#3. 3rd Place Winner: "People I Know" by Lynne Breitfeller, United States

"This image, “Stacy and Miss Kitty”, is from “People I Know”, a collection of portraits, created in the early to mid-nineties of friends, family, and acquaintances. Some are candid, and others are performative. These photos bring me back to earlier times and help me visualize my early adult years and how people come in and out of our lives, and how some stay. Each holds a place in the catalog of my memory."