What would happen if you ceased to focus on the obvious subject in a photograph and instead paid attention to its shape? This simple change can completely transform the situation. The AAP Magazine 2026 Awards: SHAPES does precisely this by making the lines, curves, shadows, patterns, and silhouettes the stars of the picture.
The 2026 edition has been chosen from around 100 submissions and includes photographers from 15 countries on four continents. And there is no single formula in it; one photograph may focus on sharp architectural geometry, while another comes across an unexpected curve in the human body, a natural formation, or a passing shadow.
It is precisely that variety which makes these 25 photographs such a darn interesting collection. Shape does more than just hold the composition together; it produces rhythm, tension, balance, movement, and at times a bit of mystery as well. A building suddenly takes on the appearance of a graphic pattern. A silhouette turns into a striking visual feature. An ordinary shadow turns a familiar scene into something that is almost abstract.
The photographers are also skilled at making ordinary things seem wonderfully strange, offering us unusual angles, reflections, repetition, variations in scale, and cropping in order to encourage us to slow down and look carefully.
Shapes can be found everywhere, whether in the rigid forms of city buildings or in the beautifully flawed organic ones; you only need to notice them.
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#1. 1st Place Winner: Tom Zimberoff, United States
#2. Second Place Winner: Double Yellow by Matthew Garbutt, United Kingdom
"Gorleston-on-Sea, UK – February 2025"
#3. Third Place Winner: Flow by Nicolas Castermans, France
"This image is part of a series titled "First Language", created in the Beskid Mountains of southern Poland. The world does not begin with objects. It begins with shapes. Before we recognize a tree, a mountain or a landscape, we first perceive lines, forms and patterns. Photographed during fleeting winter conditions, this series explores how fog, snow and light reduce the landscape to its essential forms."
#4. Finalist: Striped by Marcop, Italy
#5. Finalist: Maya Meshel, Israel
#6. Finalist: Open-Air Cinema Geometry by Jaroslav Mares, Czech Republic
#7. Finalist: Michael G. Prais, United States
#8. Finalist: The White House I by Klaus Lenzen, Germany
"The facade of the Düsseldorf "Schauspielhaus" (theatre) is a popular photo motif. The building was completed in 1970 and since its renovation in 2019 shines again an its original bright white colors. The curvy silhouettes offer architecture worth seeing from different angles."
#9. Finalist: Architectural Anatomy by Zechen Huang, United Kingdom
"By breaking and rebuilding the frame, I recast architecture as an uncanny anatomy: no longer a stable monument, but something bodily, strange, and faintly monstrous, suspended between structure and organism."
#10. Finalist: Road to Mauna Kea by Stuart Chape, Australia
"Aerial view of the road to the observatories on Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii."
#11. Finalist: Jumpseeds by Takeuchi Kazutoshi, Japan
"Jumpseeds and a hat."
#12. Finalist: Alireza Bagheri Sani, Iran
#13. Finalist: Still Life with a Red Bowl, Diptych by Olena Zubach, Slovenia
"Forms" is an artistic photographic project that exists on the threshold of photography and painting, exploring the universal foundations of art: form, colour, and space. My works are minimalist still lifes composed of basic, almost ascetic objects. Deliberately stripped of any domestic function, these shapes—3D-printed and hand-painted according to my artistic vision—take on a sculptural quality, inviting contemplation and reflection.
#14. Finalist: Inner Cosmogonies by Claudio Limiti, Italy
"A liquid sphere emerges from the darkness, divided in half by a clean horizon line and surrounded by luminous dust. It is the exact moment when thought is born from chaos. This image shows when our mind becomes aware of itself and awakens, beginning to make sense of its surroundings. The world is not something found ready-made on the outside: we create and organise it within our inner selves the very moment we begin to look at it."
#15. Finalist: Els Verds I by Ralph Milewski, Germany
"Els Verds (1974–1976), a residential complex by Joan Bosch i Agustí and Ignasi Bosch i Reitg. By isolating fragments of the façade, the photograph transforms its repetitive balconies into an abstract study of rhythm, geometry and negative space."
#16. Finalist: Sand Sledders by Emily Neville Fisher, United States
#17. Finalist: Geometry by Kevin Lyle, United States
"Geometry… the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces, solids, and higher dimensional analogs… I never really liked Geometry."
#18. Finalist: Trimmed by Julie V. Garner, United States
#19. Finalist: Choose your Lane by Jaeseok Lim, Korea Republic of
#20. Finalist: Carlos Esguerra, United States
#21. Finalist: Colorverse by Studio Likeness, Germany
#22. Finalist: Silo by Peter Harlow, Australia
"Midwinter sun makes a silo stand tall."
#23. Finalist: Iceland from Above by Dede Pickering, United States
"From above, Iceland’s landscapes dissolve into abstraction, where color, texture, and form take on a life of their own. Glacial pools, mineral deposits, and volcanic terrain create compositions that feel painterly and surreal, blurring the line between land and art. These aerial perspectives reveal unexpected patterns and quiet details, inviting a closer look at the natural forces shaping this ever-evolving environment."
#24. Finalist: Le miroir de la rue by Francesca Pompei, Italy
"The suspended atmosphere of a street corner in Marseille, France."
#25. Finalist: Tracy Burke, United States
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the AAP Magazine 2026 Shapes category?
AAP Magazine: SHAPES explores photography where shape becomes the central visual subject. The selected images use lines, curves, patterns, shadows, silhouettes, architecture, natural forms, and repetition to create compelling compositions from everyday surroundings.
How many countries are represented in AAP Magazine: SHAPES?
The 2026 AAP Magazine: SHAPES issue features photographers from 15 countries across four continents. Their work demonstrates how photographers around the world interpret geometry, organic forms, repetition, perspective, and visual structure in distinctly creative ways.
What makes Shapes photography interesting?
Shapes photography encourages viewers to look beyond obvious subjects and notice visual structure. Lines, curves, shadows, reflections, patterns, and silhouettes can create balance, tension, movement, rhythm, or abstraction, transforming ordinary scenes into visually unexpected photographic compositions.
What subjects appear in the AAP Magazine Shapes photographs?
The selected photographs explore a wide range of subjects, including architecture, people, shadows, landscapes, natural forms, reflections, patterns, and everyday objects. Many images combine these elements to create compositions where the original subject becomes secondary to shape.
How were the AAP Magazine 2026 Shapes photographs selected?
The photographs were selected from hundreds of submissions by photographers worldwide. The final collection focuses on images that demonstrate strong attention to form, perspective, geometry, repetition, and composition while offering fresh ways to see familiar environments and everyday visual details.
