Film photography has something special that digital cameras just can’t quite replicate. From beautiful grain and rich tones to unexpected moments of magic, analog photography makes every frame feel like a little piece of history. And the 2026 Analog Sparks Awards are here to remind us why this timeless art form continues to capture hearts around the world.
Celebrating creativity, patience, and a genuine love for the photographic process, this year’s awards recognize talented photographers who turn ordinary moments into extraordinary visual stories. A professional judging panel carefully evaluated each submission, with outstanding entries earning prestigious titles and honorable mentions across a remarkable range of categories.
The winning photographs showcase the incredible possibilities of shooting on film, where light, texture, emotion, and composition come together in unforgettable ways. From established professionals to emerging amateur talents, these photographers prove that analog photography is far from a thing of the past.
The excitement doesn’t stop with the awards, either. The Photographer of the Year, Discovery of the Year, and first-place category winners in both professional and amateur divisions will have their work showcased in prestigious European galleries.
Scroll through these 47 remarkable photographs and rediscover the magic of film, one frame at a time. Congratulations to all the talented winners of the 2026 Analog Sparks Awards!
You can find more info about Analog Sparks:
#1. Human Photographer of the Year: Faces of Future by Stefan Milev, Bulgaria
"A face is never merely a face. It is a threshold between memory and possibility. These portraits are not representations, but fragments of an inner landscape—echoes of the past and premonitions of what is yet to come. Art is born not from perfection, but from the courage to give form to the invisible. May these works offer not answers, but quiet questions that transform the way we look toward the future."
#2. Discovery of the Year: Before The City Wakes by Giuseppe Scianna, Italy
"In Sicily, far from official racetracks, illegal horse races take place at dawn on public roads turned into improvised tracks. Around this world move young people who spend their days in illegal stables, caring for the horses with total devotion: they feed them, treat them and look after them as part of their own identity."
#3. Architecture – 1st Place: Purgatory Paradise by Sinziana Velicescu, United States
"Purgatory, Paradise examines civic and commercial architecture across the American landscape—corporate centers, museums, strip malls, municipal buildings—photographed in moments of stillness. Stripped of activity, these buildings lose their specific functions and begin to resemble one another: clean facades, flat planes, sun-bleached surfaces."
#4. Architecture – 2nd Place: The Edge of Blue – The Stillness of Projection by Renzo Cicillini, Switzerland
"The Edge of Blue looks at coastal structures where human order meets the sea. The sea is visible throughout, but rarely without something built between it and the camera. Colour reversal film keeps the blue intense across different places and changing light. The structures end at the water."
#5. Architecture – Gold: Architecture of Brazil by Rose Shoshana , Mexico
"Brazil is full of incredible architecture, captured on film."
#6. Architecture – Silver: Symphony On Stone: Deconstructing Yungang Grottoes by Fuyi Zhao, China
"Yungang Grottoes embody a convergence of human civilization. Symphony on Stone uses large-format film to deconstruct this heritage. Shooting from scaffolding with professional artificial lighting, I sculpted the statues’ three-dimensionality in the dark, revealing their architectural grandeur and exquisite "clinging drapery."
#7. Fine Art – 1st Place: Limpha by Katarzyna Kalua Kryńska, Poland
"Limpha cyanotype series directs attention to the need to find balance by combining opposites. Inspired by my grandfather’s vintage stamp collection, it reflects a social and cultural system in which men held power while women remained marginalized."
#8. Fine Art – 2nd Place: Shine Together by Fanni Sutus, Hungary
"A minimalist fashion editorial captured on medium format, where natural light and linen take center stage in the photographer’s studio. Clean silhouettes, rich textures, and timeless simplicity come together to create an intimate, organic visual story with exceptional depth and detail. The editorial also showcases a curated selection of distinctive pieces by Hungarian fashion designers, celebrating contemporary craftsmanship and refined design."
#9. Fine Art – Gold: Northern Folklore by Dimitris Fotiadis, Greece
"Northern Folklore is a black and white photographic series shot in Iceland, exploring landscapes shaped by isolation, silence, and unseen presence. Volcanic smoke, distant mountains, and abandoned spaces create a sense of unease, as if something exists beyond what is visible."
#10. Fine Art – Gold: Imaginary Geographies by Remi De Laquintane, France
"This series explores travel through the window, where the moving world meets inner stillness. Reflections turn passing landscapes into an abstract, spiritual experience. From Hong Kong to Paris or across the Arctic Circle, travel becomes a search for harmony and a way to inhabit transition."
#11. Fine Art – Gold: Dualities by Bernarda Nibera Conič, Slovenia
“Dualities” explores the interplay between the organic and the geometric, where landscapes, architectural forms, and reflections converge to create unexpected visual relationships. Each image captures a moment of encounter—between natural environments and human-made structures, between the ephemeral and the structured.
#12. Fine Art – Silver: Zuhause (At Home) by Émilie Delugeau, Germany
"In the fall of 2017 I moved into a new apartment on Eisenbahnstrasse in Berlin, Kreuzberg with my daughter Emma. At that time I have often been asked why I, as a single mother, don’t prefer to move back to my home in France. This question seems to occupy the people around me a lot, and so I soon asked myself what exactly home is."
#13. Human – 2nd Place: New York City After Dark: The Disco Years by Bill Bernstein, United States
"My photographs capture the wild, flamboyant energy of New York City’s 1970s disco scene—from Studio 54’s glittering hedonism to Paradise Garage’s soulful pulse and GG’s Barnum Room’s playful extravagance. I document a world of gender-bending fashion, vibrant costumes, and uninhibited expression, where diversity and self-expression thrived."
#14. Human – Gold: The Bond by Alicia Sanchez Cabanes, Germany
"This series explores the most primitive bond, the vulnerability and the strength of a relationship that forms the foundation of life. Shot in natural light on medium format and 35mm, each frame represents a different state of an unmistakable union, almost a single being, that defines the earliest moments of motherhood."
#15. Human – Gold: Parikia Sunset by Olivia Finch, United Kingdom
"Captured in the town of Parikia, the main port on the Greek island of Paros, passers-by cast shadows on one of the many blue-domed churched scattered around the waterfront. I returned to this church every evening to see the show, as the shadows revealed an intimacy between friends and strangers as they went about their evening. Shot on 35mm & 120mm film."
#16. Human – Gold: Dangerous Minds by Lukasz Spychala, Poland
"The inspiration came from 1970s cinema: soft, color-rich, and grainy. Rather than literal gestures, what matters is the tension in the characters’ eyes, each bringing her own energy. The car acts as a metaphor – a closed space offering safety yet isolating them, where windows become a screen turning us into cinema viewers."
#17. Human – Silver: Dancers by Paul Cox, Taiwan
"I have chosen ‘pictorialism’ style for these two submissions. This photo movement which started in the late 19th century, was a backlash against sharp commercial imagery. Instead we see more emotion with these painterly images which I believe are more beautiful and achievable for being shot on film."
#18. Human – Silver: Cosmonaut by Wiktor Franko, Poland
"A classic portrait created in natural light, captured on film with a Hasselblad 500. The strong emotions visible on the subject’s face draw the viewer into an intimate and timeless moment. While the composition follows the tradition of classical portraiture, the astronaut helmet introduces a surreal and unexpected element, transforming the image into a dialogue between humanity, technology, and imagination."
#19. Human – Silver: Motherhood, Self-Portraits by Alicia Sanchez Cabanes, Germany
"This series explores my experience of motherhood through recent self-portraits and portraits of my children. Rather than only observing from the outside, the images place me within the family. This is part of an old on-going project, shot on medium format and 35mm film."
#20. Human – Bronze: Hav23 by Jonathan Bensimon, Canada
"HAV23 wants to blend environmental portrait photography with elements of cinematic visual narrative to explore Havana in a way that combines my experiences, others’ representation of the city (in various media) and the reality of the everyday. Although this has documentary elements, it is not strictly a documentary."
#21. Life Style – 1st Place Winner: Between Hooves and Horizons by Wes Colvin, France
"The valley moved slowly with the horses as I lay in the grass. Mountains stood timeless above. One looked at me—present, unbothered. Film made me pause, feel, decide. The shutter felt certain, like holding onto something real. Picos de Europa, Spain."
#22. Life Style – 2nd Place Winner: A Moment For Them by Tommaso Bacchelli, Italy
"This is a cool, spontaneous portrait of a beautiful couple just got married. I slightly posed the bride while the groom naturally posed himself in a very casual way and the final result looks very relaxed and natural. Taken on kodak gold 200 with an Olympus trip AF mini."
#23. Life Style – Gold: American Scrapbook by Kim Llerena, United States
"Depicted in this project are fragments of the American experience. Viewed together, relationships between disparate sites and structures emerge, highlighting various systems that direct our collective national consciousness: commerce, agriculture, tourism, borders, politics, history, domestic space."
#24. Life Style – Gold: Found Not Lost by Matteo Gallucci, Italy
"With this project Found not Lost I’ve collected the stories and the faces of the people that live in the streets of Rome. When I photograph, I am no longer the same person, I no longer have a job. When I look around everything’s theater, everything is at stage. For me those are all crucial moments, like breathing."
#25. Life Style – Silver: The Pilgrims by Jasmine Caye, Switzerland
"In January and February 2025, millions of pilgrims gathered at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj (Uttar Pradesh) to pause and reconnect with their faith. This year marked a rare convergence of celestial alignments, making this Kumbh Mela a once-in-144-year event."
#26. Life Style – Silver: Sunseekers by Olivia Finch, United Kingdom
"This series was shot over a week in Camogli, Liguria, in the hazy days of high summer. I observed as the shoreline drew people in until the sun disappeared, families and friends brought together as they sought the warmth and beauty of the Italian coast. All images taken on 35mm film."
#27. Life Style – Bronze: The Lost Archives by Pier Nicola Damico, United States
"These are some of the pictures I took in the 1980’s. It was here, while shooting these images, that I fell in love with picture making and looking at captured moments. Seeing things revealed. Photography is a medium so about time."
#28. Life Style – Bronze: After The Future by Riccardo Roan, Italy
"After the Future was photographed on film in Tokyo at night. I was not looking for an imagined futuristic Tokyo, but for the point where that idea has already become ordinary life. Neon signs, police boxes, elevators and restaurant windows are part of a daily routine shaped by work, solitude, desire and passing encounters."
#29. Life Style – Bronze: I Will Send You Postcards by Alina Jarosi, Hungary
"I will send you postcards is an ongoing series of the time I spend in Finland – exploring ordinary life, the growing feeling of belonging to a completely different environment and finding my ways in a “parallel reality” away from Hungary. These everyday moments capture places that are familiar for the people living around them but mostly unknown for everyone else, so they turn into destinations waiting to be recognised."
#30. Life Style – Bronze: Blue Swallow by William Mark Sommer, United States
"As night descends across the valley, the summer nights cool, and the neon illuminates. The Blue Swallow has seen Route 66 change over its generations from boom to bust, season to year, surviving the loss of the surroundings and the bypass of old routes."
#31. Life Style – Bronze: Freestyler by Radek Von Hirschberg, Poland
"Just enjoying the freedom."
#32. Nature – 1st Place Winner: Mont Blanc by Fabio Menino, Italy
"The Italian side of Mont Blanc (4.807 m), the main peak of the Alpine massif of the same name, on the border between Italy and France. The first to climb Mont Blanc were the doctor and scientist Michel Gabriel Paccard and the crystal prospector and mountain guide Jacques Balmat, who conquered the summit on August 8, 1786."
#33. Nature – 2nd Place Winner: Volver A Chile by Nicolas Villela-Berrios, Austria
"Volver a Chile" is a medium format black-and-white series exploring memory, exile and identity through a personal return to Chile, the country my father was forced to flee during the dictatorship. Created with a Hasselblad 500CM, the project moves through Chilean landscapes as emotional territories, somewhere between documentary and poetic contemplation.
#34. Nature – Gold: Ginkgo by Kyle Hoffmann, Australia
"Ginkgo – Considered a living fossil that first appeared 290 million years ago. Predating bees by 170 million years. This image is part of a series called "Fossil" that explores the human mind’s struggle to grasp the vastness of time and our fragility within it. The collection features prehistoric plants that evolved before the existence of bees, serving as tangible reminders of our temporal limitations."
#35. Nature – Gold: Shipwreck of Corpach by Austen Goldsmith, United Kingdom
"I was greeted with an amazing opportunity when I visited this shipwreck, a veil of mist enveloping the scene Shot on Hasselblad 501 cm with Kodak Tri-x."
#36. Nature – Silver: Tip of The Iceberg by Steve Alterman, United States
"The black sand beach at Fellsfjara in southeast Iceland is punctuated by icebergs washed ashore from the glacial lagoon. Early morning light highlighted both the tip of a relatively flat iceberg and the wet pebbles on the beach. The larger orange stone provided a whimsical "moon" to the somewhat abstract landscape."
#37. Nature – Bronze: Change Is Near by Anne Paar, New Zealand
‘Change is Near’ Ngarunui Beach – Raglan Slow shutter drag on 35mm Porta400
#38. Nature – Bronze: Infrared Views of Little Big Econ by Donald Kratt, United States
"Film photographs shot on Japan Camera Hunter StreetPa, Rollei Infrared, and Ilford SFX 120 format film, which all allow for filtered near infrared images. All were taken in the Little Big Econ state forest in central Florida through which the Econlockhatchee River flows."
#39. Photojournalism – 1st Place Winner: Silver Paper by Daniel Casares-Roman, Spain
"This photographic project explores an uncomfortable territory: heroin use and the lives of those who live with addiction. Rather than seeking easy impact or sensationalism, these images arise from a desire to observe and understand a reality that often remains hidden or is oversimplified by stigma."
#40. Photojournalism – 2nd Place Winner: Horizons by Volodymyr Voznyy, Ukraine
"Nearly every month, my little daughter and I would visit Boryslav, where my wife’s grandmother had lived her entire life. The incredible atmosphere of these lands interested me and made me delve deeper into its history.This is how ‘Horizons’ my series of photographs, was born."
#41. Photojournalism – Gold: Maranhão by Matteo Brivio, Italy
"Maranhão is a socially engaged analog reportage in Caxias and São Luís (Maranhão, Brazil). It portrays favela life: forgotten realities of crime, mortality, and insecurity from absent governance. Women lose husbands to bar fights; mothers, minor children."
#42. Photojournalism – Silver: The Gravity of Shadows by Diego Gasca , Mexico
"This series shows cuba during their electrical and humanitarian crisis in the summer of 2026. A beautiful culture shadowed by one of the last left-wing regimes. The darks are very dark but rays of light enter through the cracks of this wounded society."
#43. Photojournalism – Bronze: Dire Straits – ‘Singing In The Rain’ by Brian Cassey, Australia
"Dire Straits performed a legendary outdoor concert in Cairns on April 4, 1986, as part of their Brothers in Arms world tour. The weather caused havoc. Tropical rains swept the stage throughout, completely drenching the instruments, equipment and the band members."
#44. Technique – 1st Place Winner: Good Gravy! by Carlos Del Rio-Bermudez, Spain
"Welcome to ‘GOOD GRAVY!’, a fine dining experience where photography meets the culinary arts. Through +5 years of meticulous experimentation in the kitchen and in the darkroom, this ongoing project focuses on the manipulation of 35mm photographic film using food products and cooking techniques, resulting in brewed, boiled, fried, baked, cured, and fermented images (including the first-ever sourdough bread film)."
#45. Technique – 2nd Place Winner: Sotto Gli Alberi Di Gelso/Under The Mulberry Trees by Giuseppe Riccardi , Italy
"The Montecalvario neighborhood is part of Naples’ historic center, an area of the city that has undergone significant urban and social transformations over the centuries. Living in a place like this, with its typical exotic flavor, means going far beyond the folkloric color that comes with today’s touristification."
#46. Technique – Gold: Frida En Fleur by Olivia Mazzola , Italy
"The project " Frida en fleur" was born out of my collaboration with Italian actress Adele Cammarata and her striking resemblance to Frida Khalo and my love for flowers. " I paint flowers so they will not die"- Frida en Fleur reinvents the timeless spirit of Frida Khalo through a series of Polaroid portraits."
#47. Technique – Bronze: Atmosphere by Bridget Conn, United States
"This series is an ongoing exploration of the chromoskedasic sabatier process. “Chromo” for short, chemistry is applied before the print is fixed to change the physical shape of silver halide particles. The result is the presence of color and silvering into the typical black and white print."
Frequently Asked Questions:
What are the Analog Sparks Awards?
The Analog Sparks Awards are a photography competition that celebrates analog photography and recognizes talented photographers. It honors exceptional film-based images across different categories, highlighting creativity, visual storytelling, and the enduring beauty of traditional photographic techniques.
What makes the 2026 Analog Sparks Awards special?
The 2026 Analog Sparks Awards celebrates outstanding photographers whose images demonstrate the artistic possibilities of film photography. Selected entries received prestigious titles and honorable mentions, recognizing remarkable creativity, technical skill, and the unique visual qualities that make analog photography so compelling.
How are the Analog Sparks Awards winners selected?
A professional judging panel carefully evaluates every submitted photograph. The judges assess the entries and identify exceptional work worthy of awards and honorable mentions, celebrating photographers who demonstrate strong artistic vision, thoughtful composition, and effective visual storytelling.
Will the 2026 Analog Sparks Awards winners have their work exhibited?
Yes. According to the awards organizers, the Photographer of the Year, Discovery of the Year, and first-place winners in professional and amateur categories will have their photographs showcased in prestigious European galleries, offering their work wider recognition and exposure.
Why is analog film photography still popular today?
Analog photography remains popular because of its distinctive grain, beautiful tonal qualities, tactile process, and element of unpredictability. Many photographers appreciate the slower, more deliberate approach to making images, which encourages thoughtful composition, patience, experimentation, and meaningful visual storytelling.
