The Vibrant Winners of the 1839 Awards 2025 Color Photography Contest
The vibrant winners of the 2025 Color Photography Contest by the 1839 Awards celebrate a veritable rainbow of hues and genres.
The 1839 Awards, run by the Creative Resource Collective (CRC), is named after the year that photography as a medium was first made widely available to the public. The CRC hosts a series of competitions for photographers with the 1839 Color Photography Contest, centered around the art of color photography.
“This year’s honorees offer a stunning display of global creativity, technical ability, mastery of the medium, and storytelling prowess. From homages to art history to portraits of places far beyond the beaten path, these images exemplify what photography can do and be today, illustrating the medium’s enduring and unique power and influence on contemporary culture,” CRC writes.
“From Palestine to the American West, Morocco to the depth of the oceans, these images allow viewers to explore the world, and each winning image is a bold declaration of vision and talent.”
The competition honorees were selected by judges from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Phaidon Press, Vanity Fair, Artsy, University of Zurich, Dwell, Christie’s, and others. The CRC shared that judges looked for images that would unlock emotion in the viewer, challenge perceptions, and provide a glimpse into entirely new realities.
To offer fair opportunity to professionals and enthusiasts alike, the competition was broken into two sections, one for professionals and the other for non-professionals, with subcategories for subject matter ranging from animals to conceptual.
Artist: Nicola Fioravanti
IG Handle: @hacklabo
Entry Title: Morocco, Sentimental Atlas
Entry Description: “This project is a heartfelt tribute to the country I hold dear. In Morocco, colors
are not merely seen, but experienced. It is also a deeply personal journey, one that seeks to
understand the land where the woman I love was born.”
Overall Contest Winner and First Place in the Professional Category went to Italian photographer based in Paris, Nicola Fioravanti, for his series Morocco, Sentimental Atlas (shown above).
“This project is a heartfelt tribute to the country I hold dear. In Morocco, colors are not merely seen, but experienced. It is also a deeply personal journey, one that seeks to understand the land where the woman I love was born,” Fioravanti says.
Fioravanti adds this achievement to his list of honors, including Sony World Photography Awards, International Photography Awards (IPA), Le Prix de la Photographie de Paris (PX3), and the ND Awards, among others.
Of his winning series, Fioravanti writes, ““Morocco, Sentimental Atlas” is a carefully curated collection of everything I have deeply loved in this extraordinary and singular country. It is a tribute to Morocco’s bold contrasts and to the boundless creative energy that courses through its landscapes, its cities, and its people. Yet beyond its vibrant surfaces, Morocco holds for me a more intimate significance. It is the birthplace of my wife, the land where her roots lie. “Morocco, Sentimental Atlas” is therefore not only a tribute, but also a personal quest: an attempt to chart the emotions that bind her memory to this place, weaving together past and present, and forging a bond that will last a lifetime. Capturing such a complex, emotional landscape called for an approach guided first and foremost by intuition. Rather than following a rigid plan, I allowed myself to be led by the natural rhythm of the places, by the atmospheres that shifted with the time of day and the changing seasons. Wandering through cities and villages, I sought to be surprised — and moved — by the everyday poetry that Morocco so generously offers.”
Artist: Diana Cheren Nygren
IG Handle: @dianacherennygrenphotography
Entry Title: Mother Earth
Entry Description: I have mounted scenes of habitation behind acrylic, set within future
landscapes shaped by climate change. Painted frames allude to Earth’s next chapter. Scenes of
human habitation set against a future post-human landscape ask whether humanity can adapt
to what is in store for the planet.
Trained art historian and American photographer Diana Cheren Nygren, from Boston, Massachusetts, won the Non-professional Overall Contest Winner and First Place for her series Mother Earth (shown above).
Nygren explains the inspiration behind her work: “The work was inspired by time spent in the US desert Southwest. Previously I had traveled primarily in Europe, on beach vacations, or to cities. Finally spending time in the Southwest had a profound impact on how I viewed our relationship to the physical being of the planet. The larger images in this series were all taken during this time. The smaller images are all from my personal archive. As the project took form I needed pictures of humans occupying and living in the world to contrast with the majestic landscapes, and I had tens of thousands to choose from since that is what I most typically focus on.”
“I have mounted scenes of habitation behind acrylic, set within future landscapes shaped by climate change. Painted frames allude to Earth’s next chapter. Scenes of human habitation set against a future post-human landscape ask whether humanity can adapt to what is in store for the planet.”
An international competition, the 1839 Awards Color Photography Contest winners gallery crosses borders and boundaries, a collection of every hue, each winning image immortalizes a story.
Artist: Jatenipat Ketpradit
IG Handle: N/A
Entry Title: TSAM · The Dance of Gods
Entry Description: A sacred Tibetan Buddhist ritual, Tsam embodies the divine battle between
good and evil. Through intricate masks, lavish costumes, and precise choreography, monks
channel wrathful deities to purify and protect. This series unveils the mystique of Mongolia’s
rarest masked dance tradition.
Artist: Abdelrahman Alkahlout
IG Handle: @abd.pix96
Entry Title: Unbroken Spirit: Worship Amid Destruction
Entry Description: A powerful scene of Palestinian civilians praying on the rubble of a mosque
destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Under a smoke-filled sky, they continue their worship in a place
once a sanctuary of peace, now reduced to ruins—symbolizing resilience amid relentless
destruction.
Artist: Xuejun Long
IG Handle: N/A
Entry Title: Journey of Life 20
Entry Description: The photo shows a group of flamingos flying over Lake Magadi in Kenya.
Once a freshwater lake, it has now become a highly concentrated salt pan that is severely
alkaline and toxic to most forms of animal and plant life – except for flamingos, which prefer to
forage on the surface.
Artist: Trina O’Hara
IG Handle: @trinaoharapainter
Entry Title: Flowers for Caravaggio
Entry Description: For seven years I immersed myself in Caravaggio’s world. I copied (in paint) his entire body of work. I made it my mission to see all of Caravaggio’s paintings in the flesh. His vision shaped mine. Now, when sunlight hits a vase of flowers, I don’t just see it, I see life through Caravaggio’s eyes.
Image credits: CRC, 1839 Awards. Individual photographers are credited in the image captions.
