One of These 12 Photographers Will Win the 2026 Leica Oskar Barnack Award
An international jury has selected the 12 shortlisted finalists for the 46th Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA), one of the most prestigious photography prizes in the world.
The 12 finalists below were selected through an extensive, multi-stage judging process and will be presented in expanded detail over the coming weeks.
Further, for the first time, the jury also selected the winner of the newly established LOBA Women Grant. The winner of the LOBA Women Grant will have their work presented next year.
The winners of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award Main Prize, the Newcomer Award, and the LOBA Women Grant will all be announced on October 8, 2026, at an awards ceremony in Wetzlar, Germany.
The Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award is selected from photographers nominated by experts at 28 international institutions in 18 countries.
Today, only the finalists for the Main Prize are being unveiled.
The LOBA awards have recognized exceptional photographic talent annually since 1980. This year’s jury selected shortlisted photographers from a much larger pool of photographers nominated by 130 photography experts across 48 countries. Each nominator can select up to three photo series to nominate.
Without further ado, the 2026 Leica Oskar Barnack Award finalists.
2026 LOBA Main Prize Shortlist
Saher Alghorra
Palestinian photojournalist Saher Alghorra documented the war in Gaza for his series, Witnessing Gaza. This 2025 series shows scenes of scarcity and starvation, violence, and loss. Beyond the moments that made global headlines, Alghorra’s work also looks more closely at the interpersonal stories on a smaller scale that never make the news.
Todd Antony
New Zealander Todd Antony’s series, Buzkashi, delivers striking black-and-white photographs of the archaic traditions of the eponymous sport played on horseback. This sport is practiced today in Tajikistan and involves combatants fighting over a headless goat cadaver. The sport has been played for thousands of years after it was invented by nomadic horse-riding cultures in Central Asia.
Anush Babajanyan
Photographer Anush Babajanyan’s series, The Aral Sea and the Battered Waters of Central Asia, does as its name suggests and looks at the Aral Sea, which was once the world’s fourth-largest lake. The lake shrank over 90 percent because of Soviet hydro projects, creating an environmental crisis that affects Uzbek and Kazakh communities to this day. The people there have been forced to adapt, and thanks to the Dike Kokaral dam, have been able to begin recovering.
Damir Faizulin
Damir Faizulin, a Russian photographer, looks at nature and how people live alongside it in the mountainous Dagestan region. Faizulin’s series, Preserving Nature as Preserving Ourselves, grapples with how people live alongside nature, balance often conflicting goals, and carve out a new future constantly affected by the past.
William Keo
Extramuros is the work of French photographer William Keo. The series looks at the young people living in banlieues today. While the word translates to “suburbs,” these are essentially the housing projects of Paris, and the neighborhoods have long been scarred by social violence, economic crisis, and controversial government housing policies. But the banlieues are also the birthplace of incredible creativity and innovation. Keo deals with all of that and more in Extramuros.
Slava Lyu-fa
In Russia’s extreme Arctic regions, life is exceptionally difficult and even more fragile. Photographer Slava Lyu-fa points his lens at how Russia’s Arctic communities work together to survive for the series, Inner Distance.
Valery Melnikov
Another Russian photographer, Valery Melnikov, focuses on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in Mariupol: Open Wounds. Melnikov’s documentary series documents how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine devastated the city and its people. Melnikov has spent his career documenting war and conflict, including in Chechnya, Georgia, Lebanon, and Syria. He began working in eastern Ukraine over a decade ago when Russia first began military operations in Crimea.
Benedikt Renč
Czech photographer Benedikt Renč’s series, Cairo, offers a personal perspective of Cairo, Egypt’s capital city. Cairo is undergoing radical changes, and Renč says he wanted to “document the last generation to live in this raw and uncouth reality.” The photographer says Cairo will soon change beyond recognition, and he hopes his photos help preserve how the city once was.
Elliot Ross
Taiwanese-American photographer Elliot Ross’ series, A Question of Balance, documents the history of water supply in the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation in the United States. Ross considers how the water supply has been shaped by conflict between Indigenous people and settlers, droughts, and excessive water consumption by those living far off the reservation.
Annie Sakkab
Annie Sakkab is a Palestinian-Jordanian photographer who also focused on water for her series. We Used to Watch the Rivers Go By looks at how water is much more than just a resource for people.
“What began as curiosity about a resource turned into a deep dive into my own history and my heritage, a search for roots in a country shaped by centuries of change and hardship. This is not only a study of water; it is also a story about people,” Sakkab says.
David Sládek
Czechoslovakian-born photographer David Sládek, who now lives in the United Kingdom and Ireland, made the Slovakian village of Šumiac his second home nearly 20 years ago. Since then, Sládek has been photographing daily life there. His black-and-white series, People of Šumiac, presents this long-term project and how a creek in the village separates two distinct groups of people, local Slovaks and the Roma who live there. As Sládek comments, the water is not the only thing that separates these two groups of people in Šumiac.
Laila AnnMarie Stevens
American photographer Laila AnnMarie Stevens’ work, Clayton Sisterhood Project, was inspired by her desire to feel connected to her ancestors, a legacy of strong Black women. The series focuses on Stevens’ two sisters, who, along with her four nieces, moved from Queens in New York City to a shared house and plot of land in Clayton, North Caroline, to create new lives for themselves.
Winners Will Be Announced on October 8, 2026
The winners of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, LOBA Newcomer Award, and new LOBA Women Grant will be unveiled on October 8, 2026, at an awards ceremony in Wetzlar, Germany.
“The Leica Oskar Barnack Award celebrates not only exceptional photographic quality but also photography’s ability to make societal change visible and to create connections between people,” says Leica’s Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, Art Director and Chief Representative of Leica Galleries International.
“The LOBA draws attention to longstanding projects, which would not receive the visibility they deserve without this platform.”
Image creditsLeica Oskar Barnack Award. Individual photographers are credited in the captions.
