Best of 2021: Budapest International Foto Awards Have Announced Their Winners (20 Pics)

Budapest International Foto Awards (BIFA) is an international competition and photography community that recognizes and rewards the best talents from all around the world. BIFA accepts entries from photographers of all levels and genres. The competition allows artists to share their skills and talents, as well as showcase their worldview through a camera lens.

#1 The Persistence Of Family. 2nd Place, Fine Art

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“By compositing together old and new family photographs, this series enables generations to reach each other across time. Driven by personal longing, the images make real those things I hold dear. But in doing that, they address universal experience, interrogating the way in which family relationships and history play a role in shaping our sense of ourselves and our place in the world. They suggest that the present, in each of us, contains both the past and the future. This series portrays the layered process of becoming, and the complex interweaving of time, place, and identity.”

Photograph: Diana Cheren Nygren

#2 Black Eye. Growing Up Travelling. 2nd Place, Book

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“Growing up Traveling is a collection of images of the truths and lives of the Irish Traveller children growing up in the caravans on the sides of the road throughout Ireland, with words from the children themselves, who long to be understood, and just treated as humans. I aim to have this book show these beautiful children how they are and who they are and to open up their world for better understanding that a child is a child and should be loved and respected for who they are.

Jamie’s passion for faces of the next generation has been a lifelong focus. She has traveled the world capturing images of children and childhood around the globe. From Laos to Cuba, from the Amazon to Mongolia and around the world and back, she has found a universality in the world of children and her passion grows stronger with each new adventure. The lifestyles, cultures and traditions of growing up around the world are closely examined in her photos and each connection she makes with her young new subjects creates lifelong friendships.”

Photograph: Jamie Johnson

#3 Cocoons. Concrete And Steel. 1st Place In Architecture

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“A series of buildings in Europe in different shapes, form and textures.”

Photograph: Gino Ricardo

#4 Drying Dried Persimmons. 2nd Place, Advertising

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“Every autumn is the harvest season of persimmons. Rural women are busy harvesting and making the remainders into dry cakes. The series of photos show the women’s spirit of enduring hardships and hard works.”

Photograph: Yu Ling Ho

#5 Tears For George Floyd. Gold In Editorial, Political

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“At a Black Lives Matter protest in Cairns, Australia, US citizen Hermela Bealfan cries as she lies on the ground for eight minutes and 46 seconds – the time it took police officer Derek Chauvin to kill George Floyd by kneeling on his neck in Minneapolis. Cairns residents came out in their hundreds not only to protest against Floyd’s murder but also the Australian indigenous death toll ‘in custody’ – at the time 432 since 1991.”

Photograph: Brian Cassey

#6 Tartan Army Descend On London For Euro 2020, Silver In Editorial/General News, Professional

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“Drunken Scottish football fans in the west end of London to celebrate Euro 2020. Thousands of Scottish fans headed to Leicester Square, where they wore their country’s shirts, kilts, waved flags and set off smoke bombs ahead of watching the match against England which ended in a 0-0 draw, enough to keep Scotland in the tournament. Supporters had been urged not to travel to London unless they had a ticket or had organised somewhere to watch the game.”

Photograph: Jeff Gilbert

#7 Pasola – A Sumbanese Sporting Tradition. 1st Place, Events

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“Heralded by the arrival of the nyale, mythically revered sea worms, the Sumbanese celebrate a spectacular spear fight on horseback at the end of each rainy season. Pasola, a war ritual played to celebrate the rice planting season. Captured in 2020 @ Sumba Barat, Indonesia.”

Photograph: Wolfgang Weinhardt

#8 Forest Fire. Gold, Editorial/General News

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“A child inside a car near a forest fire in Oliveira de Frades, northern Portugal, 7 September 2020. This forest fire mobilised 327 firemen, 103 land vehicles and eight airplanes.”

Photograph: Nuno André

#9 I Was My Husband. 1st Place, Book & Best New Talent, Non-Professional

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“Modern Indian society seems to be not able to modify some aspects belonging to the most orthodox Hindu culture, according to which a widow no longer has any right or social utility, and loses her identity when the husband dies. Kicked out of houses, they are banned from all social moments of life. A phenomenon that crosses all social classes, doubly enclosed within the walls of the ashrams and the cultural prisons of a society that prefers to make them invisible rather than questioning themselves.”

Photograph: Valter Darbe

#10 Migrant Girls Mourn. 1st Place, Editorial

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“Two migrant girls mourn during clashes between refugees and riot police on the Greek Island of Lesbos on February 3, 2020 in Mytilene, Greece. Refugees protested against the terrible conditions in which they lived inside the Moria refugee camp. Moria was the largest refugee camp in Europe, providing temporary shelter to around 20,000 asylum seekers before the fires and its final abandonment in September 2020.”

Photograph: Ivan Romano

#11 Hope… Leprosy. 2nd Place, Editorial

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“In March 2020, I was on a volunteering trip in Congo, Kimpese. Here is a leprosy colony… Leprosy can be cured if discovered in time, but unfortunately many do not notice in time. Gabriel is already 75 years old, he has lived here 20 years. Still hoping, many were healed and gone. But unfortunately society excludes them, they think evil spirits have invaded them. Who is denied. There is hope for recovery, but there is no hope of being welcomed back into their family.

I am 32 years old, Hungarian woman. I was born and raised in Romania. I am a passion traveller, during my travels I look for people’s real face, life, past, future… I connect all my travels with volunteering… so my main goal is helping.”

Photograph: Emese Balázs-Fülöp

#12 Universe During Pandemic. 2nd Place, Science, Professional

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“I have spent a year capturing all these mysterious and beautiful images of the universe, including galaxies and nebulas. Every image was shot for at least 25 hours, which means multiple nights per final image. Most of the images were taken at a dark site located in west Texas. Every night I watched the stars while my equipment is working, it makes me think of how tiny we are as human beings, and how little colour and luminosity we can perceive with our eyes.”

Photograph: Zixiong Jin

#13 You Are My Mother. 1st Place, Portfolio, Professional

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“As the Covid pandemic rolled over the world, many of us found ourself going back to basics and spending more times with our families. Angelika started photographing her project in April 2020, while in complete lockdown in South Africa, because she wanted to document beautiful emotional healing she witnessed between a mother and her adult daughter. She started exploring the same ‘story’ in other mother/child connections, examining the impact it had on her own family life and on her audience.”

Photograph: Angelika Kollin

#14 Born Of Fire. 1st Place, Nature, Professional

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“During my expedition to the volcanic area of Fagradalsfjall in southwestern Iceland, it was the first photo just after the first contact with lava and the ubiquitous poisonous gas. Volcanoes are a rare opportunity to observe the complete transformation of the landscape. Places that were only recently valleys and meadows became hills, craters and lava fields. Being there was a great experience.”

Photograph: Filip Hrebenda

#15 As Time Stood Still. 1st Place, Fine Art

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“Diary of a photographer during the London lockdowns in 2020. Not being able to walk the streets to produce my usual work, I decided to turn the camera on to myself and explore my feelings, my insecurities, my hopes and my fears. The camera gave me a purpose during this very uncertain time and the creation of this project became a very psychotherapeutic process.

Margarita Mavromichalis has spent her life living and traveling around the world. She speaks five languages and likes to think that photography is her second language, as it is universal, one that is understood by all and conveys messages in a most powerful way. Margarita is attracted to street photography and the elements that evoke emotions and surprise in our everyday life. Furthermore, she is passionate about documenting current events that she feels strongly about, highlighting their social impact. Award-winning photographer, her work has been displayed in exhibitions worldwide.”

Photograph: Margarita Mavromichalis

#16 People Of Tundra. 1st Place, People, Professional

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“In the far north of Russia, on the Taymyr peninsula, indigenous peoples continue to live according to the traditional way of life. They wander from place to place with their herds of deer. They spend all year in the tundra from birth to ripe old age, except for the time when children leave to study in boarding schools. It was surprising for me to learn that they are not hostages of the situation, they have a choice. Many families have apartments in settlements, but they do not want to live in them – choosing to roam the endless expanses.”

Photograph: Yulia

#17 Change The Conversation. 2nd Place, People, Professional

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“I grew up being called a midget by friends and family, who believed it was endearing to call me so. But as a result, I have battled with the concept of beauty, self-love and appreciation of myself beyond my physical appearance for all of my life. When my eight-year-old daughter came back home to ask if she is beautiful, it hit me the most. Changing the Conversation is a personal series that speaks of beauty as not a bondage but a concept that frees you. Beauty is not this or that; pretty or ugly. Beauty exists beyond binaries.”

Photograph: Sujata Setia

#18 Unyielding Floods. Gold, Editorial/Environmental, Professional

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“Floods in South Sudan have triggered food insecurity across the country. About 1.3 million children suffer from acute malnutrition, exacerbated by the spread of malaria and drinking water made unsafe by the floods, which have affected a million people since July 2020. Jonglei state is at the heart of the devastation. This project documents the devastation on three levels: natural disaster, food insecurity and loss of dignified living.”

Photograph: Peter Caton

#19 Our Past. Photographer Of The Year, Book, Professional

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“The history of the Soviet Union is a clear example of how propaganda shapes the worldview, values and way of life of a person. We, who were born in the Soviet Union, sincerely believed in the values that we were inspired in early childhood. And only during perestroika [the reformation movement] we discovered the Other World.”

Photograph: Svetlana Melik-Nubarova

#20 The Ocean Color Canvas. Silver, Nature

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“This is the submerged forest in Lake Shusenko. Lake Shusenko is so beautiful.”

Photograph: Hirotaka Shindo