The Winners Of This Year’s Siena International Photo Awards Have Finally Been Announced And Here Are 30 Winning Photos

The Siena International Photo Awards (SIPA) is an annual photography competition where photographers from all over the world submit the greatest images they’ve taken throughout the year. 2020 marks the contest’s six year anniversary and the organizers received tens of thousands of pictures from photographers in 156 different countries.

#1 Night Hunter (1st Place In Animals In Their Environment Category)

Image source: Jonas Classon

The great grey owl is well known for its extreme hunting skill. After working on a story about this owl for many weeks in a row, I finally got a picture that told all I wanted to show in just one frame. I captured the owl seconds before it attacked a vole under the full moon. It’s truly a hunter of the night.

#2 Mother (Remarkable Artwork In Documentary & Photojournalism Category)

Image source: Hassan Ghaedi

Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, had been involved in the war for four years. A mother, who returned home after the end of the conflict, found her child’s toy car in their destroyed house.

#3 Woman At Work (Remarkable Artwork In Fascinating Faces And Characters Category)

Image source: Azim Khan Ronnie

Vietnamese workers sit surrounded by thousands of incense sticks in Quang Phu Can, a village in Hanoi, Vietnam, where the sticks have been traditionally made for hundreds of years. Incense plays an important role in the spiritual lives of Vietnamese people. People use incense in all worship activities. The bamboo bundles are arranged on the ground on sunny days so as to dry them.

#4 Friends (Honorable Mention In Fascinating Faces And Characters Category)

Image source: Suvro Paul

Riya and Sima are two little friends who live in the tea garden region of Sylhet, Bangladesh. Their smiling faces while playing in front of their house are a reflection of their purity.

#5 Waiting For Winter (Honorable Mention In The Beauty Of Nature Category)

Image source: Martin Rak

Leaves against the silhouettes of grey beech trunks in a cold winter forest. This scene immediately caught my eye and I captured it with my telephoto lens.

#6 Stolen Childhood (2nd Place In Documentary & Photojournalism Category)

Image source: Paula Bronstein

At the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, a young rape victim named Bilati, age 3, waits for an operation to repair her vaginal area. The situation in the DRC has gotten worse with the alarming escalation of human rights violations and abuse against women and children who suffer fearing reprisals and social exclusion.

#7 Home Alone (1st Place In Architecture & Urban Spaces Category)

Image source: Attila Balogh

Only a single apartment’s windows are lit in Tsing Yi district, a densely populated area of Hong Kong, right before sunset.

#8 Frozen Mobile Home (Photo Of The Year)

Image source: Greg Lecoeur

Massive and mysterious habitats, icebergs are dynamic kingdoms that support marine life. As they swing and rotate slowly through polar currents, icebergs fertilize the oceans. Carrying nutrients from the earth, they are responsible for life blooms by developing phytoplankton and influence the carbon cycle by sequestering carbon dioxide from the air. They also thus shelter big animals such as crabeater seals that spend the entire year on the pack ice.

#9 Diogo Cancela (1st Place In Sports In Action Category)

Image source: Ian Macnicol

Diogo Cancela of Portugal is seen during practice prior to day three of the British Para-Swimming International meeting at Tollcross International Swimming Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.

#10 When Rays Fly (Honorable Mention In Animals In Their Environment Category)

Image source: Amit Eshel

A large group of Mobula Rays in the Sea of ​​Cortez. These creatures are as graceful in mid-air as they are in the water, throwing their wings like flying birds.

#11 Spanish Moss (2nd Place In The Beauty Of Nature Category)

Image source: Mauro Battistelli

Early in the morning on a November day, inside the swamp, looking for the magnificent beauty of the Spanish moss. The late autumn colors made it appear almost monochromatic and the Bald Cypress stood in the still water creating an incredible reflection in the misty atmosphere.

#12 Mother Cares (Honorable Mention In Animals In Their Environment Category)

Image source: Nachum Weiss

In the Israeli Negev desert, a Nubian Ibox looking for food is very carefully escorting her one-and-a-half-month-old puppy in a difficult and dangerous passage.

#13 Security Man (3rd Place In Architecture & Urban Spaces Category)

Image source: Martin Seraphin

It was still very early and the Maat Museum was still closed. But the guard was already walking slowly along the building. There was only a narrow path between the building and the river Tejo and my feet got wet taking this shot.

#14 Baby Orangutan Surgery (Honorable Mention In Documentary & Photojournalism Category)

Image source: Alain Schroeder

Brenda, a 3-month-old female orangutan is ready for surgery to repair her damaged humerus. Orangutans are under threat from the ongoing depletion of the rainforest due to palm oil plantations, logging, mining, and hunting.

#15 Koichi Omae (1st Place In Fascinating Faces And Characters Category)

Image source: Silvia Alessi

I met the amputee dancer Koichi Omae, originally from Osaka, on my way. At 23, when he was entering his career, a car accident took away all his dreams. He had his left leg amputated below the knee. With great willpower, he decided to continue his career as a dancer, aware that without the limb, he would have to spend much more energy not only in performing the artistic gesture, but also just walking normally.

#16 The World Is Going Upside Down (2nd Place In Animals In Their Environment Category)

Image source: Thomas Vijayan

The name orangutan means “man of the forest” in the Malay language. There are 3 varieties of Orangutan, the one in this picture is Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). Adult male orangutans can weigh up to 200 pounds. Flanged males have prominent cheek pads called flanges and a throat sac used to make loud verbalizations called long calls. They mainly feast on wild fruits like lychees, mangosteens, and figs, and slurp water from holes in trees.

#17 Taboo (2nd Place In Fascinating Faces And Characters Category)

Image source: Fattah Zinouri

I took this photo inside my home studio in Iran while I was working on a movie project about Afghan immigrants living in Iran. It was the first time that I’d witnessed someone wearing a burka in person. What struck me immediately upon seeing this woman was that I couldn’t see any part of her body except the soles of her feet as she walked. Since I captioned this photo as “Taboo,” the message I am expressing is one of rebellion.

#18 Utopia (1st Place In Under 20 Category)

Image source: Riccardo Marchegiani

I called the photo Utopia, because nowadays, in our anthropomorphized world, it’s almost impossible to see a scenario like that, an unspoiled nature in a perfect wilderness state, like it has been frozen forever in time.

#19 Desert Ice (2nd Place In Sports In Action Category)

Image source: Christian Pondella

Professional ice climber Will Gadd climbing on the remaining glacial ice on the crater of Mount Kilimanjaro. This ice wall is freestanding and looks like an iceberg emerging from the sand.

#20 Fear (Honorable Mention In Documentary & Photojournalism Category)

Image source: Dante Diosina Jr.

Detainees are terrified after one of them died due to meningococcemia at a detention center in Biñan, Laguna, the southern part of Metro Manila. Authorities also banned visitors for safety precautions.

#21 Hope (3rd Place In Documentary & Photojournalism Category)

Image source: Francis Pérez

Southwest of Tenerife, where one of the most important colonies of pilot whales lives, this 6-month-old young specimen had been hit and mutilated by a boat. The only thing left to do was to euthanize him. The traffic of ships poses a serious threat to whales worldwide.

#22 Dentist (Remarkable Artwork In Animals In Their Environment Category)

Image source: Lilian Koh

Symbiosis between a moray eel and a cleaner shrimp. This moray eel was having its routine dental checkup. The cleaner shrimps clean parasites, insects, algaes, etc. off of the eels, making them more healthy – in return, the shrimps get a free meal.

#23 La Dama Blanca (2rd Place In The Beauty Of Nature Category)

Image source: Stanislao Basileo

There are still places in the world where fortunately nature reigns. Among them are the wild cliffs of Portugal where it is still possible to observe the nesting of storks.

#24 Sisters (3rd Place In Fascinating Faces And Characters Category)

Image source: sipacontest.com

Natalya, Irina, and Tatyana are three twin sisters from the northern Russian city of Krasnoyarsk. I found out about their existence from social networks a couple of years ago and really wanted to take pictures of them. This year, I managed to do it. Three sisters, three friends, three soulmates. Their love for each other is respected.

#25 Benediction (1st Place In Journeys & Adventures Category)

Image source: Amirmahdi Najafloo Shahpar

Muslim women praying in Hamedan, Iran for Eid al-Fitr. The last day of Ramadan is celebrated by Muslims all over the word with special prayers and gatherings.

#26 In The Storm (Remarkable Artwork In Journeys & Adventures Category)

Image source: Stefano Cestari

Nenets people during a snow storm in the harsh siberian winter. In this part of the world, during winter time, temperatures can go as low as -50° and wind blows over 100km/h making these reindeer herders’ life very difficult.

#27 Death Of A Fire Victim (1st Place In Documentary & Photojournalism Category)

Image source: Mohammad Sazid Hossain

A man desperately tries to save himself during a fire that destroyed a 22-story building in Dhaka. The blaze resulted in 25 deaths and 70 injuries. The man was lowering himself by holding onto a cable, but the heat forced him to suddenly let go and he crashed to the ground.

#28 Think Different (Remarkable Artwork In Animals In Their Environment Category)

Image source: Pietro Formis

A big-scale sand smelt moving towards a moon jellyfish. To defend themselves from predators, these fish move together grouping in ever-changing forms. In this case, a single specimen appears to be making a “counter-current” decision.

#29 The Rescuers (Honorable Mention In Documentary & Photojournalism Category)

Image source: Shibasish Saha

This image was taken during the Vijay Diwas celebration in Kolkata. This day is known as the victory of the Indian Army over Pakistan.

#30 Church Ceiling Concrete (2nd Place In Architecture & Urban Spaces Category)

Image source: Barbara Schmidt

Nevigeser Wallfahrtsdom church has truly unique architecture, with this concrete ceiling that seems to be an abstraction in reality.