30 Gorgeous Photos From Minimalist Photography Awards That Show The Power Of Simplicity

The Minimalist Photography Awards is proud to announce the winners of its seventh edition. With more than 2,600 entries and over 7,000 images submitted from photographers across 50+ countries, the 2025 awards once again highlight the remarkable creativity within contemporary minimalist photography.

This year’s title of Minimalist Photographer of the Year has been awarded to Alexandros Othonos for his moving series “Threads of Memory’s.” In this project, Othonos transforms vintage family photographs with delicate thread interventions, creating a powerful meditation on memory, time, and nostalgia. By stitching into these images, he invites viewers to reflect on the emotional weight carried within old family albums, where absence, history, and intimacy are intertwined. His series resonated deeply with the jury, standing out as a profound example of minimalist visual storytelling. For this achievement, Othonos receives the Grand Prize of €2,000.

Scroll down to see the best pictures from this year’s Minimalist Photography Awards by both amateur and professional photographers from around the world.

More info: Instagram | minimalistphotographyawards.com

#1 Fine Art, 2nd Place: Bruin Feskens, Mrbrown

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nothing is permanent
nothing is finished
nothing is perfect

i show beauty without a face
something away from lust, an expression of the moment

i believe in our strength, that we are capable of more
to free the mind and let the body create.

that a part of beauty is honesty
free from the bondage of restrictions
true creativity in a grainy silence

creating a new-old world
with the absence of disturbances

nothing is changeless
nothing is flawless
nothing is absolute

#2 Fine Art, 3rd Place: Larisa Schubert, Grace In The Dark

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Frankfurt | Shot on Fujifilm X100V

#3 Aeria, 1st Place: Nicolas Ferri, Laços

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Photograph taken in Lençóis Maranhenses, near Rogerio and Estrela, his mare. On the edge of one of the thousands of freshwater lagoons that encompass the park.

#4 Photomanipulation, 1st Place: Jerad Armijo, Lands Of Transition

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“Lands of transition”

I pray for your eye to guide me

Allow my skies to become a weeping willow devoid of color

Sprinkling figments of spectrum onto the lands of transition

Subtling my disobedient winds

Quieting my devotion to the air

Planting my spirit onto the sand

Grounding thy pigments

Eroding me to be one with earth

To break my alliance with the sky

Synesthesia colors inspired by @billieeilish , “gold wing”. Music makes see shapes and colors and i paint the colors in my post processing to highlight my synesthesia.

My most recent photograph from this year. I often relate to the sky element, but as I’m getting older I’m starting to look toward the earth element. I seem to gravitate towards uncertainty, change, and a bit of chaos in my life.

I’m trying to change that.

All and all, my colors are starting to be grounded, and I’m starting to become rooted. That is happiness to me.

#5 Open Category, 3rd Place: Florian Wurzinger, Swan

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As if out of nowhere, this curved head rose from the water and – without any warning – made the moment special.
Vienna, 7.6.2025

#6 Landscape, 3rd Place: Alexandre Brisson, Dreamscape Of Etosha

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Standing alone yet resolute, this tree becomes a guardian of Etosha’s expansive desert plains. Captured with 550mm infrared, the scene takes on a dreamlike quality, where the tree’s crown glows in soft pink against a delicate blue sky. This fine art photograph captures the essence of stillness, strength, and the surreal beauty of Namibia’s landscapes.

#7 Aerial, 3rd Place: Sebastian Wohlfeil, Suðurland

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Suðurland is a photographic homage to the abstract beauty of our planet. The series of drone photographs reveals fascinating patterns, colors and structures of the river landscapes in the south of Iceland that are usually hidden from our eyes on land. Natural river courses create abstract patterns and show a unique variety of colors due to enriched sediments. To capture the ever-changing appearance of the braided rivers, I traveled to Iceland multiple times in 2023 and 2024. Suðurland invites you to view nature as a work of art and to rediscover the hidden aesthetics of this unique landscape.

#8 Aerial, 2nd Place: Marcin Giba, Third Eye

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This photo was taken from a bird’s eye view and shows a view of a frozen lake in my hometown of Rybnik in Poland. I have been photographing this motif for several years now. I always wait with fascination for this moment when nature creates one-off forms and I am always surprised by it.

#9 Portrait, 3rd Place: Ernesto Fiorentino, Mrs Shadow

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#10 Open Category, 2nd Place: Luca Menotti, Feet

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It’s a nice day for sunbathing!

#11 Fine Art, 1st Place: Robert Bolton, Dream Land

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Lencois Maranhenses is a vast area of sand dunes and freshwater lagoons in the northeast of Brazil. In Portuguese, it means “bed sheet.” The allusion to the idea that a white bed sheet has been laid over the landscape. It is a perfect location for minimalist photography, very otherworldly. The colours emphasise pastels but with some patches of greater intensity. All these images were taken in April 2025.

#12 Open Category, 1st Place: Renzo Cicillini, Evening Peace

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When the noise of the day fades and silence settles over the lake, a cinematic calm begins to unfold. Evening Peace captures this quiet transition between light and dusk, a meditative interval where nature and humanity meet without words. Lines and a restrained palette of yellow and blue structure the scenes, rendering complexity suddenly simple. Subtle compositions invite reflection—and let peace become visible.

Photographed analog on 6×6 medium format film in Switzerland.

#13 Night Photography, 2nd Place: Kotomi Sakai, Orbit

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“Orbit” captures a fleeting alignment between the full moon and the center of a Ferris wheel. The image explores the interplay between human-made symmetry and cosmic movement. With minimal elements — dark space, lines, and a single celestial body — it creates a quiet tension between precision and impermanence. This visual alignment is both accidental and eternal, reflecting the human desire to find order in the vastness of the universe.

#14 Long Exposure, 3rd Place: Richie Johns, Branching Out

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Conditions were almost perfect for this 30-second long exposure; a dull, overcast day with light drizzle in the air gave the background a nice, soft look.

#15 Landscape, 1st Place: Martin Rak, Art Of Winter

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Snowy series from the north of the Czech Republic. It is always so thrilling when the first snowflakes start falling from the sky and the landscape becomes white and silent…

#16 Abstract, 3rd Place: Paul Lehane, Graceful Curves

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The graceful curves of this shop front canopy caught my eye whilst on holiday in Wellington New Zealand.

#17 Abstract, 2nd Place: Gianfranco Bove, Blooming

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CASTELLUCCIO DI NORCIA – ITALY An explosion of shapes, colors, and scents. Poppy flowers, lentil, chamomile, and daisy make the flowering of Castellucccio di Norcia something unique and unimaginable every year. A place that, after the terrible earthquake, has never stopped blooming.

#18 Abstract, 1st Place: Tommi Viitala, When The Angels Cry

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Street Photography from Helsinki, Finland 2023. Taken in Fujifilm X100f.

#19 Night Photography, 1st Place: William Shum, Window In The Sky

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The circular window openings create a dynamic facade against the night sky. The bright moon enhances the scene, symbolizing connection and contemplation, inviting viewers to appreciate the harmony between built environments and the natural world.

#20 Architecture, 2nd Place: Yevhen Kostiuk, Shapes Of Pools

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Shapes of Pools is a photo project that explores the geometry of swimming pools from a bird’s-eye view. Using a drone, the author captures the architectural forms and compositional features of both public and private pools, turning them into abstract visual objects. Each image reveals the unique character of a pool — from keyhole silhouettes to multifaceted shapes — emphasizing symmetry, contrast, and the play of light on the water. The project merges the aesthetics of aerial photography with graphic design, transforming familiar structures into works of art.

#21 Street, 3rd Place: Ole Arnt Thomsen, Blurry Man

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A man leans on a blurry glass wall, located in the center of Copenhagen. The blurry glass gave the whole scene a surreal and dreamy quality.

#22 Street, 2nd Place: Yongseok Chun, Crosswalk

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For a short time, the camera captured various people crossing the crosswalk.

#23 Portrait, 1st Place: Giuseppe Gradella, Past Present

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Analog photo taken with a Hasselblad medium format camera 2023

#24 Long Exposure, 2nd Place: Carsten Velten, Misty Venice

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Mist in Venice, 2024, San Giorgio Maggiore

#25 Street, 1st Place: Selaru Ovidiu, Together

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Together in Paris

#26 Conceptual, 1st Place: Alexandros Othonos, Threads Of Memory’s

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This project is also a retrospective on past times, with my own creative intervention in each photograph. Back then, things were different, and in my opinion, although I didn’t experience most of that era, there was a unique charm to it. As I searched through these photographs, I felt a deep sense of nostalgia and emotion for my family. I believe that anyone who flips through an old family album will feel the same way, experiencing the weight of time and the emotions it carries.

#27 Night Photography, 3rd Place: Axel Görlach, Hiding II

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Photographed at the Nuremberg Christmas Market.

#28 Architecture, 3rd Place: Noel Clegg , Capanne

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“Capanne” is an ongoing series studying the symmetry and geometry of the beach huts that stretch for miles along the Adriatic facing shoreline of Lido di Venezia.

#29 Long Exposure, 1st Place: Nick Green, The Shy Fishermen

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These fishing huts with their wonky lamps made for a wonderful set of images, and taken from a different perspective still show the nets, taken somewhere in Italy.