The art of travel: Siena International Photo Award

French photographer Greg Lecoeur is the overall winner of the second Siena International Photography Awards (SIPAContest). “Sardine run” is the title of the photograph chosen by the jury: a highly evocative photograph immortalising marine predators hunting during the migratory period of sardines along the coast of South Africa.

Siena International Photo Award is one of the photo contests with the highest international participation ever. 2016 edition has received nearly 50.000 images from amateur and professional photographers from 130 countries worldwide.

The Pangea Awards of Excellence to the "big" players. Several leading international photographers were also on the stage in Siena to receive the Festival's acknowledgement with the special Pangea Awards of Excellence. The awards went to Melissa Farlow and her husband Randy Olson, both photojournalists and long-time collaborators of National Geographic; she has been awarded the Pulitzer prize and he is one of only two photographers in the world to have received the title of Newspaper Photographer of the Year and Magazine Photographer of the Year; Majid Saeedi, the multi-award winning Iranian documentary maker, who is exhibiting his reportage on Afghanistan in Siena; Francesco Cito, the war photojournalist who loves the Siena Palio, and Timothy Allen, a travel photographer, but also producer and director, who has filmed some of the most unexplored corners of the Earth as the director of photography of the exciting BBC TV series, Human Planet.

The winners of the eleven categories. Norwegian photographer Audun Rikardsen won two first places, in the Wildlife category, with “Sharing Resources”, a breathtaking photograph in the Norwegian seas, face to face with a whale, and in the Sport category. “Arctic urban skiing” shows a ski jump against the polar night sky in the town of Tromsø. As a result of these two first places and a third place in the Storyboard category, Rikardsen was proclaimed the Best Author SIPAContest 2016. Another Scandinavian, Danish photographer Jacob Ehrbahn, won the Storyboard category, with a reportage entitled “Refugee stream”, capturing the emotions of a group of migrants from Syria and Afghanistan on reaching the island of Lesbos.

The colours and crafts of Vietnam are the heart of the photograph which won the Open Color category, entitled “Phan Rang Fishing Net Making”, by Malaysian photographer Danny Yen Sin Wong. The winner of Open Monochrome was Polish photographer Marcin Ryczek, with a photograph taken in Cracow, where the white snow
and the dark waters intermingle in a highly evocative image. The Travel category went to a woman. Leyla Emektar is from Turkey and her homeland is the setting of the winning photograph, “Strawberry Greenhouse”, immortalising a Turkish peasant woman during the strawberry harvest, immersed in the bright colours of the greenhouses. All the tenderness of the relationship between mother and child is captured in “Mother and son”, by Chinese photographer Jiming Lv, which won the People & Portrait category.

The force of nature, in the form of an erupting volcano, was the winner of the Nature category. This award went to an Italian photographer, Giuseppe Mario Famiani, who immortalised Mount Etna in the photograph entitled “Sensazioni, Etna in eruzione”. From the Sicilian landscape to futuristic Japanese architecture: we are in Tokyo, travelling on the Yurikamome Line. Here, with the photograph entitled “Warp Speed”, New Zealander Mike Holleman captures a glimpse of the Japanese capital which won him first place in the Architecture category.

There is a return to earth with the Wine section, awarded to Italian photographer Gianluca De Bartolo for “Joy of a farmer”, capturing the joy of a Romanian peasant after the harvest. Talented young photographers are also growing up, as demonstrated by the quality of the photographs in the Under 20 category, which was won by Mexican photographer Krishna Vr with “Ofelia”.