The 1839 Awards are named in honor of the year that the photography was first made widely available to the public. Each year, the competition celebrates photographers through different contests, including in color photography.
“These images are windows into faraway places, challenges to what the photographic image can be, and invitations to encounter the world from new, unexpected points of view,” 1839 explains. “They give us the all- too-rare opportunity to pause, to look more slowly, and to feel the world more deeply than we did before.”
Wildebeests frantically scramble to cross the Mara River during the Great Migration.
Credit: Jeff Beatty / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Amateur and professional photographers can enter 1839’s Photographer of the Year contest through September 15.
The boys play ball in front of the house that is an Afro-Brazilian place of worship.
Credit: Cesare Simioni / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Credit: Andrew Hogarth / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
This image was taken at a traditional fire festival in Japan. With a history of 800 years, the festival is held every winter to pray for good health and prosperity. Throughout the night, 6-meter-long torches burn continuously, filling the air with smoke and flame to keep the festive spirit
Credit: Emiko Monobe / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Wildfire smoke serves a purpose in nature but not often for photography. In some cases it can impart and mood, color, and effect on a landscape that can’t be replicated. Here, an almost otherworldly sun accents the layered topography and the still silence of the Wyoming wilderness.
Credit: Michael Mihaljevich / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Heading to northern feeding grounds from calving bays in Baja California, gray whale moms and their young calves hug the shoreline. Sticking close to shore in the kelp forest is a sound strategy to avoid patrolling killer whales who need deep water to successfully take down a gray whale calf.
Credit: Jodi Frediani / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Centre Pompidou Paris, 2025 Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers’ striking “inside-out” architecture of the Centre Pompidou juxtaposed with three gentlemen passers-by creates a compelling visual narrative. Harmony, scale and balance is achieved through strong
sunlight, casting blue shadows across the three curved chimneys while throwing the human element into silhouette resulting in a clean, modern aesthetic.
Credit: Jeremy C Glover / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Credit: Williams Vaughan / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Nature Study examines a constructed landscape and representation of the natural world, where architecture, commerce, and place converge in an unexpected way. Photographed in medium format with a Rolleiflex 2.8F on Kodak Portra 400.
Credit: L. Chaussee / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Big waves surfing. Winter session. Half second before incident.
Credit: Natalya Pyrogova / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
A solitary bird stands against melting ice, positioned as witness within a changing world. The image contemplates isolation, survival and the accelerating fragility of frozen landscapes.
Credit: Anne Neiwand / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Credit: Aleksandr Artemev / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
A diagonal interrupts stillness. Architecture pauses, then chooses direction.
Credit: Julia Kantor / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
Time is the only certainty within ambiguity.
Credit: Leebaeck Choi / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
In Quang Nam province in central Vietnam you can still find many people practising what is known as ru fishing. I wanted to capture something that little bit different to other photographers so asked for permission to go into his boat whilst he was inspectig his catch.
Credit: Julian Elliott / 1839 Awards, 2026 Color Photography Contest
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