Female in Focus x Nikon 2025
The winners of the Female in Focus 2025 competition have been announced, showcasing exceptional work on this year’s theme, On the Cusp. The contest, which is hosted by the British Journal of Photography in partnership with Nikon, aims to amplify the voices of women and non-binary photographers worldwide.
This year’s edition awarded two projects and 21 single images that explore concepts of transition, whether personal, cultural, environmental or technological. The winning images were selected from thousands of submissions. They will be exhibited at the 10 14 Gallery in London from April 24 to May 29, followed by the International Centre for the Image in Dublin from September 10 to October 25.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate this year’s Female in Focus winners, whose work brilliantly captures the spirit of being ‘On the Cusp,'” said Ruby Nicholson, Senior Communications Manager, Nikon Northern Europe. “I’ve been particularly struck by the playful rebelliousness threaded through so many of the images, each one offering a bold and thoughtful perspective on liminality. It’s a privilege for Nikon to support an award that spotlights the extraordinary talent of female and non-binary photographers, and we’re incredibly proud to help amplify their voices on a global stage.”
You can see the entirety of the winning series, along with all of the winning images at the contest website.
Winning series: New Scramble by Giya Makondo-Wills
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Photographer: Giya Makondo-Wills
Series title: New Scramble
Project details: In 2017, data overtook oil as the world’s most valuable commodity. The work sits in the void between departure of information and arrival in a server. The space between night and dawn, the air that falls between the lips of the storyteller and ear of the receiver, the abyss that we must cross when the old world is dying and the new one is not yet born.
South Africa’s tech industry is booming. New Scramble documents the proliferation of data centres by global giants, including Microsoft and Google. Partly set in Gauteng, it documents how these centres, symbols of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, strain local infrastructure and natural resources, provoking ecological and ethical crises. Every day, 6-8 million people go without electricity, and 14 million have no safe drinking water. One data centre can consume as much daily water as 3,000-6,000 people and the equivalent energy of 400,000 people. Water to entire neighbourhoods stops at 7 pm, including those where my family lives. A data centre is cooled. Hundreds go without power. Centres keep running.
Extraction also grabs the intangible – thoughts, feelings, likes, dislikes, habits – as we search, scroll. Once, stories helped us make sense of mystery and disaster. Today they’re stored, commodified. In this work, I reference ancestral practices, folklore, and creation stories, consider how narratives transform in fibre optic sub-sea cables and over-heating servers – travelling from the intangible to the physical and back.
It spotlights data mining as fuel for modern capitalism, replicating historic colonial appropriation, extracting value, erasing origins. It shows that data sovereignty and ownership are critical. How we communicate is changing – if we don’t own the channels we use to communicate, we don’t own the stories, language, identity, culture. What are the implications of this in 100 or 200 years? Could it erase our history, culture? The work is narrated by a letter to my Gogo (grandmother) where I share these concerns.
Female in Focus 2026 © Giya Makondo-Wills
Winning series: The Other Battlefields by Laetitia Vançon
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Photographer: Laetitia Vançon
Series title: The Other Battlefields
Project details: “The Other Battlefields” explores the profound imprint of war on Ukrainian youth, offering a glimpse into what it means to grow up and live in a country at war, more than three years after the Russian invasion.
The years of youth are normally synonymous with widening horizons, the weaving of friendships, and the promise of adventure. But for many young Ukrainians, those expectations have been shattered, replaced by fear, loss, depression, and exile.
This visual narrative unveils fractured lives and dimmed dreams, yet also a fierce resilience that pushes back against the surrounding darkness. Each image is a fragment, part of the many individual stories I have been following over the long term. These stories themselves are part of a broader mosaic, reflecting the hopes and realities of a wounded nation.
It was in June 2022, in Odesa, that I fully realized the importance of documenting this sacrificed generation. Young graduates, deprived of their commencement ceremony for obvious security reasons, transformed their frustration into a spontaneous art performance, later sharing it on social media to show the world what they had lost and what they were enduring. That poignant moment revealed the urgency of bearing witness and preserving their stories.
The visible scars are only part of the narrative. Beneath the surface lie other wounds, invisible yet profound, that testify to a war also fought within the soul. These battles, whether close to or far from the frontlines, are those of freedom, dignity, reconstruction, and hope. Together, they draw the many contours of a conflict that is irreversibly shaping Ukrainian youth and its future.
Female in Focus 2026 © Laetitia Vançon
Single image winner: Ana Flores
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Photographer: Ada Marino
Image title: Paterfamilias
Caption: This image is part of Paterfamilias series. Paterfamilias is an autobiographical project, exploring the theme of oppression in the domestic sphere, bringing to light the consequences of deteriorated relationships in male-dominated families. The project narrative stirs memories by virtue of its rawness. Feelings and resentments, as the fruit of this experience, work to raise awareness of a deviant cultural aspect that continues to demean the dignity of women. The images are wrapped in a form of surrealism that elevates and makes tangible the sense of conflict, frustration and tension of an unsafe refuge. The project aims to capture manifestations of female sentiments such as resilience, awareness and the desire to emerge, commenting on silent social phenomenon yet one of destructive and disruptive forcefulness.
Female in Focus 2026 © Ada Marino
Single image winner: Ana Flores
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Photographer: Ana Flores
Image title: Claudia, Darleine, Marthe, Victorie and Maryline
Caption: This image is from my series called “Je te connais de demain” (I know you from yesterday). I photographed Claudia, Darleine, Victoire, Marthe, and Maryline during my recent trip to Togo in May. It was a special moment; these women are part of the community that my dearest friend and photographer Delali Ayivi supports through her work, and being welcomed into her world, her homeland, was a rare and meaningful experience.
This series is an exploration of intimacy: of the profound love, care, and empowerment found within female relationships. It speaks to the spaces where vulnerability is shared freely, and where collective care becomes a force for survival and transformation. It is a tribute to those bonds, nurturing spaces we build for one another, and the quiet gestures and rituals that sustain us and lay the groundwork for growth. Love, in this context, is an act of deep presence and mutual recognition. It’s about holding space for one another’s full selves, for pain and healing, confusion and clarity alike. This series highlights the quiet strength of care, the depth of companionship, and the resilience that emerges in safe spaces. It sees love as something active and lived, not abstract or idealised, but present in the smallest details of our connections. The title evokes a sense of timeless, intuitive connection. It speaks to recognition beyond time, a connection so strong it feels predestined. In this context, it reflects how deep friendships or sisterhoods feel both familiar and forward-carrying, as if we’ve always known each other, and will continue to.
This image represents the care we offer one another, the small moments of love, support, and shared growth. We’re all in transition, moving from one version of ourselves to the next. As friends, as women, as chosen sisters, our evolution is shared. The space we hold for each other is a gift. It allows us to question, unlearn and heal.
Female in Focus 2026 © Ana Flores
Single image winner: Andrea Marti
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Photographer: Andrea Marti
Image title: Crush
Caption: Crush is the second chapter in a larger body of work composed of staged images of couples kissing. The series adopts a pseudo-documentary approach, blurring the boundaries between reality and construction. Through stylized compositions and character-driven narratives, Crush explores the intersections of intimacy, identity, and performance, drawing inspiration from fantasy, fleeting encounters, and desire.
Female in Focus 2026 © Andrea Marti
Single image winner: Angela Cappetta
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Photographer: Angela Cappetta
Image title: Unbraiding
Caption: Glendalis’ sisters unbraid her hair as she does her homework.
Female in Focus 2026 © Angela Cappetta
Single image winner: Anna Zeigler
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Photographer: Anna Zeigler
Image title: Mama´s rebirth
Caption: My mother, a couple of months after her stem cell transplantation procedure. She suffers from PPMS. After trying numerous other treatments, her last hope to hold off the deterioration of the nerve cells for as long as possible was to undergo an autologous stem cell transplantation. And as spring hit, I thought it was the perfect time to celebrate her new birth with a portrait shoot to celebrate her bravery, perseverance and will to fight.
Female in Focus 2026 © Anna Zeigler
Single image winner: Cybele Malinowski
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Photographer: Cybele Malinowski
Image title: Deep Fake – Cher
Caption: Annika, a Swedish singer and dancer, has constructed an entire career around inhabiting Cher–transforming her voice, body, and identity into one of pop culture’s most enduring icons. In this frame from DEEPFAKE, we encounter her on all fours outside a suburban Las Vegas house, a position of vulnerability that strips away the goddess-like power Cher embodies. The image confronts us with uncomfortable questions: Who is performing for whom? What psychological space does Annika occupy when she’s neither fully herself nor fully Cher?
This moment captures the profound displacement at the heart of celebrity
impersonation. Annika has dedicated her life to perfecting another woman’s voice,
mannerisms, and image–a cultural labor that simultaneously erases and elevates her own identity. The suburban setting amplifies this dissonance; Cher exists in our imagination as glamorous, untouchable, yet here she kneels on ordinary pavement in anonymous American sprawl.
DEEPFAKE interrogates how identity becomes transferable currency in late capitalism. Annika’s body is both canvas and commodity–she has monetized her ability to disappear into someone else. The work asks: what remains of the self when your livelihood depends on its erasure? In documenting these performers, DEEPFAKE reveals the psychological cost of living as perpetual simulacrum, where authenticity becomes increasingly elusive.
Female in Focus 2026 © Cybele Malinowski
Single image winner: Esther Nsapu
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Photographer: Esther Nsapu
Image title: The heirs of silence
Caption: In Burundi, many women keep their hair naturally curly, not because it is fashionable,but out of necessity, simplicity, and loyalty to who they are. They tell me that all they have to do is wake up, comb their hair, put on a little pomade, and the day can begin. Whether they go to the market, home, or the fields, their hair accompanies them like an extension of themselves, without artifice.
In a country where poverty affects the majority of the population, maintaining natural hair becomes a way of living within one’s means. Hair relaxers, wigs, and salons are often too expensive or inaccessible. But it’s not just a question of money: it’s also a way of staying close to traditions, showing simplicity, and honoring beauty in its truest form.
Female in Focus 2026 © Esther Nsapu
Single image winner: Fran Rowse
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Photographer: Fran Rowse
Image title: Rae – ‘Cornish Maids’
Caption: The project Cornish Maids is an ongoing photographic series by photographer Fran Rowse. Offering a window into the lives and dreams of women and girls in the Southwest, her work confronts social constraints, feminism, and new contemporary ideas of Cornish culture. Rooted in both documentary and dress-up, she begins conversations about female ambition and empowerment in a county that quietly suffers from poverty, financial crisis, and marginalised rural communities.
“Cornish Maids” – a local phrase for women and girls – presents a series of intimate
portraits. Rowse explores her own sense of lost girlhood, growing up in a fishing and
farming family typical of Cornish communities. The ball gowns and tiaras create a
striking contrast against the stark Cornish backdrop, revealing the tension between
aspiration and reality for Cornish women.
By combining visual glamour with social realism, Cornish Maids reimagines
contemporary Cornish womanhood. It challenges stereotypes of rural life, offering a
powerful narrative of empowerment, pride, and belonging – deeply rooted in female experience and forging a sense of sisterhood in a historically male-dominated county.
Female in Focus 2026 © Fran Rowse
Single image winner: Jip Schalkx
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Photographer: Jip Schalkx
Image title: 4ever &ver &ver
Caption: This work is part of my ongoing research into how young people navigate a world where the boundaries between online and offline are constantly blurring, and explores how young people navigate a new social reality shaped by visibility, performance, and platform logic. Communication today is no longer just about connection, it’s deeply influenced by revenue-driven platforms and the commodification of self-expression.
A group of teenage girls lie side by side in a large bed, each wearing headphones.
While they share the same space, each seems absorbed in her own world – caught
between closeness and distance, self and others. The scene reflects the paradox of
our time: constant connection paired with quiet isolation.
Rather than critique, the work seeks to understand. It drifts through this emotional in-betweenness, observing how intimacy and solitude coexist in a generation that lives through images, sound and commerce. The soft gestures and muted tones create an atmosphere that feels familiar yet slightly detached – a reflection of how it feels to live in a world that is always visible, always performing, and still searching for
something real.
Female in Focus 2026 © Jip Schalkx
Single image winner: Karen Paz Gonzalez
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Photographer: Karen Paz Gonzalez
Image title: Damián y el espejo del lago
Caption: In the Xochimilco wetlands, Damián floats on the water in a moment of calm. He lives among the chinampas, where daily life blends with the rhythm of the lake. As his reflection envelops him, his body seems to become part of the landscape. The image seeks to portray the connection between childhood and nature, and the stillness that exists in territories where water remains a symbol of memory.
Female in Focus 2026 © Karen Paz Gonzalez
Single image winner: Kinga Wrona
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Photographer: Kinga Wrona
Image title: Mariscadoras – humans of the sea
Caption: Mariscadoras – mostly women over 40 who work as shellfish gatherers, carrying forward one of Spain’s oldest coastal traditions. For decades, they have harvested clams and cockles from the Galician estuaries (North of Spain), their rhythm bound to the sea’s ebb and flow. But the tides are shifting. Rising water temperatures, disrupted salinity, and invasive species brought by climate change are altering the balance of life in the estuaries. What once nourished their communities now demands painful adaptation and resilience.
The Mariscadoras find themselves on the cusp of transformation. Some stays and
keep working at the sea, some have left the profession, unable to sustain the growing hardships, another part of them created the collective Amar Carril and became “silent activists,” turning their daily labor into acts of resistance and education. Through their work, they fight not only for survival but for recognition – of their craft, their knowledge, and the fragile ecosystems they protect.
Female in Focus 2026 © Kinga Wrona
Single image winner: Kseniya Halubovich
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Photographer: Kseniya Halubovich
Image title: Reflection of the Past
Caption: Ukraine, Kharkiv, 20 km from the frontline. Alla lives in a hospice for displaced people from occupied or dangerous areas. She is already struggling to stay oriented in reality, but she loves to talk about her family.
Female in Focus 2026 © Kseniya Halubovich
Single image winner: Laila Seiber
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Photographer: Laila Seiber
Image title: Gaza remains in our hearts
Caption: Ahmed, Aseel, Samar and Joudi, four siblings from Gaza City, have found refuge in Cairo. Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, more than 100,000 Palestinians have fled to Egypt. However, without residency status, the siblings cannot attend school or work. As they try to cope with this new situation and learn online, their thoughts are often with those left behind in Gaza. They miss their home and have lost loved ones due to attacks from the Israeli military. More than 70.000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7th 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It is estimated that 80% of them are civilians.
Female in Focus 2026 © Laila Seiber
Single image winner: Laila Sieber
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Photographer: Laila Sieber
Image title: Anna
Caption: Even though Anna can’t speak, you can tell when she’s relaxed. My niece Anna loves to be bathed. In this photo, she is four years old, but she will always need round-the-clock care, more than a baby would. Six weeks after her birth, an infection damaged large parts of her brain, meaning she will never be able to see, hear, eat, talk or walk like other children. My sister and her family integrate her into every part of their lives, which is often a difficult journey requiring all their dedication, and sometimes isolating them from society. Any illness can be life-threatening for Anna, so they try to protect her while also taking care of their other two children’s needs. Anna’s story reminds us daily of the fragility of life. Above all, however, it demonstrates the power of unconditional love and how it can make life worth living, even when it is very different from what we might expect.
Female in Focus 2026 © Laila Sieber
Single image winner: Lina Maria Sanchez
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Photographer: Lina Maria Sanchez
Image title: Ilhan
Caption: This photo was taken from my project “Ilhan”, in which I portray Ilhan, a non-binary Muslim person in Buenos Aires, who kindly and respectfully allowed me to photograph them wearing their mother’s wedding dress and their trans hijab on an autumn day. I feel a deep affection for this project because it allowed me to connect and see another way of looking at the world.
Female in Focus 2026 © Lina Maria Sanchez
Single image winner: Nayra Aly
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Photographer: Nayra Aly
Image title: Baba – ﺑﺎﺑﺎ
Caption: This photograph is part of my hybrid memoir, “Longing for belonging,” which reflects my evolving relationship with my father. His long absence during my childhood left me grieving a presence I feared losing altogether, shaping a distance between us. Today, we’re learning to rebuild as two adults. His traditional Egyptian thawb contrasts with my jeans and white t-shirt, embodying generational divides: between tradition and modernity, presence and absence, and the complex ways love is understood
Female in Focus 2026 © Nayra Aly
Single image winner: Oda Fjellang
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Photographer: Oda Fjellang
Image title: Whale belly in ice
Caption: This whale died in the fjord of Oslo and floated up to the surface just at the same time as the ice trapped it. It stayed in that position for months. In pre-industrial times, whales in the fjord were normal and a big source of food for humans, but these days it´s almost a death sentence when big animals enter the fjord because the fjord itself is slowly dying, so there is less and less food there for the animals to eat, and more and more pollution, noise and ships.
Female in Focus 2026 © Oda Fjellang
Single image winner: Olivia Morgan
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Photographer: Olivia Morgan
Image title: When It’s All Said N Done II
Caption: There is tension, there is ease, there
are these moments in between where
time is lost and the word masculinity
and femininity don’t easily exist,
there is only gentility and care
moments where we feel bare and full
all at the same time! When it’s all
said and done we just screaming and
reaching to be felt, reaching for
some sense of our unbiased selves,
pure and enthralled in love
Female in Focus 2026 © Olivia Morgan
Single image winner: Paloma Gonzalez
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Photographer: Paloma Gonzalez
Image title: Kid’s Birthday Party
Caption: The image is part of an ongoing series about memories, personal history and grief. My mom died a year ago and the series was born as a way to process the loss and grief, while celebrating our shared history by constructing characters using familiar objects.
Female in Focus 2026 © Paloma Gonzalez
Single image winner: Rayna Carruthers
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Photographer: Rayna Carruthers
Image title: A Mother’s Care
Caption: In their tent in the informal settlement of Amsha camp, Bushra takes trash from her son, who helps her prepare lunch for the family. The shelter was built by Bushra and her husband, with help from other camp residents. Bushra had worked for the past 12 years at a local refugee educational centre, a job that allowed her to provide for her family. But as Syrians are now being encouraged to return and the centre has shut down, she has lost her income. With rising challenges to pay for food, rent, and other essentials, the family is preparing to return to Syria soon.
Female in Focus 2026 © Rayna Carruthers
Single image winner: Teva Cosic
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Photographer: Teva Cosic
Image title: Untitled (tillsammans och isär/together and apart)
Caption: A portrait of my mother and me. Together and apart, obscured by the paper that we are also breaking through, a small gesture to the hidden and the visible.
From my ongoing body of work, Tillsammans och Isär (together and apart), which contemplates the nature of home and how our cultural inheritances shape the ways we navigate what it means to belong. Responding to my own mixed Swedish heritage, the work negotiates between memory and fabulation. It seeks to address the intimate strangeness of being both at home and removed from it.
Female in Focus 2026 © Teva Cosic