A breathtaking photograph capturing two ice climbers witnessing an annular solar eclipse from atop a glacier in Patagonia has won the overall professional category of the 2025 reFocus Awards Color Photography Contest. Liam Man's extraordinary image, titled "Ring of Fire, and Ice," showcases the dramatic moment when the eclipse reached annularity while the climbers summited the mighty Glacier Leones, creating a stunning contrast between the icy blue glacier and the orange hues cast by the celestial event.
The winning photograph demonstrates exceptional technical skill and artistic vision, with a drone used to illuminate the glacier's intricate textures and vibrant colors while battling fierce winds that whipped up dramatic plumes of snow glowing in the sun's rays. Man captured this remarkable image during the 2024 eclipse as part of a larger collaborative project with UNESCO, showcasing his dedication and commitment to documenting extraordinary natural phenomena. The photographer also shared a mesmerizing moving version of the image on Instagram, which has garnered significant attention from viewers worldwide.
In the non-professional division, Mohammed Alim claimed victory with his captivating photograph titled "Colors of Devotion," which depicts women in prayer at a mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia. The image showcases the beautiful patterns created by their colorful mukena, traditional prayer dresses worn by Indonesian Muslim women, forming a stunning visual tapestry of faith and unity. Interestingly, Alim initially posted the photograph on Instagram to demonstrate his camera's cropping capabilities, but growing interest in the image eventually inspired him to enter the competition.
This year's reFocus Awards Color Photography Contest attracted photographers from over 80 countries, making it the competition's most diverse and internationally representative pool of participants to date. The contest recognized winners across multiple categories in both professional and non-professional divisions, including aerial photography, portraits, street photography, nature, conceptual work, and still life images. Each winning photograph demonstrates the incredible visual impact of color photography and illustrates how the strategic use of color can transform a good image into something truly exceptional.
Among the notable category winners, Collin Blaney secured second place in the non-professional division with "Desert Oasis," capturing a stunning sunset adventure in an unusual desert location. Masoud Mirzaei earned second place overall in the professional category with "The Lake," while Uwe Schellscheidt won gold in the non-professional nature category for "The Supercell," documenting a thunderstorm that formed a supercell with a brief tornado in Texas, complete with the distinctive light blue area indicating hail formation.
The competition also highlighted powerful conceptual and portrait work, including Kristina Makeeva's gold-winning professional conceptual piece "Iranian girl," which carries the profound message that "A woman is not decoration. A woman is not a shadow. A woman is not a ghost through which one can see the environment. She should not hide in the walls of buildings." Patti Gary's "Rose Couture" in the professional still life category celebrated the elegance of aging through dried roses with petals resembling elaborate gowns in rich colors of deep magenta, blush, ochre, and seafoam.
Other standout winners included Kateryna Polishchuk's aerial photograph "Shadow basketball III" showing a basketball court with a tree in the middle from an urban park in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and Gaëtan Changeur's abstract work "Liquid Soul n7712 Extinctions," which creates dreamlike landscapes through the interaction of water, pigments, and light. Mark Sommer's film photography "Blue Swallow" captured nostalgic Route 66 imagery, documenting the historic motel's survival as a living piece of Americana that conveys the country's passing roadside culture.
The complete gallery of winners showcases the remarkable diversity and creativity in contemporary color photography, with each image telling a unique story through the strategic use of color, composition, and subject matter. From Sarah Wouters' intimate portrayal of an elephant herder and his elephant in Thailand's Ban Ta Klang village to Octavio Campos Salles' environmental documentation of caimans in a shrinking mud pool in Brazil's Pantanal during the dry season, the winning photographs span cultures, continents, and themes while maintaining the highest artistic and technical standards.
