The Siena International Photo Awards (SIPA) is an international photography contest for professional and amateur photographers from all over the world. They proudly consider themselves to have the “highest international participation,” with nearly 50,000 images from photographers in 130 different countries.
French underwater photographer Greg Lecoeur is the overall winner of the 2016 edition of the contest, with what the jury calls “a highly evocative photograph immortalizing marine predators hunting during the migratory period of sardines along the coast of South Africa.”
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Photo of the Year: Sardine Run
During the sardines’ migration along the coast of South Africa, all marine predators are looking for sardines! I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time to photograph their capture.
© Greg Lecoeur
Alongside Lecoeur, winners in 11 separate categories were also chosen. One of those categories was travel photography, and Leyla Emektar‘s “Strawberry Greenhouse” took this prize home. The jury praised the Turkish photographer for “immortalizing a Turkish peasant woman during the strawberry harvest, immersed in the bright colors of the greenhouses.”
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Travel Photo of the Year: Strawberry Greenhouses
To take this shot, I had to climb a relief which allowed me to include interesting, colored greenhouses located near Nazilli. To make the picture more interesting, I waited for the moment when a Turkish peasant who was working with the strawberries entered the frame.
© Leyla Emektar
The jury also handed out a silver and a bronze medal in their travel category. Those respectively went to a picture Slovenian photographer Matjaz Krivic captured in Mali, and a picture of a “floating market” in South Borneo, captured by Indonesian photographer Antonius Andre Tjiu.
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2° Classified: Boys Trainers
When we met, the boy was carrying his shoes in his hands as he couldn’t use them anymore. Traveling prepared makes a difference and with my sewing needle and dental floss, we patched them up, so that he could follow his herd.
© Matjaz Krivic
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3° Classified: Floating Market
A floating market is a market where goods are displayed and sold from boats. Floating markets are developed in places where water transportation plays an important role in everyday life.
© Antonius Andre Tjiu
And then there were honorable mentions and remarkable awards – and lots of them.
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Honorable Mention: Prayers on the Road
Devotees pray during Jumma on the Dhaka-Mymensing highway on first day of Bishwa Ijtema, the second largest religious congregation of Muslims in the world after the Hajj, organised on the banks of the Turag River, Tongi, Gazipur, Bangladesh.
© Muhammad Mostafigur Rahman
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Honorable Mention: Jodhpur Family
Colors, facial expressions, people’s posture and a studied composition make this image particularly interesting as it portrays the Bhenwa family in the city of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, and is a true representation of the living conditions in this Indian city.
© Isa Ebrahim
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Honorable Mention: Net Mending
Some Vietnamese women are engaged in carrying out their daily work of mending fishing nets in a fishing village near Bac Lieu, a coastal district located in southern Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta region.
© Hoang Long Ly
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Honorable Mention: Playing in the Sky
This is Monte Piana (2324m) in the Italian Dolomites, above the small town of Misurina during the International Highline festival. The mountain is popular with walkers, and in particular slack liners, who come to take advantage of the mountains’ numerous buttresses, suspending thin lines between the spectacular cliffs and then attempting to walk over the gaps.
© James Rushforth
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Honorable Mention: Storytelling
Some people relaxing while reclining on chairs listening to a story in a Tea House, the traditional place for Chinese socialization. In Sichuan Province, China, the Tea House still has a vital role in the daily lives of the people: people enjoy the typical slow pace of their lifestyle.
© Aimin Wang
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Honorable Mention: The Make Up
This little boy was being painted like Lord Krishna as preparation for acting in a village drama, while little Radha was looking on with intense curiosity.
© Sanghamitra Sarkar
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Honorable Mention: Relationship
The polar bear spends most of its time on land. When it gets too hot, it slowly slides into the pool and swims as if it were floating in weightlessness. Everything changes at feeding time, when the polar bear becomes very active and can be very interesting to watch.
© Alla Sokolova
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Honorable Mention: Song in Tea House
A tea plantation in Jinlu village , Yinjiang Town, Yingjiang District of Ningbo City, which is famous for its tea production in the Zhejiang Province. Among thousands of acres of high-quality, ecological tea plantations, between large waves of luxuriant green, the presence of working girls gives the scene liveliness.
© Hong Ding
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Honorable Mention: Harvest
The thousand-island lake is located in the Chunan county of Zhejiang Province and with its 1078 green islands it has the largest number of islands in one lake all over the world. Fishermen work hard together at the lakeside, while the fish gallop on the surface, a typical characteristic of this lake. The perspective of the image shows the dynamism of the fish and the joys of the fishermen.
© Changming Liu
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Honorable Mention: The Bedouin Boy
A Bedouin boy with his family and their camel. The adults are wearing the traditional Omani Khanjar, a dagger still used in official ceremonies, as well as a symbol of the country.
© Habib Alzadjali
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Remarkable Award: The Crazy Train
© Guofeng Liu
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Remarkable Award: Reine Blue Hour
© Javier de la Torre
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Remarkable Award: Nets of Life
© Jacky Wong Choon Kit
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Remarkable Award: Bask in the Sun
© Tiangong Xia
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Remarkable Award: Street
© Stefano Pensotti
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Remarkable Award: Religious Horse Benediction in Siena
© Michele Ardu
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Remarkable Award: Fisherman from Tach
© Ali Alghafri
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Remarkable Award: Cow Race
© David Wirawan
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Remarkable Award: The Huntress
© Asher Svidensky
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Remarkable Award: Living on Rubbish
© Ziaul Haque
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Remarkable Award: Pray Time
© Mohammad reaz uddin uddin
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Remarkable Award: Sandhu and his Motorbike
© Mohammad reaz uddin uddin
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Remarkable Award: Travel Prayer
© Abdur Rahman
The SIPA-contest award ceremony opened a month of events of the Art Photo Travel Festival in Siena. The Italian city will be hosting seven personal exhibitions and three collective exhibitions until November 30th, but also numerous collateral events, such as workshops, photo tours and other events. “Beyond The Lens,” the collective exhibition displaying the winning photographs of 2016 contest, is being held at the Magazzini del Sale of Palazzo Pubblico di Siena, in Piazza del Campo. Two themed exhibitions will also be held throughout the Festival, the result of a selection of the photographs competing for the Wine and Storyboard categories. The first is being held at Enoteca Italiana, in Fortezza Medicea, while the second is just a short distance away in Piazza del Campo, at the prestigious Accademia dei Rozzi building.