Captivating Portraits: Explore the Stunning Images in AAP Magazine 40

AAP Magazine is thrilled to unveil the winners of its highly anticipated Portrait Photography Competition. Selected from an impressive pool of international submissions, these 25 talented photographers have demonstrated exceptional skill in capturing their subjects' essence through portraiture.

Portrait photography is a unique and powerful medium that conveys the depth and diversity of human experiences. The winning photographs have pushed the boundaries of traditional portraiture, showcasing not just faces, but stories, emotions, and moments that resonate deeply with viewers.

This year's winners have showcased an extraordinary range of styles and techniques from intimate, candid shots to meticulously composed studio portraits. Their work captures the raw beauty of the human spirit, highlighting the individuality and shared humanity of their subjects.

Each of the 25 winners brings a unique perspective and artistic vision to the field of portrait photography. Their work spans across various themes and genres, including cultural narratives, personal stories, and abstract interpretations. The diversity in their backgrounds and approaches enriches the overall collection, making it a truly global celebration of photographic excellence.

AAP Magazine extends its heartfelt congratulations to all the winners. Their remarkable achievements are a testament to the transformative power of portrait photography. By freezing moments in time, these photographers have allowed us to look beyond the surface and connect with the deeper narratives that define us all.

The winning portraits will be featured in the upcoming issue of AAP Magazine, providing a platform for these talented artists to share their work with a broader audience. Additionally, an online gallery will showcase the winning entries, allowing viewers from around the world to experience the profound impact of these images.

24 PHOTOS

1. The Winner is Aline Smithson (United States) with the series 'Revisiting Beauty'

Captivating Portraits: Explore the Stunning Images in AAP Magazine 40
AAP Magazine is thrilled to unveil the winners of its highly anticipated Portrait Photography Competition. Selected from an impressive pool of international submissions, these 25 talented photographers have demonstrated exceptional skill in capturing their subjects' essence through portraiture.

Portrait photography is a unique and powerful medium that conveys the depth and diversity of human experiences. The winning photographs have pushed the boundaries of traditional portraiture, showcasing not just faces, but stories, emotions, and moments that resonate deeply with viewers.

This year's winners have showcased an extraordinary range of styles and techniques from intimate, candid shots to meticulously composed studio portraits. Their work captures the raw beauty of the human spirit, highlighting the individuality and shared humanity of their subjects.

Each of the 25 winners brings a unique perspective and artistic vision to the field of portrait photography. Their work spans various themes and genres, including cultural narratives, personal stories, and abstract interpretations. The diversity in their backgrounds and approaches enriches the overall collection, making it a truly global celebration of photographic excellence.

AAP Magazine extends its heartfelt congratulations to all the winners. Their remarkable achievements are a testament to the transformative power of portrait photography. By freezing moments in time, these photographers have allowed us to look beyond the surface and connect with the deeper narratives that define us all.

The winning portraits will be featured in the upcoming issue of AAP Magazine, providing a platform for these talented artists to share their work with a broader audience. Additionally, an online gallery will showcase the winning entries, allowing viewers from around the world to experience the profound impact of these images.

The Winner is Aline Smithson (United States) with the series 'Revisiting Beauty'

Aline Smithson
Lucy in Teal from the series Revisiting Beauty© Aline Smithson

Revisiting Beauty is a series inspired by portrait paintings of the twentieth century, in particular, artists such as De La Roche, Stroganov, Sargent, Whistler, and Hockney, and portraits created in the 1900s by many anonymous painters. My background as a painter also informs these photographs. This work is part of a larger project that examines connections of color, landscape, pose, and object as a way to reconsider the formal expression of the photographic portrait and give a nod to classic painterly sensibilities.

Over the last decade, photography has turned away from the ideal of beauty, as it has turned away from the wet darkroom and the idea of crafting a singular artistic print. I wanted to create a body of work that was formal and beautiful, capturing girls between the ages of 14 – 17 on the cusp of womanhood and not fully aware of their own loveliness and physical presence, revealing a tender age before they leave the familiar. I only work with people I know and seek to portray them with dignity and sensitivity. The subjects are photographed against a colorful backdrop completed with a landscape I have captured, either in China or California. The result is a feminization of the landscape and a more painterly approach to creating photographs, yet allowing the shadows and earmarks of the photograph to be revealed.

2. The Second Place Winner is Manuel Besse (France) with the series 'A Dog Day Afternoon'

This visual odyssey explores the contrasts between individuals, lifestyles, and cultures through black-and-white portraits. Conducted between New York, Los Angeles and the state of Rio de Janeiro, this ambitious project required four years of hard work, from 2018 to 2021, to gather all the images needed to create a sufficient number of diptychs. These achromatic photographs, from this series capturing human diversities and societal extremes, will soon be on display, revealing the opposites between these two Americas. Offering a profound reflection on universal themes of humanity and the richness of cultural differences, Manuel Besse's portraits transcend geographical and social boundaries, underlining the importance of human plurality and interconnectedness.

3. The Third Place Winner is Simon Martin (United Kingdom) with the series 'The Story of Stoney Sleep

Taken from the creation of 'What Rough Beast', a documentary exploring the talent and drug-fueled story of the 90s grunge band Stoney Sleep. Shian, now residing in a superfans home in Essex, poses for a portrait after a long day on set.

4. MERIT AWARD RECIPIENTS
Alena Grom (Ukraine)

Diana hoped that the large-scale offensive would soon stop quickly, but events unfolded at lightning speed. Soon Diana saw a red glow from the side of Gostomel because of the fires. The girl decided to leave Borodyanka for the village to her grandmother. At first, it was calm there, but Diana felt anxious.
Russian troops entered Borodyanka. There began active hostilities. Several high-rise buildings were destroyed by aerial bombs, people were trapped under their debris, most of them died. Diana constantly followed the events. Soon the war reached her village. The girl found herself in the epicenter of war events. The Russians approached the village, and behind the village, Ukrainian troops maintained defense. The fire came from two sides. On March 8, Diana and her mother were able to evacuate to the Lviv region. Due to severe stress, Diana’s body failed and the girl was hospitalized. She often remembers the spring of 2022. Each time these memories open an unhealed wound that will hurt for a long time.
Photo: Ukraine. Borodyanka. Winter 2023.

Stolen Spring
I live in Bucha and work in Irpin. After the Russian occupation, these cities were destroyed. The military landscape has become my reality and routine. Every day I see people who are restoring their cities and their personal lives from the ruins, and looking into the future. I created a series of photographs in a historical dialogue with images by Polish photographer Michael Nash, who captured how the photographer used a decorative backdrop to mask the ruins of Warsaw during World War II in 1945-1946. The heroes of my photographs are women who became victims of Russian aggression.
The occupation continued in the spring, people who survived this tragic period did not notice how spring passed, how chestnuts and lilies of the valley bloomed, birds flew in. They were deprived not only of their homes, loved ones, work, and health but also part of their lives. IDPs from Donbas and Crimea have a second tragic spring. A stolen spring is a stolen life. Each photo is a personal tragedy, but it is also a life-affirming story of a survivor, a hope that Ukraine will rise from the ruins.

5. Yukio Kumada (Japan)

For me, photographing my wife and photographing other subjects have the same value; both are important moments that reflect my perspective and intuitive feelings.

6. Sandy Hill (United States)

After a tumultuous year filled with isolation and conflict, I decided to search for the innocence and optimism that I’ve always associated with our country, even as we hold different views, beliefs, or backgrounds. I found signs of this in the joy of yards adorned with unique decorations. The many different perspectives on what constitutes beauty or humor continue to intrigue and draw me to a door to find out who lives or works there. Rarely have the residents turned down my request for a quick portrait, and they stand with dignity and pride, humor or mystery, near a fictional world created for us to enjoy.
I intended to avoid judgment. Rather I felt the need to search for a connection to people who share my country, and regardless of beliefs, views or background chose to celebrate life during a pandemic and beyond.
This work was inspired by a desire to renew my hopes and optimism for our country by looking beyond the headlines and finding a positive commonality. It is also my hope that these photographs can perhaps help us realize that we can find connections even during times that seem to be driving us apart.

7. Diego Fabro (Brazil/Ireland)

My fascination lies in the concept of a theatrical stage, drawing inspiration from Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot.” In this framework, characters find themselves ensnared within confined spaces, grappling with their inherent limitations and the futile struggle against the passage of time. In the dimly-lit suburban setting, figures navigate like sleepwalkers, delving into the intricate interplay of fantasy and reality. Any place can feel like a prison if you don’t know where you are.

8. Tom Zimberoff (United States)

Bruisers explores the motivation of men and women who test their mettle in the crucible of the ring. The contests are brutal, but the contestants are not necessarily brutes. A work in progress, boxers, and mixed-martial artists step immediately from the ring into my lights, on camera, still bruised, bloodied, sweaty, swollen, and dazed. The series was inspired by the Mike Tyson quip, “Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face.”

9. Aurélien Bayo (France)

Michael, 15, gives his best friend Ethan a haircut in a park in New York, using skills he learned from his older brother, who recently got out of prison. Michael offers his service for free, as he doesn't believe in charging for them.

10. ​​​​​Joseph-Philippe Bevillard (United States/France)

Miley stood in front of a horse transport box at a popular horse fair in Galway, Ireland. The background acts as a perfect backdrop for his red hair and freckles

11. Harry Williams (United States)

This series, “Eyes of the City: Urban Portraits of San Francisco,” captures the raw and unfiltered humanity of individuals often overlooked in the bustling streets of San Francisco. Through black-and-white photography, I aim to reveal the profound beauty and depth found in the eyes of these urban dwellers.
Each portrait is taken on the streets, portraying individuals whose lives are often passed by without a second glance. Their intense gazes offer a window into their souls, conveying stories of resilience, strength, and the unyielding spirit of humanity.
My goal is to challenge viewers to see beyond the surface, to acknowledge and connect with the inherent dignity and beauty of these individuals. The eyes often considered the windows to the soul, reveal emotions and experiences that words cannot fully express.
As you engage with these portraits, I hope you feel the intensity, the stories, and the profound humanity that each person carries within them. Let these images remind us of the shared human experience and the beauty that exists in every life, no matter how often it goes unrecognized.

12. Eva Chupikova (Czech Republic)

Anna draws inspiration from the Renaissance, a period that celebrated the revival of classical artistic values and principles like harmony and proportion. Garments of that era were designed with intricate patterns, rich fabrics, and luxurious embellishments to symbolize wealth and social status.
In our contemporary world, garments are manufactured with cheap labor at low cost to maximize profits. The result thereof is that we are engulfed in material excess and overwhelmed by visual and information stimuli. Materialism is the new symbol of wealth and social status. In all this chaos, we yearn for a new sense of conformity and balance with our environment and ourselves.
Whilst Anna conceptually is influenced by the Renaissance era, Anna's vision is rooted in a more minimalist concept that eliminates the unnecessary, focusing solely on the essential - finding 'beauty' in simplicity.

13. Manuela Thames (United States)

These images are part of an evolving series titled Anonymous Women I have been creating over the last few months.
I used vintage photographs, superimposed and paired them with my images, and created these multiple exposure diptychs to re-invent, re-tell, and re-imagine a part of each woman’s life and story.
I have always loved old photographs of people from the past. I like to make up stories. I study their features, eyes, and expressions. I wonder about their lives and about who the photographers were. I have pondered about what it must have been like to be a woman back in the day, and while pondering I have come to be grateful to be living in the now instead of a hundred years ago, especially when I think about what opportunities women had - or didn’t have.
Inspired by my family history and the stories of my two grandmothers (whose images and stories are part of another developing project), I observe and I experiment. In some photographs, I see privilege, in others, I see hardships, hard work, and sacrifice. In all of them, I see strength. I think of many women of the past as unsung heroes whose faces and lives deserve to be remembered, seen, and highlighted.

14. Allison Martinek (United States)

“Body Positivity” is a generalized, overused, and sometimes damaging label that often describes anything involving plus-size representation. It also implies the notion that the only thing we can feel is unwavering confidence and anything less means we are ashamed of ourselves. However, being plus size is more complex than that. It is navigating your own and other’s emotions and interactions with your body. These emotions do not remain stagnant but rather exist on an ever-changing spectrum ranging from hatred to contentment to love.
The zealousness attached to the “Body Positivity” label loses the nuances of body neutrality. To be neutral is to be content and accepting of your reality. We often forget that when fighting an internal war of hatred, with reinforced societal pressure, that the reprieve of a cease-fire is a victory. There is power and reward for reaching a neutral state. However, it is not often celebrated due to its lack of glamour and marketability.
Portraits in this series acknowledge and illustrate an individual’s reflection of self. What is emoted is a mixture of empowerment, comfort, vulnerability, and neutrality. Thus, expressing an authentic portrait of our experience.

15. Anna Biret (Poland/France)

Shibuya is undoubtedly the most fascinating and vibrant district of Tokyo, the quintessential fashionable district, the symbol of Tokyo-style shopping, a true icon of the Japanese capital, and a must-see destination in Japan. Shibuya is a bustling pedestrian crossing filled with crowds, hundreds of fashion shops, bright signs and giant screens, a youthful and lively atmosphere, and music filling the streets.
Although Shibuya is often associated with huge intersections and crowds of people, this street photography series aims to show individual people in Shibuya. A street portrait of people who intrigue and fascinate me. Capturing their emotions in a split second shows their personalities and moments of truth.

16. René Dissel (Netherlands)

sMelt, explores the effects of climate change. In this series, he portrays people in ice, captured during the melting process. This shows the transition from hard to liquid, revealing how ice changes and reveals new layers and details. Dissel's work invites reflection on the vulnerability and transformation of human beings.

17. Andreas Kanellopoulos (Greece)

Deep inside the forests of the Arctic Lapland lies a moose farm run by Ola, a descendant of Sami. We see him gathering the fallen antlers from which he will make tools.

18. Erberto Zani (Italy)

District of Vinh Linh, Vietnam: Phūng Thê Que, 31 years old, is a patient with Down syndrome and, a victim of Agent Orange pollution. Her father, Phūng Thê Tram fought for North Vietnam. © Erberto Zani

Agent Orange: The War That Never Ended
50 years have passed since the end of the American War in Vietnam (1965-1975) but the consequences of Agent Orange can still be felt today: in the areas most affected by the defoliant rains, also the third and fourth generations were born with genetic mutations and terrible disabling diseases.
“The War That Never Ended” is the title of my long-term documentary project.
I traveled to several remote places in Central Vietnam, the most polluted area by chemical agents, realizing portraits of the victims inside their houses.
A harrowing reality that knows no end.
Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide used by U.S. military forces to eliminate forest cover and crops for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. The U.S. program, codenamed Operation Ranch Hand, sprayed more than 76 million liters of various herbicides over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos from 1961 to 1971. Agent Orange, which contained the deadly chemical dioxin, was the most commonly used herbicide. It was later proven to cause serious health issues including cancer, birth defects, rashes, and severe psychological and neurological problems among the Vietnamese people as well as among returning U.S. servicemen and their families.
The U.S. military sprayed a range of herbicides across more than 18 million hectares of Vietnam to destroy the forest cover and food crops used by enemy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops (in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) U.S. aircraft were deployed to douse roads, rivers, canals, rice paddies and farmland with powerful mixtures of herbicides.
In addition to Agent Orange, the U.S. military used herbicides named Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent White, and Agent Blue. Each of these, manufactured by Monsanto, Dow Chemical, and Hercules, had different chemical additives of varying strengths. Agent Orange was the most widely used herbicide in Vietnam, and the most potent.
Agent Orange contained significant amounts of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, often called TCDD, a type of dioxin that had immediate and long-term effects. Dioxin is a highly persistent chemical compound that lasts for many years in the environment, particularly in soil, lake, and river sediments and in the food chain. Dioxin accumulates in fatty tissue in the bodies of fish, birds, and other animals. Most human exposure is through foods such as meats, poultry, dairy products, eggs, shellfish, and fish.
Short-term exposure to dioxin can cause darkening of the skin, Additionally, dioxin enters the bloodstream after being eaten or touched, builds up in the food chain, and can cause reproductive problems, cancer, hormonal interference, immune system damage, and developmental issues, linked to type 2 diabetes, muscular dysfunction, hormone disruption, and heart disease. Developing fetuses are particularly sensitive to dioxin, which is also linked to miscarriages, spina bifida, and other problems with fetal brain and nervous system development. The government of Vietnam says that 4 million were exposed to the chemicals, 3 million of whom now suffer from health consequences. Confirmation that the horrors of a distant war are never over.

19. Martina Holmberg (Sweden)

The images are from my ongoing project People to whom I invited myself. The project is about people I met in different places. It was during a period that I became almost obsessed with people I saw on the street, in the subway, or the waiting room at the health center for example. They could pop up now and then and caught my interest. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was that got me hooked on them. Often it exuded a strong personality that made me curious about them. I came up with the idea to brazenly invite myself to them. I simply approached them and told them that they had caught my interest and that I was working as a photographer. Then I asked if I could come to their house and chat and take some photos.
The woman in the photo is named Voukko. She grew up in Finland but has been living in Sweden for many years. She has severe rheumatism, which is common in Finland. Our paths met when we were both hospitalized at the Rheumatologist.

20. Maïlys Derville (France)

Madeleine, 26, is the mother of 4 children, including twins Denise and Marie. She lives with her husband in the village of Etyowar, in Bédik country, in the far south-west of Senegal. Situated at the top of a hill, about half an hour's walk from the main road, the village is now deserted in favor of Bandafassi, a farming hamlet recently built at the foot of the mountain. Bandafassi is easier to reach, with boreholes, wells, a school, and an infirmary. These facilities are not available in the ancestral village of Etyowar, forcing Madeleine to walk constantly up and down the hill with buckets of water to provide for her family.

21. Maryam Ashrafi (Iran)

Rising Among Ruins, Dancing amid Bullets is a photographic project I have been working on between 2012_2018 in Northern Syria and autonomous Kurdistan, to bear witness to the consequences of war, namely to the lives of civilians returning to their homes after their cities are liberated, as well as to the daily life of the fighters behind the front lines while emphasizing the role of women in their ranks.

22. Roberta Dall'Alba (Italy)

Amid the bustling Sensoji Temple street in Tokyo, a kid finds comfort in grandma's arms even though everything around them is chaotic. I shot this photo back in October 2023 during my Japan trip. That trip made me fall in love with street photography and capturing people and stories.

23. Prescott Lassman (United States)

These portraits are from the Miss Subways reunion held at the iconic Ellen’s Stardust Diner on May 2, 2024. Miss Subways appeared on posters in the New York City subway trains for a month or two between 1941 and 1976. Although Miss Subways invariably were attractive, they were not intended to be “beauty queens.” Instead, they were chosen as examples of real working women living in New York with their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The portraits here were taken more than half a century after the women appeared in the subway posters they are holding. The dichotomy between the two portraits raises complex questions about the passage of time. If you look closely, you can see not just what has changed over these many decades but, perhaps more importantly, what has remained the same.

23. Mike Narciso (United States)

Every Halloween night I would open my studio to anyone wearing a costume. Peter walked in like you see him here. He spent about 5 minutes in front of my camera, then left for the rest of his night. One of my favorite Halloween nights. I never saw his face.

24. Alex Lobo (Spain)

This picture is part of a larger series about childhood and the journey into early life: a whole new world of sensations, unexplored places, and thrilling, but sometimes terrifying experiences.