American wins Photo Of The Year with photos from Japan

Competition was fierce for the first prize, €5000, of the Photo Of The Year architecture photo competition. A competition Aarhus School of Architecture launched for the first time earlier this year.

A total of 145 students from 46 different countries took part in the competition. They were asked to submit a series of five images under a theme about people and architecture.

The many contributions were judged by an international jury consisting of Architectural Photographer Hélène Binet, Architectural Photographer Jens Markus Lindhe, Aarhus School of Architecture, Rector Torben Nielsen, and Mette Sandbye, head of the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen.

From among the entries, the jury selected a photo series created by Sky Russell from America, a student of Harvard University. The series, called The Weaver’s Home, shows the way a weaver lives in Japan.

“After I submitted the photos, I had forgotten all about them, so I was extremely surprised when I found out that I won. I wanted to have my camera with me during my internship in Japan, and winning this competition only fuels me, even more, to keep on taking photos” says Sky Russell who took the photos during an internship in rural Japan.

“I am very interested in how our culture is being changed by depopulation, and I was very aware that the culture I was in the middle of could be gone within my lifetime. I want to keep working with the built environment and the link between design and people”, says Sky Russell.

Below you can see the winning series by Sky Russell

The jury explains why it was this particular image series that took the first prize:

“The winner of the competition presents a series of subtle and intimate photos of a Japanese dwelling and its resident, a weaver, demonstrating a sensibility and empathy that brings us close to the life of an artist. The nature of the architectural portrait is similar to that of a human portrait. The photos weave, so to speak, a narrative about something considered local and Japanese, however, at the same time pointing at something essential and universal. What we see is an almost non-existing architecture in close proximity with nature and its resident, who seems to be one with her dwelling. The open doors and windows combined with the soft lens, create a certain atmosphere between the outside and the inside which makes nature, human and architecture unite. A poetic narrative of an ordinary almost atmospheric daily life”, the jury states in its motivation for the award.

The second prize of €2000 went to Finnish Venla Rautajoki from Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. The third prize, €1000, was won by Slovenian Jan Krek from University of Ljubljana. Photo Of The Year is supported by Dinesen and Dreyers Fond. And the first prize was awarded at a celebration to mark Arkitekturens Dag (Day of Architecture), which was held at Aarhus City Hall, Monday 7 October.

Images are important

For several years Aarhus School of Architecture has held the international drawing competition Drawing Of The Year. A competition which every year awards the most talented artists who draw among students of architecture from all over the world. According to the school’s rector, there is an obvious reason why the school has now chosen to launch a photo competition:

“When we, a school of architecture, want to support the architecture students of the world with a competition focusing on architectural photography, it is because we think there is a ‘language’ missing in their overall toolbox. The photo has the potential of being a language in itself. A language that can tell stories, narratives, and strike a mood in a completely different way than the written language or drawing. But to master a language, we need to learn and speak it. And the more you use it, the better you become. It takes patience and sometimes planning to say what you want to say, if you want the story you tell to be accurate”, says Torben Nielsen.

That you need to be thorough to be able to take good images of architecture is nothing new to jury member Jens Markus Lindhe. He has been working as an architectural photographer for the best architectural practices in Denmark for many years.
“It is quite clear that some of the series we received were sent in the hope that blurred best-of photos from the archive showing ‘big buildings and small people’ would make it. But you easily tire of images of buildings with randomly placed vague human shapes inside architectural spaces. We would rather see intimacy and active bodies interacting with the built environment. Out with all the anonymous men who just stand around, in with life and warmth!”, he says.

Although we have only just found the winner of the competition, it has already been decided that Aarhus School of Architecture will repeat the success and arrange a new architecture photo competition next year.

“We are well on the way with the new competition and the start-up has been good. This has convinced us that it is important to continue this dialogue with the world’s architecture students about the language of architectural photography”, says Torben Nielsen, rector of Aarhus School of Architecture.

In addition to the three winners, the jury also selected six special mentions. Here you will find the complete list of selected picture series and the jury’s motivations behind the selections. Link.

You can see photos from the exhibition here.