Announcing the Winners of the Street Photographers Foundation Awards 2026

The Street Photographers Foundation, through its annual awards, honored a group of distinguished photographers from around the world – artists whose sharp and creative vision captured pure, unrepeatable moments of everyday life through their lenses. Their work presented a striking collection of quiet dramas, subtle humor, geometric interplays of light and shadow, and unexpected human encounters from the streets of cities across the globe.

This year’s judges, in reviewing the submitted entries, encountered a remarkable level of creativity and visual diversity – works that skillfully blurred the boundary between documentary photography and conceptual art. The main awards were presented across two competitive categories: Series and Single Images.

Through this event, the Street Photographers Foundation once again affirmed that the streets of the world are the greatest living gallery of human art – a place where every step can mark the beginning of a new story.

SERIES IMAGE WINNER

Bouwe Brouwer

The Great Escape

Netherlands

My personal handbook to escaping reality. The great escape (by Charles Bukowski) listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a bucket? no, I told him. well, what happens is that now and then one crab will climb up on top of the others and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket, then, just as he’s about to escape another crab grabs him and pulls him back down. really? I asked. really, he said, and this job is just like that, none of the others want anybody to get out of here. that’s just the way it is in the postal service! I believe you, I said. just then the supervisor walked up and said, you fellows were talking. there is no talking allowed on this job. I had been there for eleven and one-half years. I got up off my stool and climbed right up the supervisor and then I reached up and pulled myself right out of there. it was so easy it was unbelievable. but none of the others followed me. and after that, whenever I had crab legs I thought about that place. I must have thought about that place maybe 5 or 6 times before I switched to lobster.