Diverse perspectives: Celebrating the Leica Women Foto Project 2025 winners
Leica Women Foto Project winners Photos: Priya Suresh Kambli, Jennifer Osborne, Koral Carballo and Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025 Leica paid homage to International Women's Day on Saturday by announcing the winners of the Leica Women Foto Project. Now in its sixth year, the project aims to "spotlight the way we diversify our communities through visual stories and emphasize female empowerment by its creators." This year's call for work centered on "Unity Through Diversity," seeking photo essays emphasizing the importance of connection as expressed through a feminine perspective. The award is open to images created using any camera make or model and not limited to Leica-captured imagery. A panel of 12 judges, which included award-winning photojournalists, curators and editors, selected this year's four awardees. The winners each received a Leica SL3 camera, a Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-70mm f/2.8 ASPH lens and a $10,000 USD cash prize. Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025 Priya Suresh Kambli’s work is deeply personal and rooted in the context of the migrant experience. Inspired by an exhibition of vernacular hand-painted Indian studio portraits from The Alkazi Foundation, she began intervening with her family archive to explore themes of identity, memory, and belonging. Over the course of her twenty-year practice, Priya has revisited, reimagined, and recontextualized family portraits and heirlooms, building an archive that connects her to both her ancestral roots and her adopted land. Through her work, she reflects on absence and loss, navigating family dynamics to document their lives with a thoughtful and composed narrative. About Priya Suresh Kambli: Priya Suresh Kambli received her BFA at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and an MFA from the University of Houston. She is a Professor of Art at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. Kambli has always strived to explore and understand the resulting fragmentation of family, identity, and culture. Her artwork has been exhibited, published, collected and reviewed in the national and international photographic community. Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025 The story behind the pictures: At age 18, I moved from India to the United States. Before I emigrated, my sister and I split our photographic inheritance along with other family heirlooms arbitrarily and irreparably in half - one part to remain in India with her and the other to be displaced with me, here in America. For the past two decades this accidental archive of family photographs and artifacts has been my main source material in creating bodies of work which explore the issues of gender, identity, representation, migrant narratives, and the renegotiation of power via the medium of photography. Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025 The story behind the pictures: In my work I re-photograph and re-contextualize my inherited family photographs, documents and objects carried by me to America, to my home in the Midwest. In my images, my archive constrains what can be said of the past. It is full of gaps, fragmented long before it was split in two by my sister and me. One of the people sealed within is my father, the original archivist and documentarian. He was the author of the majority of the images in the archive. And the other significant presence is of my mother. My father the photographer is physically absent, while I and other members of my family are fixed within the archive. His photographs are documents – ostensibly of some happy occasion, or milestone in our lives. Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025 The story behind the pictures: These mundane family photographs are complicated by my mother’s mark making. She cut holes in certain photographs to completely obliterate her own face while not harming the image of my sister and myself beside her and then slid them back into the family album. I am interested in both narratives – my father’s carefully composed efforts to document our lives and my mother’s violent but precise excisions. This set of fives images selected from my submission to the 2025 Leica Women Foto Project Award showcase these family dynamics. These family narratives form the foundation on which my artistic work rests, guiding its form as well as its vocabulary. Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025 The story behind the pictures: This work stems from my own migration, and it grapples with the challenges of cross-cultural understanding, and from my growing sense that my practice – born from private and personal motivations – constitutes an increasingly urgent political
Leica Women Foto Project winners
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Photos: Priya Suresh Kambli, Jennifer Osborne, Koral Carballo and Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Leica paid homage to International Women's Day on Saturday by announcing the winners of the Leica Women Foto Project. Now in its sixth year, the project aims to "spotlight the way we diversify our communities through visual stories and emphasize female empowerment by its creators." This year's call for work centered on "Unity Through Diversity," seeking photo essays emphasizing the importance of connection as expressed through a feminine perspective.
The award is open to images created using any camera make or model and not limited to Leica-captured imagery. A panel of 12 judges, which included award-winning photojournalists, curators and editors, selected this year's four awardees. The winners each received a Leica SL3 camera, a Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-70mm f/2.8 ASPH lens and a $10,000 USD cash prize.
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Priya Suresh Kambli’s work is deeply personal and rooted in the context of the migrant experience. Inspired by an exhibition of vernacular hand-painted Indian studio portraits from The Alkazi Foundation, she began intervening with her family archive to explore themes of identity, memory, and belonging. Over the course of her twenty-year practice, Priya has revisited, reimagined, and recontextualized family portraits and heirlooms, building an archive that connects her to both her ancestral roots and her adopted land. Through her work, she reflects on absence and loss, navigating family dynamics to document their lives with a thoughtful and composed narrative.
About Priya Suresh Kambli: Priya Suresh Kambli received her BFA at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and an MFA from the University of Houston. She is a Professor of Art at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. Kambli has always strived to explore and understand the resulting fragmentation of family, identity, and culture. Her artwork has been exhibited, published, collected and reviewed in the national and international photographic community.
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: At age 18, I moved from India to the United States. Before I emigrated, my sister and I split our photographic inheritance along with other family heirlooms arbitrarily and irreparably in half - one part to remain in India with her and the other to be displaced with me, here in America. For the past two decades this accidental archive of family photographs and artifacts has been my main source material in creating bodies of work which explore the issues of gender, identity, representation, migrant narratives, and the renegotiation of power via the medium of photography.
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
 |
Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: In my work I re-photograph and re-contextualize my inherited family photographs, documents and objects carried by me to America, to my home in the Midwest. In my images, my archive constrains what can be said of the past. It is full of gaps, fragmented long before it was split in two by my sister and me. One of the people sealed within is my father, the original archivist and documentarian. He was the author of the majority of the images in the archive. And the other significant presence is of my mother. My father the photographer is physically absent, while I and other members of my family are fixed within the archive. His photographs are documents – ostensibly of some happy occasion, or milestone in our lives.
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: These mundane family photographs are complicated by my mother’s mark making. She cut holes in certain photographs to completely obliterate her own face while not harming the image of my sister and myself beside her and then slid them back into the family album. I am interested in both narratives – my father’s carefully composed efforts to document our lives and my mother’s violent but precise excisions. This set of fives images selected from my submission to the 2025 Leica Women Foto Project Award showcase these family dynamics. These family narratives form the foundation on which my artistic work rests, guiding its form as well as its vocabulary.
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: This work stems from my own migration, and it grapples with the challenges of cross-cultural understanding, and from my growing sense that my practice – born from private and personal motivations – constitutes an increasingly urgent political and public action. In this work I seek and offer solidarity. The proposed work continues to examine the link between public and private and will provide a lens through which my artmaking becomes a kind of performance or ritual activity; revisiting the past in ways that bear witness to, re-enact, and communicate with past and future selves.
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: My contribution to the field extends beyond the personal narrative, bringing attention to the experiences of migrants and women of color: lives that are rich, nuanced, and worthy of notice. The impact of this work lies in its simple existence; bodies of work resulting from processes of play - grounded in the concrete reality of the things I had carried with me and the place where I strive to make a home.
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Priya Suresh Kambli: Archive as Companion
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Credit: Priya Suresh Kambli / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Koral Carballo’s photographic essays blend photography and oral history to explore the search for identity among Afro-descendant and mestizo communities in Veracruz, Mexico. Through powerful imagery, she uncovers the roots of complex family trauma, inviting viewers to reflect on their own connections to the past. Her project Blood Summons (or La Sangre Llama), a popular Mexican saying referring to the call to search for one's ancestors, represents both her personal journey and a broader exploration of historical injustices. With this work, Carballo calls for reparation, aiming to foster connection rather than division, and inviting viewers to engage with these stories and their own histories.
About Koral Carballo: Koral Carballo is a photojournalist, documentary photographer, and visual artist based in Mexico. She studied journalism at the Universidad Popular Aútonoma del Estado de Puebla, and the Contemporary Photography Seminar by the Centro de las Artes de San Agustín (CaSA) and the Centro de la Imagen. Carballo has exhibited her work in Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, The United States, and Uruguay. She collaborates with Ruda Colectiva, a Latino-American women photographers collective, and is an Artist from the National System in Mexico.
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: “Telling this story is a door to the past that opens to understand the emotional wounds of the present. My mother has been a crucial figure for the beginning of this project and an ally in the process of starting to create.”
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "Mom slapped me several times. She kept questioning me as to why I wanted to marry a black man." Mom
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "I don't know what we are carrying. But I saw it in therapy. I saw someone they were beating . He was asking me to release him." Bro.
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "Black rain. In December when the sugar cane harvest season begins, the black rain begins in Veracruz since colonial times. The burning of the cane fields is an important step for the production season. There are still 18 sugar mills in Veracruz where Afro-descendants and mestizos (people of mixed race) still work."
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "My sister's melancholy."
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Koral Carballo: Blood Summons
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Credit: Koral Carballo / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Anna Neubauer’s ongoing documentary project, Ashes from Stone, is a powerful photo essay that portrays individuals who defy societal norms of beauty, strength, and identity. Through striking portraits, Neubauer showcases people from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in empowered settings, amplifying marginalized voices and encouraging audiences to rethink traditional views of femininity and strength. The project challenges stereotypes, redefines beauty, and embraces narratives around family, relationships, and motherhood. Each photograph is accompanied by a personal narrative, deepening the connection with and humanizing the subjects, fostering empathy, and promoting a greater understanding of diversity.
About Anna Neubauer: Anna Neubauer is an Austrian photographer based in London, United Kingdom. She began her journey capturing what truly matters to her: stories of self-love, acceptance, and resilience. In 2021, Anna was named Adobe Rising Star of Photography. She has worked with clients like Barbie, Condé Nast, Leica, Canon, Yoto, Abercrombie & Fitch, Adobe, Harper's Bazaar and 500px/Getty Images, and her work has been featured in international publications.
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: Hannah was born with Hay-Wells syndrome, a kind of ectodermal dysplasia, a very rare genetic disorder that can cause abnormalities affecting a person's skin, hair, nails, and teeth. Along with other health problems, people with this condition may also be more prone to specific skin or eye conditions. Growing up, Hannah was often burdened with feelings of isolation and despair because society's beauty standards and misconceptions about physical differences often lead to bullying. Since the media frequently ignores or misrepresents people with unusual conditions, Hannah now aims to educate others; she fights for her rights and strives to end societal ableism. I have been photographing Hannah the past years, documenting her journey of self-acceptance and advocacy in order to challenge beauty standards, preconceived notions about disability, and foster empathy and understanding about rare genetic disorders. This image in my series not only shows her uniquely beautiful appearance but also her courage and resilience.
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: When I met Hannah, I met a confident woman and a proud disability advocate who speaks openly about living with Hay-Wells syndrome. I have always loved listening to stories, but for me, there is something particularly beautiful about Hannah’s. Through her advocacy and quiet moments like this, she continues to challenge norms, encouraging others to see beyond appearances and understand the resilience and humanity of those with rare conditions. I want to show the part of her journey where self-acceptance meets the pressures of a society that often doesn’t understand visible differences. Outside, Hannah wears her wig and sunglasses as a way to blend in and feel comfortable, but here, within the walls of her family home, she allows herself to be seen as she truly is. This image in my series, Hannah standing in the quiet light of her bedroom corridor, reveals a mix of strength and vulnerability. Her wig gives her comfort in a world still learning to embrace diversity.
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: Crystal is a passionate actress and advocate for facial diversity and representation in the acting industry. I photographed her in her living room just as the UK started to ease Covid-19 restrictions. For Crystal, the pandemic brought an unexpected reprieve. The masks that shielded others from a virus also shielded her from relentless stares. For a while, she found relief in the anonymity, moving through public spaces without the weight of constant scrutiny or unsolicited judgment. In a world that often doesn’t know how to look beyond the surface, the anonymity felt like breathing room—both liberating and fragile.
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: Az and Izzy were dating for a year when I photographed them. The beach isn’t just a place they visit—it’s their sanctuary, where the world fades away, and they can simply exist in each other’s presence. Here, with the salty breeze in their hair and the rhythmic hum of the waves, they find a rare kind of freedom—one where love feels effortless and unguarded. Documenting this intimate moment felt like stepping into something sacred. The way they look at each other, the unspoken understanding between them, the laughter that comes so easily—it all radiates warmth and authenticity. Their connection isn’t just seen; it’s felt. A quiet, beautiful force that reminds us of the kind of love that makes us feel truly at home.
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: Maya is a passionate actress, dancer and model whose energy is as captivating as her talent. When we first met at a photoshoot in 2021, she was a performing arts student at Chickenshed Youth Theatre in London, radiating the kind of determination that makes dreams feel within reach. Since then, she has worked with major brands like Nike, EE and CBBC. Maya’s success not only speaks to her incredible talent but to her relentless spirit and dedication. This image in my series shows Maya in one of her favourite dresses, a piece that feels like an extension of her—a symbol of self-expression, confidence and her deep love for performing. For me, there’s something magical about photographing her, the way she moves so effortlessly, how she transforms in front of the lens yet always remains true to herself. Over the years, our friendship has grown into something truly beautiful, and every time I photograph her, it feels like a celebration of that bond.
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Anna Neubauer: Ashes from Stone
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Credit: Anna Neubauer / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Jennifer Osborne’s captivating photo series takes viewers deep into the heart of the Fairy Creek protests, where activists came together to protect the old-growth forests of Vancouver Island. Osborne began documenting life within the protest blockades a week before enforcement began, capturing the raw, unfiltered moments of those first days. She continued to document the protests for the first three months of enforcement, witnessing firsthand the courage and commitment of the activists. From diverse backgrounds, these individuals camped in tents and vehicles, fighting tirelessly to preserve the land. Through powerful imagery, Osborne highlights their unwavering solidarity and determination, showing how every moment spent defending the forests was a battle not only for the land but for future generations. This series, which documents the now-dismantled blockades and the trees they fought so hard to protect, underscores the profound significance of their environmental struggle.
About Jennifer Osborne: Jen Osborne is a Canadian photographer who has published and exhibited photographs and videos internationally. Osborne was shortlisted for a Sony World Photography Award in 2024 for her wildland fire coverage in Alberta, Canada. And she received a grant from Carleton University in 2021 to complete a video documentary about Canada’s horse meat industry. It has since toured to more than ten film festivals around the world.
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "May 17, 2021. Outside Port Renfrew, in a forest cut block. A woman leans on a tree that was cut fairly recently before this photo was taken. She found it along with a group of conservationists who explored the area after a round of logging happened in the region."
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "May 2021. Near Port Renfrew, Canada. An activist is chained to a bus in the middle of a road over a bridge, to prevent loggers from accessing old-growth forests. Other members of the blockade set off flares, so that their internal film crew could post a social media update for the public on their activities there. A team of blockade members had united to place this vehicle in the middle of the road."
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "May 23, 2021. Near Port Renfrew, Canada. A group of blockaders unify their bodies to protect a patch of old-growth forest called "EDEN GROVE". They linked arms to prevent a hostile individual from entering their blockade. The situation escalated and the visitor yelled and tried to push a few activists to get through their linked arms."
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "May 24, 2021. Near Port Renfrew, Canada. Two forest defenders stand in a cut block patch during police arrests of activists protecting "Waterfall Camp" and a neighboring cut block area."
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
The story behind the pictures: "May 24, 2021. Near Port Renfrew, Canada. A woman appeared at a cut block to show her unity with land defenders who blocked roads to prevent loggers from entering old-growth forest areas, during their arrests."
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
Jennifer Osborne: The Fairy Creek
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Credit: Jennifer Osborne / Leica Women Foto Project Award 2025
