The Impossible Task of Comparing Human Experiences: A Critique of Photography Awards
What happens when a goat-wrestling contest is pitted against the raw brutality of war in a photography competition? It’s not just a question of aesthetics—it’s a question of how we value and compare human experiences. This year’s Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) shortlist has inadvertently highlighted one of the most profound challenges in photography contests: the impossible task of judging vastly different categories of human life against the same criteria.
Personally, I think this issue goes far beyond Leica or any single competition. It’s baked into the very structure of how we evaluate art, especially when that art is meant to capture the complexity of the human condition. Take Saher Alghorra’s Witnessing Gaza, a series that documents the harrowing realities of war, and place it alongside Todd Antony’s black-and-white study of buzkashi, a Central Asian sport involving a headless goat carcass. Both are undeniably powerful, but how do you compare them? Is one more deserving of recognition than the other?
What makes this particularly fascinating is the way it forces us to confront the subjectivity of art. LOBA’s mission—to recognize photographers who capture the relationship between people and their environment—is admirably broad. But that breadth comes at a cost. When a jury is asked to weigh a tender family portrait like Laila AnnMarie Stevens’ Clayton Sisterhood Project against Valery Melnikov’s Mariupol: Open Wounds, they’re not just comparing photographs; they’re comparing entire worlds.
From my perspective, this raises a deeper question: What are photography contests really for? Are they about technical mastery, emotional impact, or cultural significance? Or are they, as this shortlist suggests, a reflection of our collective struggle to define what photography should be?
One thing that immediately stands out is the tension between conflict and crisis versus quieter, more introspective work. This year’s shortlist leans heavily toward the former, with images from Gaza, Mariupol, and the collapsing Aral Sea. Meanwhile, gentler series like William Keo’s Extramuros or David Sládek’s two-decade portrait of a Slovakian village risk being overshadowed, not because they’re less worthy, but because they don’t scream for attention in the same way.
What many people don’t realize is that this isn’t unique to LOBA. Major contests like World Press Photo or the Sony World Photography Awards face the same structural issue. They’re all trying to judge apples and oranges—or, in this case, goats and warzones—under the same rubric.
A detail that I find especially interesting is the approach of the newly launched Women in Photography Grant, which sidesteps this problem entirely by judging project proposals rather than finished works. It’s a clever solution, but it also underscores the inherent flaw in most contests: they’re asking judges to compare the incomparable.
If you take a step back and think about it, the real issue here isn’t about which photographer deserves to win. It’s about what we, as a society, value in photography. Are we drawn to images that shock and provoke, or do we appreciate the subtlety of everyday life? What this really suggests is that photography contests aren’t just about the art—they’re about our own biases, priorities, and definitions of what matters.
In my opinion, the LOBA shortlist serves as a useful, if uncomfortable, reminder of this. It’s not a flaw in the contest itself but a reflection of a much larger problem. We’re asking judges to make impossible decisions, and in doing so, we’re revealing our own inability to define what photography is for.
As we await the winner announcement on October 8th, I can’t help but wonder: What if the real takeaway isn’t who wins, but the conversation this shortlist sparks? Perhaps the greatest achievement of this year’s LOBA isn’t the award itself, but the way it forces us to question the very foundations of how we judge art.
Final Thought: Photography contests aren’t just about photographs—they’re about us. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that we’re still figuring out what we want them to be.
