Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2018 Finalists Chosen

© Ernesto Benavides, 'Benavides Dredges', Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2018

Yearly, Leica host a competition titled the 'Leica Oskar Barnack Award' and this year's finalists have now been announced. 

This year, around 2,500 photographers from a total of 110 different countries submitted entries to the LOBA competition and the finalist's projects will go on display in an exhibition over in Berlin (Neuen Schule für Fotografie).

The finalists are:

• Ernesto Benavides, Peru: ‘Dredges’
• Vanja Bucan, Slovenia: ‘Sequences of Truth and Deception’
• Turi (Salvatore) Calafato, Italy: ‘Amuninni 'u mari (Let's go to the sea)’
• Daniel Chatard, Germany: ‘Niemandsland’ (No man’s land)
• Stephen Dock, France: ‘Architecture of Violence’
• Mary Gelman, Russia: ‘Svetlana’
• Samuel Gratacap, France: ‘Presence’
• Stéphane Lavoué, France: ‘On the Edge of the World’
• Max Pinckers, Belgium: ‘Red Ink’
• Elsa Stubbé, Belgium: ‘Les extraterrestres ont mangé mon jardin’ (The aliens have eaten my garden)
• Christian Werner, Germany: ‘Road to Ruin’
• Kechun Zhang, China: ‘Between the Mountains and Water’

This year, the jury was again impressed by the large number of entrants and the high quality of the portfolios entered in the competition. “With every new year of the competition, it is remarkable to see how intensely and creatively the entrants fulfil the thematic requirements of the LOBA. We have consciously maintained the theme of ‘the relationship between people and their environment’ since the first request for entries to the LOBA competition in 1979. Today, this theme remains as valid as it was in the past – in fact, we could even say that it is now more important than ever before”, says Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, Art Director & Chief Representative Leica Galleries International.

In addition to Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, the members of this year’s LOBA jury were: Mark Lubell, Executive Director ICP - International Center of Photography (USA) Markus Hartmann, Hartmann Projects (Germany) Terje Abusdal, Photographer & LOBA winner 2017 (Norway) Christian Wiesner, Artistic Director, Paris Photo (France).