A Reflection on BIFA 2026
This year, my work received Honorable Mentions in two categories at the Budapest International Foto Awards: Special Category – Street Photography and Editorial – Photo Essay.
Last year, I received a Silver award and an Honorable Mention in the smartphone photography category. Judged by award level alone, this year’s results may seem more modest. Still, these two mentions mean a great deal to me.
The move from smartphone photography to street photography and photo essays is not about a hierarchy of equipment or categories. For me, it reflects a shift in the questions I bring to my work: What can a photograph communicate beyond the moment it records? Can a sequence of images do more than sit together—can it develop a coherent narrative around a shared concern?
That is the progress I hope to make, and the work I am still learning to do.
I do not see a change in categories as proof that my photography has matured, nor do I want to use the idea of progress to explain away a difference in award level. More simply, these recognitions offer a little encouragement for a direction I have begun to explore. There is still much to reconsider: the depth of the work, the relationships between images, and what remains outside the frame.
I am grateful to the jury for the recognition, and to the people and everyday encounters that make these photographs possible. Photography keeps bringing me back to the street—to observe more carefully and to be slower to judge.
An award can mark a stage in the journey. It cannot do the work that comes next.
I will keep looking, photographing, and revising. Hopefully, next time, the images themselves will have a little more to say.
