Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
In an era dominated by algorithms and visual spectacle, this Spanish-born photographer—now based in southern Germany, who gazes at childhood through film—has been crowned the 2026 International Photography Awards (IPA) Professional “People Photographer of the Year” for her series The Milky Days. Her lens captures earth, plants, flowing water, and sunlight; her work is shaped by the convergence of expatriation, motherhood, and her scientific training, giving rise to a profoundly “present” way of seeing.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
I. Identity at a Glance
- Name: Alicia Sánchez Cabañes
- Nationality: Spanish
- Current Residence: Lörrach, southern Germany; active across the “Dreiländereck” region where Germany, France, and Switzerland meet (with her creative and professional base in the Basel metropolitan area of Switzerland)
- Multiple Identities: Photographer / Marine Biologist / Mother
- Core Medium: Pure film (120 medium format and 35mm)
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
II. Biography and Interdisciplinary Background
2.1 From a Family of Photographers
Alicia was born in Seville, Spain, and grew up in a family with a deep photographic tradition. As a child, she spent time in her parents’ darkroom, developing a natural sensitivity to optical development and mechanical cameras. However, for a long time, she did not turn her lens toward her own private life.
2.2 Training as a Biologist
Before establishing her artistic photography career, she held another identity seemingly unrelated to photography—that of a marine biologist:
- Earned an Advanced Studies Master’s degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Seville, Spain
- Was long employed by the UK-based Gardline Environmental Ltd. as a Senior Marine Mammal Observer
- Served as one of the principal researchers leading investigations on cetacean spatial distribution, niche differentiation, and the feeding ecology of bottlenose dolphins in the Strait of Gibraltar, the Black Sea, and the Mauritanian waters, with findings published in international marine biology journals
This scientific training has profoundly influenced her subsequent visual language: the non-intrusive field observation, patient guardianship of dynamic life, and understanding of the mutual constitution between environment and organisms required by marine ecology naturally extended into her photography’s capacity to capture authentic light and shadow, subtle body language, and unembellished emotion. She herself has summarized this ability as an extraordinary sensitivity to “environmental details, seasonal transitions, and the subtle changes of life.”
2.3 Becoming a Mother and Living Abroad
“Becoming a mother” and “living abroad”—Alicia regards these two experiences as the true catalysts that transformed her way of seeing. As a mother of two children building a life in a foreign country, geographical relocation and shifts in the center of daily life prompted her to turn her lens toward the microcosm of family, initiating a systematic creative practice centered on motherhood, childhood, and a sense of belonging.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
III. Creative Philosophy and Artistic Style
3.1 Style Keywords
Poetic Documentary · Intimate Portraiture · Naturalism
The children in her frames are always engaged in quiet dialogues with earth, plants, flowing water, and sunlight. The images are permeated with a restrained, tender maternal gaze—neither sentimental nor detached, but a kind of “present” way of seeing. She is not merely documenting; rather, she seems to be living through a stretch of “innocent years” alongside her own children, and indeed alongside all the children in her work.
3.2 Why Film?
For Alicia, choosing film is not nostalgia—it is a physical embodiment of her artistic philosophy:
| Film Characteristic | Creative Meaning |
|---|---|
| Slow shooting mechanism | Compels the creator to develop a deeper gaze and judgment before pressing the shutter |
| Limited exposure tolerance | Reinforces precise grasp of authentic light and shadow |
| Non-instantaneous chemical development | Makes memory tangible, endowing the everyday with an almost eternal texture |
At a time when digital imaging and algorithmic retouching have become pervasive, this aesthetic ethic of being “forced to slow down” constitutes her most striking counterpoint to the era of visual spectacle.
3.3 A Weak-Intervention Documentary Ethic
Drawing on her training in biological field observation, Alicia has developed a rigorous “weak-intervention” shooting ethic in her family and maternal photography:
- Refuses deliberate posing and staged scenes
- Places children in the ordinary states of daily play, wandering, and natural interaction
- Relies on natural diffused light and ambient micro-light
- Allows the fine silver-halide grain and broad dynamic range of medium-format film to fully render the authentic textures of skin, hair caught in the breeze, and fabric
This approach elevates the seemingly trivial moments of daily family life into visual specimens bearing individual emotional histories.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
IV. In-Depth Reading of the Award-Winning Series The Milky Days
4.1 Award Information
- Competition: International Photography Awards (IPA)
- Award: Professional Category People Photographer of the Year
- Additional Honor: Selected for the Jury Top 5 Selection
- Medium: 120 medium format and 35mm pure film
- Title Interpretation: The Milky Days (“Nursing Period” or “Innocent Years”)—a double reference to the earliest feeding days of life and the milk-pure innocence of childhood.
4.2 Creative Motivation
Far from her Spanish homeland and raising her children amid continual geographical mobility, Alicia developed a deep inquiry into the following questions:
- How does time pass?
- How does space shape memory?
- How does a sense of belonging take root in childhood experience?
- Must “home” necessarily be a fixed place?
4.3 Jury Commentary
IPA juror Daria Bonera wrote in her remarks:
“Childhood is a theme explored by many, but I found these images strikingly fresh, alive, and full of a spontaneity that feels wonderfully natural.”
This assessment precisely illuminates the work’s uniqueness within the contemporary photographic spectrum—although family and childhood constitute the most common subjects in photographic history, most works tend to fall into the clichés of over-staged posing and sentimental embellishment. What makes Alicia’s work stand out is her keen documentary eye for capturing the unpredictable “spontaneous moments” of family life, infusing the imagery with a strong sense of life’s rhythm and real-world poetry while maintaining the rigorous compositional discipline of fine art.
4.4 Characteristics of the Work
The frames contain no deliberate posing and no carefully designed compositions; rather, they capture the fleeting yet utterly authentic states of children running, playing in water, and rolling in earth under natural light.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
V. Industry Honors and Professional Recognition
| Institution / Competition / Publication | Type of Honor | Work and Field Involved |
|---|---|---|
| International Photography Awards (IPA) | Professional People Photographer of the Year + Jury Top 5 | The Milky Days |
| Analog Sparks Awards (2025) | Bronze Award + Winner in the Human-Youth Category | If These Streets Could Have Talk |
| Vienna International Photo Award (VIEpa) | Winner in the Portrait Category | Combed by the Wind |
| PhotoVogue (a Vogue platform) | Official inclusion and curated feature | Artistic portraiture and maternal documentary |
| Heartful Magazine and other independent publications | Feature articles and in-depth coverage | Film-based family documentary and maternal art |
These ongoing recognitions confirm one thing: in an algorithm-dominated era, those quiet images that slow down and gaze at the “everyday” still possess an irreplaceable power.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
VI. Professional Practice and Commercial Commissions
Beyond her artistic creation, Alicia offers systematic services to clients in the Basel metropolitan area and the cross-border Germany-France-Switzerland region through her professional studio:
- Service Scope: Maternity portraits, newborn and family in-depth documentary, and brand visual storytelling
- Service Paradigm: Distinct from traditional studios, offering a 3–4 hour “in-depth documentary experience” combining large-format film with digital archive delivery
- Core Philosophy: Systematically documenting families’ authentic rhythms of life, emotional connections, and individual personalities at specific life-cycle stages—rather than short, ceremonial, posed sessions.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
VII. Theoretical Implications
Alicia’s artistic exploration offers an inspiring paradigm shift for contemporary family documentary photography:
- From Private Memento to Visual Document: By fusing a rigorous natural-science observational perspective with cross-border maternal experience, she elevates family imagery into visual documents of anthropological and sociological value.
- Reinstating the Value of “Time Containers”: Her commitment to the physicality of pure film, her respect for “imperfect everyday life,” and her sensitive guardianship of children’s natural instincts re-establish family portraiture as a medium that bears the flow of time.
- Transfer of Creative Ethics: The “non-intrusive observation” of biological fieldwork has been translated into the “weak-intervention” aesthetic of photography, demonstrating how interdisciplinary experience profoundly shapes artistic language.
- Anchoring Belonging in Fluid Modernity: Her work proves that, for family and portrait photography to be truly alive, the key lies in the creator’s ability—amid the contemporary condition of mobility and migration—to fix, with a sincere, restrained, and deeply affectionate gaze, those fleeting moments concerning the origins of life, attachment, and freedom.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
VIII. Bio
Alicia Sánchez Cabañes is a Spanish photographer and marine biologist based in Lörrach, southern Germany, working across the Dreiländereck region where Germany, France, and Switzerland meet. Working entirely on film (120 medium format and 35mm), she creates poetic, intimate family documentary rooted in her identity as a mother, expat, and former scientist. In 2026, her series The Milky Days earned her IPA’s People Photographer of the Year and a Jury Top 5 spot; she is also an Analog Sparks Awards (2025) laureate, with work featured on PhotoVogue and in Heartful Magazine.
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
Photographer: Alicia Sanchez Cabanes
Series: The Milky Days
